Racism in the Heart of Darkness Many literary critics and authors have said Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness is full of racism and discrimination. Chinua Achebe calls the book, “an offensive and deplorable book” (Achebe, 345), while commenting on Conrad and his character, Marlow’s, blatant racism. Was Conrad really such a racist? Granted, Heart of Darkness was published in Britain in 1899, a time when white men in Europe were still discovering black men in Africa. The society of the time told these men that black men and women were not equal to white men or women.
The book focuses on white American myths because Keim feels they are the most dominant, negative, and in need of change. Keim’s argument is that through the media, magazines, newspapers, and children’s books, stereotypes and inventions about Africa are seared into the minds of Americans.
Although we try to familiarize ourselves with basic history, we as African Americans still make use of the word to show a friendly salutation. The usage of the word nigger by any race is insulting and disrespectful to the Africans that were captured brought to America and enslaved and the entirety of the Black race; the usage of the word shows a lack of respect to one’s self as well as the Black race and a lack of understanding for the history, translation and intent of the word nigger. The N-word’s story is horrendous, but not always predictable. How did the word nigger come about? What is the history of the word nigger?
Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe, published an essay entitled, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”, making the claim that Joseph Conrad did not earn a place in the Western literary canon due to his blatant racist views and discrimination towards African history and culture. Achebe believes that Heart of Darkness, “set[s] Africa up as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe's own state of spiritual grace will be manifest” (Achebe). Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness portrays racist views of the African culture, as seen through the descriptions of Africa, the African slaves, and Marlow’s views of the Africans. Heart of Darkness starts off on the Thames River, with Marlow recalling his journey to the Congo at a much younger age. Conrad describes the Thames as he states, “The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after
De’Ja Moore African-American Slave Trade 25 January 2012 11:00-11:50 De’ja Moore The African slave trade was made to dehumanize and demeaned the black man but I can’t figure out why people believe it was so harsh. Although I may have not been able to live in such harsh conditions but at the same this slave trade makes me who I am today. Although I don’t know where from, I am a decedent of an African slave that was once in slavery. I do believe that slavery was harsh and unimaginable but why should we only focus on the negative. The Europeans must had felt some type of superior to the Africans because why else would you want to dehumanize a person.
To see any negative view of the slave-trade, the reader must turn to the perspective of Oroonoko. Through him the reader sees how horrible the treatment of slaves is and how inhuman the slave-trade is. It might escape me, but I do not recall any moment in the story where the narrator takes its upon herself to discuss the slave trade. It seems that in that way that she is disconnecting herself from any responsibility. One could immediately say that this is because of her position at the time.
“Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack of White Privilege” In Peggy McIntosh’s essay, she addressed several issues that are considered to be very important ones. She speaks of how whites are given hidden privileges, yet they don’t even realize it. I believe that the purpose for her writing this, was to bring out in the open the issues of oppression with regards to the dominant race and their “unearned privileges” that they are so oblivious to. McIntosh compared this situation to how men are more privileged and advantaged, and women are at a more disadvantaged state. In comparison, she also stated that men do indeed admit to a woman’s disadvantage, yet a man will not agree to being more advantaged, because they too are oblivious to this fact.
Racism: Othello and LWT Film One of the main overarching themes in both Shakespeare’s original play of Othello and the LWT modern film appropriation is of racial discrimination. During the Elizabethan era, which is the context that the original play is set in, black people were considered to be alien to white society and were thought to be driven by passions and emotions instead of reason and intellect as white people were thought to be. They were believed to be imbalanced and dangerous and were hence labeled second-class citizens. Othello is a moor and is therefore an exceptional example of the discrimination black people received during this era, however is an unusual instance due to his high rank in the army. Throughout the play, animal imagery such as “an old ram”, “Barbary horse” and “beast with two backs” is used to describe Othello, which portray the racist attitudes held by society of the time and highlights the belief that black people were animalistic and therefore acted on emotions, lacking rational thought, like animals.
Justice Racism has been one of the worst problems black people have endured since they came in touch with the white race. Racism is a belief that one's own race is superior and has the power to rule others. In Martin Luther King's writing “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, he answers the criticism given by his fellow clergyman that judged his actions as “unwise and untimely” (King5). King makes the reader understand that black people are tired of being treated as outcasts and as an inferior race thus, reassures the clergyman that black people's inalienable rights are being ignored. However, King proves to the clergyman, in his writing, that black people deserve equal rights by appealing to the reader's emotions, appealing to logic and
Statements condemning Americans were very much appealing to the British who were still bitter over their loss in the American Revolution. They saw the Americans as savages and enjoyed the confirmation of this opinion that the Crafts gave them. The real question is how much of the propaganda did the Crafts actually believe. There is no denying the hypocrisy of “all men are created equal” and the concept of slavery, the two should be mutually exclusive. Evidence that the Crafts did not truly believe everything that they said about America is found in their statement in the last paragraph of the book stating that Americans as a whole are “notoriously mean and cruel to all colored persons, whether they are bond or free.”(69)