Hypocrisy in "Mumbo Jumbo"

I think Ishmael Reed's portrayal of white people and white culture would strike me very differently had Mumbo Jumbo been written some fifty or sixty years earlier than it was (effectively removing the whole "historical" aspect, I know). On the one hand, he does an impressively good job of taking the onesided way we're used to seeing white writers from the early twentieth century depict their black characters and turning it on its head. Such a portrayal may not be quite fair to his white characters, but I would excuse that had Reed written the novel a hundred years ago with the intention of making a statement that would rub people the wrong way and really make them think.

However, given that Mumbo Jumbo is only looking back on the early twentieth century when it was actually written in the '70s, Reed's portrayal of white culture and characters actually strikes me as a little hypocritical. If his point is to mock the idea that anyone would consider the spread of jazz culture a threatening "epidemic," then it seems counterintuitive that he'd also present any white character, be it Thor Wintergreen or Hinkle Von Vampton, who tries to engage himself in said culture as both idiotic and ultimately malicious.

I guess I don't understand how the Wallflower Order can seem so evil for wanting to stop the spread of Jes Grew when Reed himself won't allow his white characters to take part in or even just display a genuine interest in the movement. If this is a book that affirms dividing society along racial lines, then what the Wallflower Order is trying to do should not seem out of line. But, if this is a book about the spread of culture, then race should not be the divider that it is.

By forbiding his white characters from taking part in Jes Grew and presenting them as foolish when they try to, Reed seems to suggest that there is some sort of inherent barrier between people of different races that makes it so they can't ever truly understand each other. To an extent, I grant that this is maybe somewhat true (enough qualifying statements for you?)--that no matter how hard you try, you can't ever completely understand a culture to which you do not belong or the plight of the person whose life is fundamentally different than your own. However, I also see it is highly problematic.

Is Reed suggesting, then, that cultures cannot ever blend, or that segregation along racial lines is inevitable and, therefore, not something that people should even try to fix? I'm on board with him that the Wallflower Order is completely ridiculous in seeing the spread of jazz culture as a disease and feeling that their civilization will crumble entirely if they don't stop it, but it doesn't sit well with me that Reed also portrays Thor Wintergreen as a traitor and Hinkle Von Vampton as a deceptive double agent. Perhaps they can't ever completely be a part of Jes Grew (although I'm not sure I see why exactly they can't), but is it really so terrible of them to try? Does Reed think we'd all be better off if each race had its own little corner of a city and no one ever tried to cross over at all? Sounds like a pretty outdated opinion to me.

Thus, while I do think Reed makes a statement with his unforgiving portrayal of white culture, it feels to me a little out of place. If he wants to critique the mindset of a particular time period, he can't just buy into it himself, albeit from a slightly different angle, because isn't that just stooping to their level?

It all makes me wonder what Reed's point is--is he in favor of the spread of jazz culture or against it? If the former is the case, as I originally thought it was, then he can't present Jes Grew as a movement that is liberating to one race yet fundamentally inaccessible to another.