Caucasia is a coming of age novel that is told through the lens of Birdie Lee, a biracial girl who sees herself when she looks at her sister Cole Lee, even though physical difference of both Birdie and Cole were continuingly addressed through out the novel but their affection for one another exist beyond the bounds of physical differences. Birdie and Cole Lee are daughters of a White woman with blonde hair hand blue blooded (Sandy) and an African American political activist father (Deck). The closeness of these two sisters takes many hits and turn because one has the ability to disappear into the black society while the other one can disappear into the black society. Birdie inherits her physical looks mostly from her mother and is welcomed on the first day of school by a boy throwing spitball at her “What are you doin’ in this school? You White?” Of the bat Birdie is seen as white and categorized as white by anybody due to her physical appearance, which her identity is formed and categorized into whiteness. Through the novel Birdie Lee challenges herself to confront her own awareness of self, to understand her families blackness through the gaze of whiteness. Birdies physical appearance is known as a straight hair and pale child, which gave her an identity that is more closely to the whiteness within her family. Whenever she is in the presence of both her father and Cole, she often felt that she disappeared and becomes invisible. Cole existence “was the proof that his blackness hadn’t been completely blanched” (Senna 1998, p.56). In Representing Whiteness In The Black Imagination Hooks speaks of “white supremacist, white people can safely imagine that they are invisible to black people since the power they have historically asserted, and even now collectively assert over black people accorded them the right to control the black gaze” (Hooks, pg. 61). Meaning the invisibility and power that white people have gives them ability to control the black gaze. Birdie already has the power to disappear when she was either Birdie Lee or Jesse Goldman. She does not see this ability to disappear as a blessing or curse rather, as her access to whiteness making her question her blackness. Sandy, Birdies mother were able to changes their identity to a widowed woman who was married to a now deceased Jewish husband while they were running from the Feds.
Blacky’s friendship with Dumby Red causes Blacky to stop making racist jokes and comments. Throughout the novel Gwynne drives the reader to reject the racist values, attitudes and beliefs of Blacky’s community, as seen in his portrayal of racist ideas in the town, the marginalisation of the Nunga community, Blacky’s emerging ideology and how it influences and empowers him to respond to the death of Dumby.
The novel The Garies and their Friends is a realistic examination of the complex psychology of blacks who try to assimilate through miscegenation and crossing the color barrier by “passing as white.” Frank J. Webb critiques why blacks cannot pass as being white through the characters Mr. Winston and Clarence Jr.
In the story, this group of brownies came from the south suburbs of Atlanta where whites are “…real and existing, but rarely seen...” (p.518). Hence, this group’s impression of whites consisted of what they have seen on TV or shopping malls. As a result, the girls have a narrow view that all whites were wealthy snobs with superiority like “Superman” and people that “shampoo-commercial hair” (p.518). In their eyes “This alone was the reason for envy and hatred” (p 518). So when Arnetta felt “…foreign… (p.529), as a white woman stared at her in a shopping mall you sense where the revenge came from.
In the next few chapters she discusses how they were brought up to fear white people. The children in her family were always told that black people who resembled white people would live better in the world. Through her childhood she would learn that some of the benefits or being light in skin would be given to her.
In Caucasia, by Danzy Senna, Birdie spends time in several different racial contexts and, in each one, adjusts the racial definition of herself. Through this process, she discovers much about the conception of race in contemporary American society and achieves the nuanced understanding that race, while merely a construction, is still (operationally) real. This is contrasted by the more dangerous, oversimplified understanding of race – that races are biological rivals, inherently different and unable to coexist without some sort of power structure – embodied by the character of Redbone, who is also a symbol of inauthenticity. This latter aspect of Redbone shows the emptiness inherent in the views he holds about race, an important reason for his inclusion in the novel.
In The Marrow of Tradition, Dodie symbolizes the forthcoming of the White race in the United States. During many different instances Dodie’s life is exposed. Most of the times that his life is threatened it is in his parents’ efforts to preserve the rigid color line that separates White and Black races. His parents regul...
Whenever young Hurston engaged in dialogue with her black peers, they would talk to her in ebonics and she could only respond in a formal register (27). This contrast in use of language automatically connotates that her black peers as less intelligent, polite, and proper which she covertly implies is blackness. Whereas she antithetically appears more intelligent and fit with virtue through her use of proper English which she assigns to whiteness. By the same token, Hurston not “stumbling and spelling words out” like her classmates while reading outloud to Miss Johnstone and Miss Hurd further differentiates her from connotations carried with colored people and also implicates that the inner whiteness intrinsic to her is what essentially makes her more important than her pigmented equals (35). By not partaking in the hard cussing of her environment and maintaining proper English in a community absent of it, Hurston is metaphorically shouting that she “stand[s] apart” from black-hood and marks her for success
In the poem “White Lies” by Natasha Tretheway the narrator opens the poem with vivid imagery about a bi-racial little girl who is trying to find her true identity between herself and others around her. She tells little lies about being fully white because she feels ashamed and embarrassed of her race and class and is a having a hard time accepting reality. The poem dramatizes the conflict between fitting in and reality. The narrator illustrates this by using a lot imagery, correlations and connotation to display a picture of lies. The narrator’s syntax, tone, irony and figurative language help to organize her conflict and address her mother’s disapproval.
