The protagonist in Maurice 
Carlos Ruffin’s novel “We Cast A 
Shadow” does not have a name. 
The absence of his name is hardly 
noticeable throughout the story, 
except for the first line in which 
he narrates, “My name doesn’t 
matter. All you need to know is that 
I’m a phantom, a figment, a man 
who was mistaken for waitstaff 
twice that night.” In many ways, 
his name really doesn’t matter. 
It is his experiences as a Black 
American and a father with a white 
wife and biracial child, that help 
readers connect to him more than 
his name ever could. Without his 
name, the only thing readers have 
to judge him by are his thoughts 
and actions. Ruffin’s deliberate 
choice to leave his protagonist 
nameless places a focus on who he 
is and what he believes, giving the 
story a decidedly personal feel.
“We Cast A Shadow” is Ruffin’s 
debut novel, a project he has 
been working on since 2014. 
An earlier version of the novel 
under the working title of “All of 
the Lights” won a gold medal in 
the 
William 
Faulkner-William 
Wisdom writing competition. His 
short story “The Ones Who Don’t 
Say They Love You” received 
the 2014 Iowa Review award for 
fiction. He earned an MFA from 
the University of New Orleans 
Creative Writing Workshop and is 
also a member of the Peauxdunque 
Writers Alliance.
The novel, which is heavily 

influenced 
by 
Ralph 
Ellison’s 
“Invisible Man,” revolves around 
the man, his wife and their son, 
Nigel, in an America where a 
procedure has been developed 
that gives “doctors” the power 
to make people white. Although 
the man and his family seem 
happy and content at first, it is 
soon revealed that the narrator is 
tormented with the knowledge of 
something he believes will bring 
endless pain and suffering to his 

son’s life: Nigel is becoming Black.
It all started when Nigel was 
born and his father noticed a small 
black patch at the top of his eye. 
The narrator’s life soon becomes a 
scramble to keep Nigel out of the 
sun and away from anything that 
could cause his skin to continue 
darkening. 
He 
soon 
realizes, 
however, that there is nothing 
he can do to stop the patch from 
spreading, so he turns to what 
he believes is the only answer he 

has left: finding enough money to 
send his son in for the whitening 
procedure.
Ruffin has crafted a heavy, 
thought-provoking 
novel 
that 
leads readers to grapple with 
questions of race and social 
responsibility that are highly 
relevant to the current political 
climate. While the story deals 
with a range of issues, from 
corrupt law firms and politicians 
to the activist/terrorist group 
ADZE, it truly shines in the 
focus it places on the familial 
relationships within it. The 
narrator’s relationship with 
his wife is strained yet loving, 
a realistic example of two 
people struggling to care for 
their son and give him the 
best life they possibly can. His 
relationship with Nigel is even 
more complex and touching. 
He claims he is determined 
and willing to do whatever 
he can to keep his son safe, 
but fails to realize the cost his 
actions will have on his son’s 
life, and eventually, his entire 
family.
The entire novel is narrated 
from the father’s point of view, and 
it is revealed in the later chapters 
that it is in fact an account of his 
time as a parent written for his 
son to read. It makes for a gripping 
and heart-wrenching story and 
a valuable addition to the fiction 
canon. But mostly, it serves as 
a reminder that at the heart of 
politics and turmoil there is 
family, and that is what motivates 
us and gives us hope.

“We Cast a Shadow”

Maurice Carlos Riffin

One World

Jan. 29, 2019

BOOK REVIEW
‘We Cast a Shadow’ reminds 
us of family in divisive times

SOPHIE WASLOWSKI
Daily Arts Writer

Educator, 
author 
and 
activist 
Mabel 
O. 
Wilson 
visited the Taubman College 
of Architecture and Urban 
Planning this past Friday 
to give a lecture entitled 
“Memory/Race/Nation: 
The 
Politics 
of 
Modern 
Memorials” as the University 
of 
Michigan’s 
Martin 
Luther King Jr. Symposium 
guest 
lecturer 
this 
year. 
Wilson 
currently 
teaches 
architectural 
history 
and 
theory at Columbia University 
and performs research as a 
Senior Fellow at the Institute 
for 
Research 
in 
African 
American Studies.
“The limits of traditional 
(architectural) 
practice 
couldn’t answer all of the 
questions I had,” said Wilson 
on 
her 
involvement 
in 
research and scholarly work 
on top of her design work.
Recently, Wilson became 
fascinated 
by 
Alexander 
Weheliye’s “Habeas Viscus,” 
a book on the centrality of 
race in what it means to be 
human. 
Wilson’s 
biggest 
takeaway from the book was 
Weheliye’s concept of “racial 
assemblages”: the historical 
outcome of the impact of race 
on our social order.
“What we take for public 
never has been. There have 
always been exclusions,” said 
Wilson.
Architecture has always 
been entangled with racial 
assemblages, from the design 
of slave ships to maximize the 
quantity of slaves that could 
make it to the New World to 
the design of contemporary 
public housing. This has never 
been more evident than today 
in Charlottesville, Virginia, 
home of the University of 
Virginia 
(where 
Wilson 
attended for undergrad) and 
the “Unite the Right” Rally 
of August 2017, also known as 
the Charlottesville riots.
The University of Virginia 
(UVA) 
was 
founded 
by 
Thomas Jefferson in 1819. 
In archived letters written 
by Jefferson at the time 

