Introduction:Asif Currimbhoy, an Indianplaywright in English had exposure in experimental American theatre. He produced plays on contemporary themes. He presented the themes like racism, class and gender. These three aspects are the parts of post colonialism.So the themes of his dramas are ‘from the flow of contemporary life and politics’. (Prema-Nanda Kumari, 1974:86-7.) He brings the social and political aspects in his many plays such as Goa, An experiment with truth, Om mane Padme Hum and The Dissident MLA. He as a karma yogihas been called as India’s first attention voice in theatre (Faubian Bowers, 1970: xii). For him “Goa” is a very special play, which was first performed in 1965 in the Michigan State University. The play deals with the Indian takeovers of Goa in December 1961. It has historical as well as political aspects. Yoosaph, A.K. readsGoa as a significant example of Currimbhoy treatment of colour and race as a tool of analyzing post colonialism (3). He further observes.
It is exemplified how the skin of the black colour is perceived by an aristocratic white in the colonial content. Miranda’s derisive attitude to the dark–skinned and her consciousness about the skin colour seem to have given her more self-confidence creating a sense of inferiority in the colonised. Her scathing remarks would have accelerated the
…show more content…
For Miranda Coloured skin is an original sin and is “congenital” that passes from generation to generation. Portuguese administrator revealshis power by keeping the colonised in retched state.He always says that the west is always strong and east is weak. What the Portuguese administrator has displayed is a kind of “hegemonism of possessing minorities” which is central to any colonialist intervention. (Said 44) he says,anyone who belongs to western countries can handle eastern countries very
There has been much debate over the Negro during the Harlem Renaissance. Two philosophers have created their own interpretations of the Negro during this Period. In Alain Locke’s essay, The New Negro, he distinguishes the difference of the “old” and “new” Negro, while in Langston Hughes essay, When the Negro Was in Vogue, looks at the circumstances of the “new” Negro from a more critical perspective.
The first chapter focuses on the first impressions between the people of different color also the reasons Africans had evolved or changed into what they now appeared to be. The section on causes of complexion was both fascinating and entertaining. Many of the theories were of the wall and far fetched. One such opinion of how Africans gained their complexion that the book gave includes an ancient Greek myth of Phaeton. This character drove a chariot into the heavens and thus altered in his appearance (p11). Though this Greek myth, probably not the truth of how Africans gained their color many did believe it probably had something to do with the sun. The theory of equatorial dwellers of Africa, this being the reason for the skin pigmentation, became illogical once Africans were compared to the Indians living in the hottest parts of the New World (p14). Some believed that the African was merely dark because they had left their colder northern climate. Experiments quickly ruled this out as a possible answer (p15). The most far-fetched and humorous theory came through the biblical illustration involving Noah. Many believed it the curse given upon Noah’s son Ham for “looking upon his father’s nakedness” (p17). Each of these contrasting views on color needed to be used in this book. For no better reason in that it showed from an initial point that the English viewed the color of the Africans as a plague. Instead of excepting that Africans may in fact be different, the English consistently made attempts to explain the dif...
Detrimental stereotypes of minorities affect everyone today as they did during the antebellum period. Walker’s subject matter reminds people of this, as does her symbolic use of stark black and white. Her work shocks. It disgusts. The important part is: her work elicits a reaction from the viewer; it reminds them of a dark time in history and represents that time in the most fantastically nightmarish way possible. In her own words, Walker has said, “I didn’t want a completely passive viewer, I wanted to make work where the viewer wouldn’t walk away; he would either giggle nervously, get pulled into history, into fiction, into something totally demeaning and possibly very beautiful”. Certainly, her usage of controversial cultural signifiers serve not only to remind the viewer of the way blacks were viewed, but that they were cast in that image by people like the viewer. Thus, the viewer is implicated in the injustices within her work. In a way, the scenes she creates are a subversive display of the slim power of slave over owner, of woman over man, of viewed over
...usion that race is deployed "in the construction of power relations."* Indeed a "metalanguage" of race, to use Higginbotham's term, was employed by colonial powers to define black women as separate from English women, and that process is deconstructed in Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, Anxious Patriarchs. However, Brown's analysis rests mainly on the shifting English concepts of gender and race imposed on colonial society by the white elite, becoming at times a metalanguage of colonial gender. Nonetheless, Brown's analysis of overlapping social constructions is instructive for understanding the ways gender and race can be manipulated to buttress dominant hierarchies.
Conclusion: In all, racial oppression and identification is a concurrent theme in Butler’s works that have been discussed. Butler’s examinations involving the sense of pride and passion towards uniqueness and individualism are evident in many different perspectives. In Butler’s works, the passion the main characters have towards themselves in an alien world teach the reader important values and lessons against negativity and racial discrimination.
Slavery has always been a difficult topic to talk about throughout the centuries’. The issue of race has always been associated with slavery. Ever since the begging of time, slavery and indentured servitude has been seen with a various amount of ethnicities. In the novel we meet Florens, a slave that Mr. Jacob Vaark accepts as a paymen...
