In the first chapter of "Ragtime," Doctorow creates a very monochromatic view on race through the eyes of a stereotypical, fairly wealthy, white family. In New Rochelle, New York, there are "no immigrants," and certainly "no negroes" (4 pg). This statement is proven to become rather ironic, as some of the main characters of the novel are African- American. However throughout the first half of the book, the issue of race in the early 20th century is rarely even discussed. Once we are introduced to Sarah, her baby, and especially Coalhouse Walker, the reader not only learns the horrors of racism from the time period, but also gives us an insight on Doctorow's personal views on the topic as well.
One aspect of Sarah and Coalhouse Walker's story I find significant, is the fact they are the first characters we see develop in a cohesive arrangement of chapters from start to finish. This allows the reader to feel more sympathetic towards their story because it is easy to get drawn into. Sarah is depicted as "innocent," primarily following the standards of how a colored women should behave such as working in a low paying job as a laundry women. However, Coalhouse Walker acts as an outlier to the unspoken racial hierarchy, acting outside the limits of his race through the way he dresses, acts, and carries himself with pride. From his persistent courtship of Sarah every Sunday, the reader grows to trust Coalhouse Walker because of his respect and dedication for Sarah and his child.
When Coalhouse Walker is completely disrespected by the white firefighters, the narration is told through his own point of view. I find this choice of narrator to be reviling to Doctorow's own personal views on racism by depicting the white fire chief and workers as the "bad guys." While he could have easily written the scene from the perspective of the fire chief, he specifically chose Coalhouse Walker to show the horrors of racism. Because the novel was written in the mid 1970's after the end of the civil rights movement, racial equality in American was still a fairly new concept. While a typical white person from the time period of the early 20th century would probably hate the way Doctorow portrayed the racist scene due to the socially constructed standards of race of the time that blacks are inherently "inferior", readers from the 1970's to today would be horrified reading the scene through the fire chief's perspective because of the new shift towards gender equality. Through the racist scene, the reader is able to get an accurate idea of the challenges blacks had to face in order to be respected, and also see how Doctorow feels on the subject as well.
