Abstract
Racial stereotyping implies a form of racist thought which finds its justification in certain biological and phenotypical characteristics. Insults and slurs are indexical of the racism embedded in the characters’ interactions. Various insinuations and expressions are loaded with racist import. Plays such as Dutchman and The Slave show how racial stereotyping in Baraka’s plays undercuts images of the sambo and the brute, and concentrates on the utmost obvious physical characteristics and skin color. Racism and racialism are both components of the racial attitudes of Baraka’s characters. Racism assumes that members of each race possess qualities specific to that race, so as to distinguish it as superior or inferior to another race. Racism draws a detailed map of differences in terms of physical, moral, and mental properties. In Baraka’s drama, racism has two main forms: one is propositional and the other is dispositional. Propositional (extrinsic) racism conveys fierce racist behavior. Dispositional (intrinsic) racism is the expression of loyalty to the ethnic group and belonging to the community. Propositional racism supposes the salience of the racial character and essence. The belief in a racial essence steers toward racial differentiation, and fosters expansive racialization and classification. The objective of this article is to address the construct of propositional racism and delineate its manifestations. It will also tackle the concept of dispositional racism, and highlight how dispositional racism is connected to principles germane to morality and relevant to community.
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Notes
In the dictionary of Afro-American Slang the word “nigger” (probably from the French nègre), when hurled by a white person addressing a black person, is offensive and highly depreciatory.
George Yancy, “Historical varieties of African American labor: Sites of agency and resistance,” Western Journal of Black Studies 28.2 (Summer 2004): 337–354.
Contemporary race theorists almost unambiguously agree that race is a European construction. This construction has tightly been tied to the idea of European progress: the Enlightenment, the advent of rationalism, the industrial movement and the ascent of imperialism, and the rise of colonialism. In Race, Ivan Hannaford argues that “[b]etween the expulsion of the Jews and Moors from Spain and the landing of the first Negro in the North American colonies in 1619, the word ‘race’ entered Western languages” (17). The first slave ship to transport blacks, as is explicitly put in Hannaford’s statement, provides a chronological/temporal indication of the spread of the notion of race.
Baraka presents Leckett as a figure, a shadow, a ghost, and the white man in Slave Ship as a verbalizing voice in an effort to indicate that race haunts and obsesses the collective mindset. Voice embodies the institutional and representative system of power structure and relations within the USA.
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Azouz, S. Existence in Black and White: Theatrical Representation of the Varieties of Racism in Amiri Baraka’s Select Plays. J Afr Am St 23, 147–161 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-019-09430-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-019-09430-0