Analysis Of Jean Baker Miller's 'Domination And Subordination'

One - The power relations between Covey and Douglass are inherently dissimilar to those between the typical black and typical white of the time period. As Douglass writes, “Mr. Covey was a poor man, a farm-renter. He rented the place upon which he lived, as also the hands with which he tilled it” (Norton Anthology of African American Literature, 420). Because “the enslavement of the Negro determined the position of the poor whites in the old South,” a white without any slaves or land to his name was more akin to an enslaved black than to a wealthy plantation owner in terms of social standing. This status, added to the fact that “the poor whites understood that slavery was responsible for their hopeless economic condition,” contributed to a

Temporary inequality exists as a means of “improving” a subordinate to the level of a dominant. After the period of inequality is over, the two view each other as equals. The other form of inequality, permanent inequality, exists solely because of an ascription of inferiority to a subordinate that is inherent and unchangeable. Unlike temporary inequality, there is no possibility of improvement for the subordinate; they are, in the eyes of the dominant, inferior and impossible to “fix.” The dominants, who view themselves naturally superior to the subordinates, begin to take advantage of the subordinates. “Out of the total range of human possibilities, the activities most highly valued in any particular culture will tend to be enclosed within the domain of the dominant group; less valued functions are relegated to the subordinates” (Rothenberg, 112). Moreover, the subordinates, who by this point are under the total control of the dominant group, may begin to internalize the value of the dominants. “[Subordinates’] incapacities are ascribed to innate defects or deficiencies of mind or body…More importantly, subordinates themselves can come to find it difficult to believe in their own ability” (112). This theory of domination and subordination are clearly mirrored in race relations in the United States. Whites, who are the dominant group, make all of the fallacious errors involved in race-based thinking; they are prone to, like Miller describes, hoarding superior roles in society and practicing systematic cruelty towards the subordinates due to their sincere belief that the subordinates are inherently incapable of rising to the level of the dominant. This internalized belief on the part of the dominants, that the subordinates