to friends and colleagues, 
Jefferson made it clear that he 
wanted strictly neoclassical 
architecture for the university 
to emulate the high times of 
democratic Rome and Greece. 
What wasn’t spelled out quite 
so clearly in those letters was 
that, along with these ideas 
of an architecture of justice, 
liberty and equality was a 
history of slave building and 
the subsequent rejection of 
non-whites from those spaces.
The 
entirety 
of 
UVA’s 
campus built prior to the 
abolishment of slavery was 
made by slaves. The same 
can be said for Virginia’s 
state capitol, also designed 
by Jefferson based on the 
Maison Carrée in Nîmes, 
France. In the central hall of 
the capitol, Jefferson wanted 
to dedicate a statue of George 
Washington so as to, among 
other reasons, instill the space 

with a sense of “American 
virtue.” Such virtue at the 
time, unfortunately, did not 
include being Black.
While many dismiss slave 
owners’ support of or at least 
tacit acceptance of slavery 
as the result of the feelings 
of 
their 
time, 
Jefferson 
had some very particular 
problems with Black people. 
Truthfully, he was viscerally 
and visually appalled by them. 
He believed skin color was 
of divine causation, and that 
those bestowed with Black 
skin were inherently “dull, 
tasteless, and anomalous.”
So it’s no wonder that, 
in response to the “Unite 
the Right” rally of August, 
Black Lives Matter covered 
Jefferson’s statue at the center 
of 
campus 
with 
garbage 

bags and signs reading “TJ 
is a racist rapist” and “Black 
Lives Matter, Fuck White 
Supremacists.” The students 
wanted UVA to remove its 
historical 
connection 
to 
racism as many schools across 
the country had been doing 
since the 2000s. Since the 
protests, no news has surfaced 
as to the statue’s removal, 
although the Charlottesville 
city council did vote 3-2 in 
favor of the removal of a statue 
of confederate general Robert 
E. Lee at the city’s center back 
in 2017 (although for various 
reasons it remains up today).
However, 
Wilson’s 
talk 
was less about the logistics of 
removing existing memorials 
and more about humanizing 
the slaves of Charlottesville’s 
past by giving them their 
very own memorial. While 
about 4,000 slaves worked 
for UVA in its early history, 
only several hundred of their 
names are known due to mere 
lack of acknowledgment in 
the 
university’s 
historical 
record. At the end of her talk, 
Wilson unveiled renderings 
she had been working on 
of a planned Memorial to 
Enslaved Laborers just east of 
the campus’s central rotunda.
The memorial is designed as 
a ring of Virginia mist granite 
that slants down to envelope 
a grassy area surrounded by 
a mote. Along the inner wall 
of the granite, 4,000 blank 
spaces are allotted for names 
but only several hundred are 
filled. Engraved in the stone 
at the bottom of the mote are 
significant historical events 
of the era of slavery, many of 
which were brutally violent.
Despite this confrontation 
of the cold, hard truth, the 
monument offers hope above 
all else. The water that gently 
wafts 
through 
the 
mote 
symbolizes the passage of 
time and the escape from the 
horrific events of the past. 
The grassy area at the center 
is a peaceful place of union 
where students and faculty 
may come together and relax, 
thankful that we’re better 
than we once were while 
acknowledging that we’re not 
perfect yet.

Wilson talks links of 
racism, architecture

BEN VASSAR
Daily Arts Writer

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

JUSTIN BECK

The second night of the 42nd Ann 
Arbor Folk Festival at The Ark, a local 
music club dedicated to good music 
and good times, was nothing short of 
magical.
Maybe the magic came from the 
Narnian 
winter 
wonderland 
the 
audience found themselves in after 
leaving the warm embrace of the 
University’s Hill Auditorium post-
concert, just before the clock struck 
midnight. Maybe it was The RFD Boys 
playing fiddle and singing some old-
time blues as if they were in a back-
alley rafting bar deep in southern West 
Virginia. Maybe it was AHI, standing 
there in a black rider’s cap he bought off 
the internet, soulfully singing of finding 
himself. Maybe it was Pokey LaFarge, 
standing solo stage, looking like Hank 
Williams fresh-off a concert at the 
Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tenn. 
Maybe it was everything combined–– 
and that was only the first half of the 
show, too.
But the magic in the room wasn’t 
only restrained to the stage, either.
On the left, an elderly couple danced 
lovingly to songs of fallen angels. To 
the right, a gentleman shot to his feet 
in standing ovation after every song. 
Somewhere in the middle, two young 
writers blinked away rebellious tears in 
the safety of the dark.
The RFD Boys opened up the night, 
treating Ann Arbor to some classic 
folk tunes. 50 years strong and still 
going, The RFD Boys are regulars at 
The Ark. Despite their long career (and 
advancing age), the group showed no 
signs of slowing down — the RFD boys, 

