The Whitening of Spirits: A Note on Shame, Interior Monologues, and White Hegemony
In David Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, the unnamed leading part lives his life jogging the line between white and black. He could be a man that can choose to be a person of color, or can “pass” as a white colored man, as is obvious by the subject, he decides the life of the white person. But even while he is grappling with the idea of choosing a race, he could be naturally keen to elevate white-colored people and subtly discriminate against dark people. These types of events occur in his interior monologue in spite of him being aware of internally that he himself is dark. While this might be seen as unfaithfulness of one’s race, the text substantiates the reality that the hegemony with the white population is so pervasive that it changes even the criteria and thoughts of the black community within themselves. The narrator’s thoughts are only a refection of his community.
Whilst a child, the narrator comes into habits of splendour against various other black children. He recounts siding with the white kids naturally in elementary school, and one event where he “ran after [the black children] pelting associated with stones” (10). Finding out he himself is usually black can be described as moment of considerable relax for him, a understanding that this individual clearly remembers for the rest of his life. After coming to this conclusion this individual knows this individual cannot always associate while using white cliques, but likewise refuses to connect with the dark children at this time. He acquires a tendency to disassociate with people of color astonishingly early in life. Later in life as well, he continue to be put down persons of color in more refined ways. Inside the Club, the romantic interest of the white-colored widow who have frequents the place is referred to as the “bad man”, and a “surly, black despot” (89) without him being known personally.
When each of our narrator moves to the South, even the people that this individual grows fond of are referred to in a condescendingly patronizing way, like the people of the churches that had to pass by it and speakers he incurs during the multi-day religious function he stumbles upon. Finally, when he incurs the killing of a guy through losing, his psychological response is usually not empathy or even horror. He identifies instead a “great trend of embarrassment and shame” (137). This kind of life-altering function actually makes him embarrass myself to be a dark man, someone belonging to a race “that could be thus dealt with” (137). Intended for him to know that a homicide had merely happened without consequence or perhaps reproach was for him to recognize a seeming inferiority in blackness, and it is at this time that he chooses to discard it.
Alternatively, the narrator also elevates the white colored people this individual meets, most likely subconsciously, and shows noticeable preference on their behalf compared to persons of his own contest. The millionaire is a very dominant example and evidence of the narrator’s tremendous respect and love to get him can be seen all over the stomach of the book. However , his exaltation takes its most state and prominent form in the way the narrator describes girls. Chronologically, he sees initial the woman inside the theater, calling her “so young, thus fair, so ethereal” (98), a description almost fitting for the goddess. When we realize her father is additionally the narrator’s father, and this girl can be his half-sister, it is finally implied this woman unquestionably is white colored. The narrator’s penchant pertaining to glorifying the white woman does not stop there. When he meets his future better half, he makes its way into a series of internal comments that deify her as well, and equate her whiteness to purity, loveliness, and many advantages. He says of her, “She was as white as being a lily, and she was dressed in white. Indeed, the girl seemed to me the most dazzlingly white issue I had ever seen” (144). These women are equated to puro beings of benevolence with words just like ‘ethereal’ and ‘dazzling’ in a manner that no dark woman can be ever explained in this operate. In fact , not any black woman is given an outline in this job any more articulate than becoming defined as ‘rather pretty’ or perhaps ‘quite charming’. The effect his wife has on the narrator finalizes his prejudice. Her love is known as a “love which melted apart [his] cynicism and the white kind of [his] sullied soul” (147). The positive methods this female affects the narrator’s your life being identified as the symbolic whitening of his soul solidifies the fact that the narrator, even as a black man, sees persons of color as innately less ‘good’.
Therefore , what does this kind of all indicate? As a person of color, the narrator lacks the strength possessed by white population that could convert his bias into discrimination. In fact , this kind of piece gives a balance of cultural, financial and cultural power therefore tipped in favour of white individuals who the narrator’s prejudice could possibly be attributed to white colored hegemony too. The narrator explains this quite obviously himself through the issue of marriage, and exactly how people of color who have are prosperous or well educated tend to get married to people lighter weight in complexion to themselves. “The United States puts a greater premium on color, or, better, not enough color, than upon everything else in the world”, he publishes articles, continuing “It is this tremendous pressure that the sentiment with the country exerts that is operating on the race” (113). Just like when Watts. E. W. Duboiss double-consciousness, the narrator here may perceive the fact that way residential areas of people of color action are becoming forcibly shaped under great pressure by white electrical power. In situations like in the world of The Life of an Ex-Colored Man, it is predictable that individuals with deeper complexions can be looked upon because lesser, and white persons exalted, possibly by persons of color. For people of color, the lighter the complexion of their partner, and thus of their children, the higher a chance they have at economic, ethnical and social success. The narrator’s challenging desire for whiteness and disgrace over as being a person of color comes not via his individual faults as being a character yet from the reality he is approximately his eyeballs in internalized white hegemony. He really wants to feel human and to truly feel fulfilled, skilled, and accepted, just like every other person really does, but in his world this stuff are identified or augmented by ones level of whiteness. Thus, the narrator’s thoughts, though true and biased, are the consequence of immersive white power rather than actual impartial prejudice.
