Race in Judy Blume’s “Wifey”: Part II

Last post, I started looking at race in Judy Blume’s Wifey. Today, I want to continue that exploration by looking at the ways that characters in the novel deploy language to cover up their racism when referring to African Americans in the novel. Language becomes a thread weaving its way throughout the novel, masking, for the public, the racist attitudes behind the words. All of this reminds me of individuals who, once they can’t say “n*****” publicly shift their language to use terms such as “democrat” or “Cadillac” or other terms that play upon stereotypes.

The ways that language masks racism comes up after Myra, Sandy’s sister, relates the story of individuals robbing her and her husband at machete point at their home in Jamaica. Myra calls her assailants “fucking schvartzas,” a Yiddish racial-slur referring to African Americans. Once individuals recognized what the word meant, Enid, Norman’s mother, chose to invent a word that would convey the same racism. The narrator states, “Ductlas. Enid claimed she had invented the word because they had figured out what schvartza meant. This way she could say, Do you have a decent ductla? How does she iron? My ductla eats me out of house and hime. I have to hide everything. And they would never guess what she was talking about.”

Enid denies individuals such as Norman and Sandy’s domestic worker Mazie any…