I was late for school, and my father had to walk me in to class so that my teacher would know the reason for my tardiness. My dad opened the door to my classroom, and there was a hush of silence. Everyone's eyes were fixed on my father and me. He told the teacher why I was late, gave me a kiss goodbye and left for work. As I sat down at my seat, all of my so-called friends called me names and teased me. The students teased me not because I was late, but because my father was black. They were too young to understand. All of this time, they thought that I was white, because I had fare skin like them, therefore I had to be white. Growing up having a white mother and a black father was tough. To some people, being black and white is a contradiction in itself. People thought that I had to be one or the other, but not both. I thought that I was fine the way I was. But like myself, Shelby Steele was stuck in between two opposite forces of his double bind. He was black and middle class, both having significant roles in his life. "Race, he insisted, blurred class distinctions among blacks. If you were black, you were just black and that was that" (Steele 211).
In “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” Hurston breaks from the tradition of her time by rejecting the idea that the African American people should be ashamed or saddened by the color of their skin. She tells other African Americans that they should embrace their color and be proud of who they are. She writes, “[A socialite]…has nothing on me. The cosmic Zora emerges,” and “I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads” (942-943). Whether she feels “colored” or not, she knows she is beautiful and of value. But Hurston writes about a time when she did not always know that she was considered colored.
The speaker of this article is a colored girl, Zora Neale Hurtson. She describes her point of view through life stories that had occurred as she realized that she is divergent. Zora is describing her individuality and difference to other colored people, white people, and to the readers who are different; who are afraid of being different. The purpose of the author is to describe her point of view and how she feels about being colored. This is a way to show her confidence of being a colored child/woman.
The family has always been and still is the main pillar of society. It is the place where members are born, learn, educate and develop. It must be shelter, pride and joy of all its members. When the family has problems, joys or sorrows internal, affect the whole family. Danzy Senna’s Caucasia is about the comparison between white, black and its mixtures, narrating the story of a blended family in the 70s. Birdie Lee, the protagonist, is a daughter of a black intellectual father and a white mother. Birdie is light-skinned and has a close relationship with Cole, her dark-skinned sister, with whom she invents a new language to communicate. When their parents separate, the two daughters are divided and Birdie’s world goes to pieces trying to find
The language is also used to emphasize the feelings and emotions of Callum and Sephy. The use of descriptive writing is employed by Blackman to give the reader insight into the effects and emotions of racism. “I was talking like my mouth was full of stones – and sharp jagged ones at that.” The book is full of descriptive writing and figurative language with use of similes and metaphors to explore the feelings of Callum and Sephy. The way in which Blackman uses these language techniques influences the reader to especially pity the white race and the way they are treated in the book. Blackman has created her own world to resemble our own op...
et, even though the two poems, The Lokia, written by Graciela Huinao and Like the Leaves poet by Humberto Ak’abal shows that the scars of the Indian society using symbolism, is also stated to instead of living as a role as a bystander, be a character that is an upstander that stands against the injustices towards the Native Americans. In The Lokia, the poet writes the Loika singing, as the nest was stolen from the Loika. Huinao wrote, “Why does the loika sing?/ If the earth where he was going to nest/ has been stolen./ He’ll have to look for new lands. /He takes off singing “(Huinao, stanza 2). The home that the Loika has once lived, was taken away from him, leaving the birds to sing melancholy for its loss. The unspeakable actions that the Native American did, to themselves, to their culture, and to their society, ruin the hearts of every Native American.
Self awareness of a person’s identity can lead to a challenging scope of ascertaining moving forward: the moment he/she has an earth- shattering revelation comprehending, they of African descendant and they are a problem. The awakening of double-consciousness grew within the literary cannon sensing the pressure of duality in the works of Native Son and The Bluest Eye, Richard Wright and Toni Morrison respectively create two characters who deal with this struggle. It is illustrated through both text how society creates situations that impose the characters Bigger and Pecola encountering extreme measures in the mind frame of double consciousness in their pursuit of survival physically, the search for identity, the desire of self- expression and self-fulfillment.