Being and becoming American
The theme of this paper is to break the racial binary between black and white and find Afro – American identity in a racial background. The visual symbol of my argument could be a yin - yang ball where in spite of a starking contrast between black and white, each self not only gets its entity because of the other but also is present in the other. It is here that both have their individuality and yet it is together that they get their meaning. However, when it comes to society and the reality well racial differences suddenly get a gigantic entity.
As John Arthur suggests, “racism is usually a form of prejudice in just that sense: it is an attitude that is grounded in the beliefs formed on insufficient evidence, or beliefs that are held too firmly without adequate regard for other information that may call these beliefs into question”. For example, the early colonization period in American history adopted a negative stance towards the black population with the white European inhabitants exercising their hegemonic power over the blacks brought from Africa, among others. African Americans faced a cruel system that brutalized them, while whites’ negative imaging of blacks during slavery served as a tool to justify their oppression.
Nowadays, racism is expressed in a different way still lurking in most people’s minds. Obama’s election as the president of the U.S clearly proved that there is an air of change concerning this issue and it may even be considered a victory of equality and liberty. However, the statics about blacks’ life (the life of blacks in American society) bring to the surface the truth which reveals that big numbers remain illiterate and pass a part of their life in prison. Thus, racism has not been annihilated, but transformed into a new form. African-Americans have attempted to resist these prejudices and to reposition their place in society through writing either literature or political speeches. By contesting the commonly accepted stereotypes about their race and by presenting the raw violence they have been subjected to, they have tried to comment on the stereotypical black presentation and expose the dynamic of their people.
‘Franz fanon’ in his essay ‘desalination of the black man’ talks about this injustice where a Negro is considered as a link between a man and a monkey. The relationship between white man and black creature is similar to that of an adult and a child where blacks are considered to be uneducated and therefore are conversed with - in a gibberish ‘pidgin’ language. It is not necessary that a black man doesn’t know English or any foreign language. However he has to be shown that way in various texts and white man’s psyche (e.g. ‘me work hard, me never lie, me never steel’), in order to maintain his position in hierarchy. A black educated man is therefore a threat to white man’s assumed high entity and existing society. It is for this purpose that blacks have been exploited since so many years in spite of them being Native Americans. The black slaves from Africa and coloured red Indians are all victims of the same practice and therefore will be treated collectively in this paper as Leela Gandhi’s affective negative community.
So intense has been this discrimination into practice, that individuals are led to identity crisis. Real self, welcoming society, own culture, warm home – all become their ultimate seeking and yet they find it nowhere. It is in past that they see their future and therefore reach nowhere and the entire process also takes their present from them. In William Faulkner’s words, ‘the past is not dead and buried. In fact it is not even past’. The extent of blacks’ development is limited by whites right from the beginning. Education, medicinal facilities, and jobs – everything is distinguished and varies on the basis of race. At each step personal self is repressed in order to have an acceptable social self and yet none is achieved.
In Dunbar’s The Lynching of Jube Benson the white narrator, Dr. Melville, presents the viewpoint of the black character, Jube Benson. The writer highlights the kind of understanding that the whites have about black population. As the narrator points out about Jube, “‘He was a fellow whom everybody trusted— an apparently steady-going, grinning sort, as we used to call him”’. This statement suggests that blacks are considered loyal people who are satisfied with their place in society, leading a tranquil and happy life. Dr. Melville further exposes the whites’ ideology of supremacy over African Americans by calling him “boy” , which sheds light on the racist belief concerning blacks’ inferiority. Apart from the racial impact that this word creates, the author suggests the loss of individual identity, since blacks are deprived of a real name and of manhood. This emphasizes Dunbar’s comment on the system that prevents African Americans from building an identity except for one in accordance with the dictates of their oppressors. Thus, identity becomes property permitting whites to objectify black life.
