Okay, so the story in Ragtime has finally emerged, and in the center of it is this man named Coalhouse Walker.
So who is this Coalhouse Walker? In short he is a well-known black pianist gone Rambo. The cause of Walker’s trouble begins at the fire station where he is stopped to pay the “toll”. At this point I believe Walker is just annoyed at the ignorance and racist nature of these men. However I believe Walker has already gotten used to these types of people in his pursuit as a musician. The early 1900’s was a time filled with hardships for African Americans, and this is just another one of those examples.
So what makes this encounter different? Well first Walker’s car is trashed by these people, but I do not believe the issue is of his car. I believe the main problem behind all this is his pride. Walker seems to be a man who carries this sort of aura of confidence and even a bit of arrogance that is not normally seen in an African American. This is shown by Walker entering the family’s house uninvited and him driving a brand new Ford car like he is some big shot. You can always buy a new car, but you can’t buy pride.
This issue soon escalates when Walker burns down the Emerald Isle Firehouse. Whether or not this is justified is up for debate. On one hand he killed innocent bystanders, on the other hand he is trying to get his point across that you can not treat African Americans like this. The side I have to take is not in favor of Walker. At first I was rooting for Walker who was polite and cultured in his attempt to win back Sarah. However Walker seems like a brand new person. I believe there are other ways that Walker could have gotten his point across, like non-violent protest. Walker’s rebellion does no one any good. It even said that African Americans did not want anything to do with Walker. I believe Walker’s hatred has gotten the better of him, and now he can not think of anything besides revenge. There might be reason for his anger, but revenge is never the answer.
There's a crucial ambiguity here--in a sense, what the whole conflict hinges upon--between "arrogance" and "pride." The behavior that invites such a summation might be the same, but whether we're dealing with arrogance or pride is maybe in the eye of the beholder. "Arrogance" suggests that the prideful display is inappropriate, or unearned, or aggressive somehow--very close to the racist implication that Coalhouse needs to "know his place." Pride, of course, is something we see as more positive: in a white-supremacist society like the American Northeast in the 1900s, a black man behaving with pride will likely be *seen* as arrogance (as it is by the firefighters). The reader (and author) might step outside of this interpretation and see it as something more admirable and meaningful.
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