if anything, have merely aged like some 
good whiskey (or moonshine). The 
entire performance was electrifying 
and delivered some much-needed, foot-
stomping fiddle on a cold winter’s night.
Then, 
with 
his 
soul-bearing 
honesty, AHI was larger-than-life on 
stage, throwing his entire being into 
every moment. But what made the 
performance so captivating wasn’t just 
the lead singer himself, but rather the 
band’s group dynamic. One could see 
the inherent connection — musical 
and personal — between each musician 
on stage. It was this perfect cohesion 
between each band member that made 
the performance incredibly intimate 
and forged a sense of community 
between 
everyone 
in 
the 
room, 
musician and audience member alike.
To round out the first half of the 
festival, Pokey LaFarge walked on 
stage looking like he had just hopped 
out of the 1950s. LaFarge seemingly 
embodied a legacy of country and 
folk legends. Yet, his performance felt 
fresh, rather than overdone. More than 
his music, however, it was LaFarge’s 
vulnerability standing solo on stage and 
his immediate camaraderie with the 
audience that made his set stand out. 
LaFarge’s performance was a perfect 
example of why the magic of live 
music is so tantalizing. To see LaFarge 
perform last night was the equivalent 
of walking into the famous Grand Ole 
Opry and watching Patsy Cline or Hank 
Williams back in an age gone by.

— Madeleine Virginia Gannon, Daily 
Arts Writer

“If you can’t afford 
therapy, you might as 
well listen to folk.” 
This is something I 
couldn’t get out of my 
head all of Saturday 
night, as I sat in the red 
velvet chairs of Hill 
Auditorium 
for 
the 
second night of this 
year’s Ann Arbor Folk 
Festival. It’s funny, but 
true — nothing can get 
you crying in public 
quite 
like 
hearing 
people bear their souls 
50 feet away from you, singing their 
stories like it’s the last thing they’ll 
ever say.
The Festival is arguably one of the 
biggest music events in the metro-
Detroit area each year, a collection 
of folk and blues’s best and brightest 
for two nights in the cold January 
wind. 2019’s lineup was particularly 
striking, featuring huge acts like 
Brandi Carlile and Rufus Wainwright 
as headliners on Friday and Saturday. 
Alongside them was a series of equally 
incredible musicians that made each 
night one for the ages. Although I can 
only speak for Saturday, I can honestly 
say the show was life-changing, and 
that’s not hyperbole. It is every year, 
and probably will be forever, if folk 
continues its 100-year roll through 
America.
The two secondary headliners for 
Jan. 26 were Joan Osborne and I’m 
With Her, a trio made up of folk stars 
Aoife O’Donovan, Sarah Jarosz and 

Sara Watkins. Osborne brought the Folk 
Festival’s audiences an inventive set of 
Bob Dylan classics along with guitarist 
and fellow vocalist Jackie Greene. 
Called “Dylanology,” Osborne and 
friends brought the house down with 
their renditions of hits like “Knockin’ 
On Heaven’s Door” and “Don’t Think 
Twice, It’s All Right,” bringing new 
life to the timeless words. Afterward, 
I’m With Her took the stage, and also 
took the audience’s breath away — 
O’Donovan, Jarosz and Watkins are 
masters of their craft, weaving their 
voices together to absolutely stunning 
ends. They played an hour-long set, but 
it felt like minutes due to their music’s 
sheer, undeniable beauty. I can only 
explain it by asking anyone to drive out 
and hear them live if possible, because 
their music is nearly perfection.
And, of course, at the end of the night, 
came 
Wainwright. 
The 
composer, 
singer, songwriter extraordinaire is 
one of those people that don’t seem 

human because of their talent, yet, 
Wainwright’s biggest strength is the 
fact that he is so human. His lyrics 
read like ironic, funny, sharp poems on 
paper, but when Wainwright sings, all 
the listener can do is sit slack-jawed. 
Venues like Hill Auditorium were built 
for musicians like Wainwright — there 
were moments during his set that the 
venue literally began to vibrate with 
the intensity of his voice and piano. 
It was only when he brought out the 
rest of the night’s musicians for a 
group rendition of “Hallelujah” that I 
realized tears were streaming down my 
face. Through broken guitar strings, 
massage-parlor stories and a million 
little jokes, Wainwright closed the 
festival with the ease and familiarity 
that only true performers have, and 
a voice that can only be described as 
God-given. 

— Clara Scott, Senior Arts Editor

Ann Arbor Folk Festival 
full of heart and meaning

ALEC COHEN / MICHIGAN DAILY

EVENT REVIEW

Architecture 
has always 
been entanlged 
with racial 
assemblages

5 — Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