The Lynching of Jube Benson sheds light on the stereotypical representations of African Americans without containing any true knowledge about them and further explores the black people’s resistance to these ideas. In the stories, the white perspective is trapped in conventions and falsely circulated ideas about African Americans. Stereotypes aim to present colored people as an inferior population and to keep them under white bondage. However, Dunbar rebels against this imposed social structure and challenges the kind of thinking about black people that originated during the time of slavery. The narrative unveils a different aspect of black personality focusing on the superficiality of such ideology by attempting to restore a sense of pride to blacks through their resistance. Literature, thus, for Dunbar becomes a remedy to cultural suppression and a tool to expose African-American struggle against the system.
At the end of the Blake’s poem “The little black boy”, the little black boy betrays a wish to be white, to serve and be like the English boy; for as he concludes, “And then I’ll stand, and stroke his silver hair/ and be like him and then he will love me.” This should not surprise us: the socially deprived black child in a white community is psychologically conditioned and naturally identifies the idea of the beautiful with being white. Indeed in this circumstance, psychological conditioning is further strengthened by two important traditions: the authority of the ancients and the authority of the Bible. Unfortunately, both the ancients and the Bible seem to have been vindicated by the relative inferior lifestyle of black people all over the world. What J.O. Hunwick said of black communities in India is true of all black communities where ever they are found: “In general they are depressed class” when compared with non black communities.
Various Afro - American authors have tried to paint the same frustration in their works. Audre lorde’s ‘Zami’ for instance explores the creed of a black lesbian African woman to assert her identity in the backdrop of a racist, homophobic, Hippocratic, American society. She undergoes an abnormal childhood, at each step feeling that there is some problem in her that she doesn’t get acceptance. From nuns and classmates in school, in social groups, at each phase she undergoes a strange feeling of unwantedness, discrimination, injustice. Just like the mother in Blake’s poem ‘the little black boy’ who had provided him with a manipulated illusionary reality, her parents too give her an environment of ignorance with the belief that if they won’t be aware of the reality then it won’t exist. However, she realises that ignorance won’t help her. She can’t face the consequence of her being black, of the thing she couldn’t have helped. She realises that ‘being black women together, being Lesbos together, or even being women together was not enough’. She has a herculean task of carving her own identity out of a society where she has no rank, no individuality. She interacts with all differences and with them gets her own meaning. Her newly formed self has similarities with others in some spheres and yet uniquely different in other selves. It is through out of differences that she gets her own meaning. It is through acceptance that she gets her entity.
Thereby she attains freedom in differences. A freedom from the struggle to be one with the crowd, to be a part of the society which was not hospitable to her. With choosing Buddha’s medium path and by cessation of her desires, she attains nirvana from her suffering. Thus finds her private space in public sphere. She gets an identity not imposed upon her by the society, but one – the parameters of which are decided by her. She creates Thoreau’s world of self government in her psyche.
If thus followed, Stephen greenbelt’s ‘self fashioning’ becomes significant where self consciousness about fashioning one’s own identity becomes a manipulated artful process. It depends upon one’s psychological, social and economical development. It depends upon the consciousness, will, desire for a change, patience, action and reaction. However it is also dependent upon the options and categories one provides oneself with.
This leads to the dichotomy between conflicting identities available to blacks. Either they try to become like whites with their psyche, dreams, desires, believes – all imposedely designed in stereotypical American way, by ignoring their own roots, culture, past selves (assimilation). Or they try to revolt and dream of going back to Africa – in order to identify and feel at home (anti –assimilation). However, none works successfully. The former become the crow with peacock feathers and are still embarrassed about their roots (‘only the black marks itch and flutter shredding my words wherever they fall.’). The latter still can’t identify with Africa as they have rather been brought up in America and therefore are more experienced with this culture.
These two poles are well represented in Hansberry’s play ‘A raisin in the sun’ with the two lovers of Beneatha. George according to his name believes in attaining wealth and be American like with economic status. However, inspite of his wealth and status he is detested by Beneatha and therefore is neither fully acceptable in black society nor in white. Asagai on the other hand though enhances and celebrates difference with whites yet can never convert Beneatha’s black American identity into complete black. Though she does not want to assimilate into dominant white culture and also is fascinated with her African roots, yet she wants educated American life. Asagai too wants to take American education too Africa in order to bring positive changes in it.
