Assmilation

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“Clay: If I'm a middle‐class fake white man ... let me be. And let me be in the way I want.” (Baraka). The Dutchman, written by Amiri Baraka during a period in his life when he was embracing Black Nationalism and switching from Leroi Jones (his birth name) to Amiri Baraka. In his play, The Dutchman Baraka tries to spin a tale about blacks assimilating into white culture which leads to their destruction; in this play black-man named clay attempts to repress his history through assimilation, which causes him to be and to ultimately be destroyed by Lula.
Clay attempts to repress his history three distinct times throughout the play; the first time was during a conversation with Lula when she says “those narrow‐shoulder clothes come from a tradition you ought to feel oppressed by. A three‐button suit. What right do you have to be wearing a three‐button suit and striped tie? Your grandfather was a slave, he didn't go to Harvard.” And clay replies “My grandfather was a night watchman.” Showing that he does not think that his grandfather could have been a slave but instead most have been in a higher position repressing the fact most black families can trace their heritage to a black slave because of the fact that to get to the us in the mid-17th century you had to pay for passage and black people where initially treated as servants and then slaves, the second time clay attempted to repress his history was at the last sequence of the play when clay says to Lula, “Ahhh. Shit. But who needs it? I’d rather be a fool. Insane. Safe with my words, and no deaths, and clean, hard thoughts, urging me to new conquests. My people's madness. Hah! That's a laugh. My people. They don't need me to claim them. They got legs and arms of their own. Person...

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