One does need a full knowledge of the slave trade and slavery to know that those coming from the continent of Africa and those born into slavery suffered various forms of psychological rewiring, some positive but most negatively. Yet, it is scarcely asked what the mental state of the White population was. There is this generalized notion of acceptance, however, there must have been ‘something' felt by this ethnicity, or at least by some. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relations between races, specifically the racial attitudes in 18th century Portugal and Brazil. To do so, we will be using Robert Edgar Conrad’s, Children of God’s Fire: A documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil, primary source, Section 5.1, focusing
When sixteenth and seventeenth century explorers returned to Europe from their journeys to Africa, they constructed and disseminated degrading stereotypes of African women based on the observations they had made abroad. Basing their perceptions of women off of European women’s bodies, these explorers noticed and commented on how African women’s bodies differed in many aspects—these disparities then became justifications for the differential treatment between these two groups of women. Because these African American women didn’t conform to the basic norms of womanhood that the explorers were accustomed to, they were quick to categorize them as strange, animalistic and hypersexual; their bodily forms, attire and skin color called attention to their otherness in the corporeal and social realm. Skin Deep, Spirit Strong offers a compilation of essays that document the observations made, the generalizations that were produced and the treatment that resulted from these interactions. The negative generalizations that these early European explorers made about African American women, had and to this day continue to have a significant effect on the way in which black women are viewed physically and sexually not only in the private sphere but also publicly.
people of different ethnicities. Such harm is observed in the history of North America when the Europeans were establishing settlements on the North American continent. Because of European expansion on the North American continent, the first nations already established on the continent were forced to leave their homes by the Europeans, violating the rights and freedoms of the first nations and targeting them with discrimination; furthermore, in the history of the United States of America, dark skinned individuals were used as slaves for manual labour and were stripped of their rights and freedoms by the Americans because of the racist attitudes that were present in America. Although racist and prejudice attitudes have weakened over the decades, they persist in modern societies. To examine a modern perspective of prejudice and racism, Wayson Choy’s “I’m a Banana and Proud of it” and Drew Hayden Taylor’s “Pretty Like a White Boy: The Adventures of a Blue-Eye Ojibway” both address the issues of prejudice and racism; however, the authors extend each others thoughts about the issues because of their different definitions, perspectives, experiences and realities.
The early 1900s was a very challenging time for Negroes especially young women who developed issues in regards to their identities. Their concerns stemmed from their skin colors. Either they were fair skinned due mixed heritage or just dark skinned. Young African American women experienced issues with racial identity which caused them to be in a constant struggle that prohibits them from loving themselves and the skin they are in. The purpose of this paper is to examine those issues in the context of selected creative literature. I will be discussing the various aspects of them and to aid in my analysis, I will be utilizing the works of Nella Larsen from The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Jessie Bennett Redmond Fauset, and Wallace Brown.
In the novel, the author proposes that the African American female slave’s need to overcome three obstacles was what unavoidably separated her from the rest of society; she was black, female, and a slave, in a white male dominating society. The novel “locates black women at the intersection of racial and sexual ideologies and politics (12).” White begins by illustrating the Europeans’ two major stereotypes o...
In this Award winning novel the 1900 display an astonishing amount of racism, and makes us realize that is is still going on till this very day. “I was just shootin a negro in my collard patch” (pg72Lee). This quote shows us that even maybe the gentlest most kind people are very judgemental and racist. That's the problem even today before even getting to know someone we automatically process the way they look and say to ourself he is black so he will steal something or we will say he has tattoos so we have to hold our belongings a little tighter, and without even knowing, we ourself have become something that we have all feared which is not give everyone a fair chance based on what they look like. Today racism is still very much apart of our culture
Throughout the text, the white colonists are very racist towards the Aboriginals. Even cattle, horses and white women are placed hierarchically higher in society than the black people. In response to this, Astley constructs all narrations to be written through the eyes of the Laffey family, who are respectful towards Aboriginals, hence not racist, and despise societal ideologies. By making the narration of the text show a biased point of view, readers are provoked to think and feel the same way, foregrounding racism shown in the ideologies of early Australian society, and showing that Aboriginals are real people and should receive the same treatment to that given to white people. “They looked human, they had all your features.” (pg 27) There was, however, one section in the text whose narrative point of view was not given by a character in the Laffey family. This instead was given by a voice of an Aboriginal woman, when the Aboriginal children were being taken away from their families. By giving voice to the Aboriginal society, the reader is able to get a glimpse of their point of view on the matter, which once again shows that society was racist, and Aboriginals were treated harshly.
In “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” Hurston breaks from the tradition of her time by rejecting the idea that the African American people should be ashamed or saddened by the color of their skin. She tells other African Americans that they should embrace their color and be proud of who they are. She writes, “[A socialite]…has nothing on me. The cosmic Zora emerges,” and “I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads” (942-943). Whether she feels “colored” or not, she knows she is beautiful and of value. But Hurston writes about a time when she did not always know that she was considered colored.
Jose da Silva Horta mentions “Donelha follows a binary scheme whites/blacks, including in the former category the ‘lancados’ or ‘tangomas’ or Portuguese” (p.113, 2000). Christian Caucasions represented “whiteness,” which means, the “race to represent the closest to ‘original’ creation and then envisioned two lines of departure from this ideal toward greater and greater degeneration” (Sussma, p.20, 2014). However, with their sexuality, Europeans were less rigid and more contradictory to this “perfect whiteness” because their behavior was “encouraged amorous behavior” during the slave trade (Mark, 94, 1980). Overall, whiteness faced problems and concerns during the slave, however, those who were defined by whiteness remained the most powerful group in the