Mama’s plant, Beneatha’s hair, their dream of home with garden, Walter’s urge for money and power all together symbolize stereotypical ‘American dream’ of 1950s. And yet, the very fact that they made all that possible, inspite of them being black – show the very first step in the change in the intellectual, social, psychological, aesthetic structures that govern the generations of identity. They proved that the only way to deal with discrimination is to stand up to it and reassert one’s dignity on its face rather than allow it to pass unchecked.
However, one must explore and understand that process of identity formation before accepting or repelling it. Differences are surely required in order to have meanings. Lines are to be drawn somewhere in order to have a focussed frame work on a particular rather than universe. Yet, it is to be remembered that those lines are illusionary. It is to be realised that deep inside there is no difference between white Marlow all fascinated by the blackened Kurtz and black tribals all fascinated by kurtz’s scientific experiments in Conrad’s ‘Heart of darkness’. It is to be observed that though Nwoye leaves his own black community because of its inherent flaws, rigidities and tribal atrocities and yields place to seemingly humane white culture in ‘things fall apart’. Yet, the same Nwoye experiences corruption and other flaws in white community in ‘No longer at ease’. There is nothing like right, wrong, category or divide. So there is no point criticising any side or society at large. Heart of darkness is the most telling account of a rape of Africa by the white man. So complete is the destruction of this portion of the continent that the only Africans represented in the novel are realized as shadows, mere shadows which are often felt merging with the immensity of the dark impenetrable tropical forest.
In many of the novels set in Africa or with African characters, the African is presented as a person to whom the White men can only extend in the words of Charles Lamb, “an imperfect sympathy”. Quite often he is seen as an object of pity and ridicule. Mr. James Waite, the ‘Nigger’ in Conrad’s “The Nigger of the Narcissus” compels both our sympathy and our contempt. And Wordsworth in Graham Greene’s “Travel with my aunt” (1969) was created for pure ridicule. This tendency to present black characters as object of ridicule and contempt defined the tone of African novels of Joyce Cary. In “Aissa Saved” (1932) and “Mister Johnson” (1939), both set in Nigeria, caricature dominates the characterization of blacks and appears to be sole purpose of the fiction.
For Blake, critiquer is complicit in the critique. Critiquing impulse and corruption impulse are both flip sides of each other. Social criticism is therefore complex and engaged. There is nothing like a pure position. Black and white – both are two sides of the same coin. ‘Social criticism’ happens not cause of right and wrong but because of a process. A process where either white merges into black or vice- versa. The only solution here is to accept yourself as a part of the society. Self criticism therefore becomes necessary with social criticism as it is society and culture around you that creates you in a particular way. ‘Only way to liberation is through self repression’ (Foucault). You have to kill a part of you which practices those very things against which you stand. It is only with ‘self’ and the realisation that it could be changed can a change happen. It is only with the merging of self with that of other that you become whole.
Only with the vision of black inside white and white inside black can the society become whole. It is in grey that society gets its true colour. It is in shades of grey that the identity crises occur. Alas!! Hierarchies remain in those shades. Alas! They still remain grey. Only with this realisation of egalitarian roots can a positive entity could be created. It is through Obama that a country could be leaded.
- Surbhi Rohera
REFERENCES –
1) Audre lorde’s ‘Zami’
2) Blake’s poem “The little black boy
3) Charles Lamb
4) Conrad’s ‘Heart of darkness’ and ‘The Nigger of the Narcissus’
5) Dunbar’s The Lynching of Jube Benson
6) Franz Fanon - ‘desalination of the black man’
7) Hansberry’s play ‘A raisin in the sun’
8) John Arthur
9) Obama
10) Stephen greenbelt’s ‘self fashioning’
11) William Faulkner
12) William Blake
