Oppression In A Small Place

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Tourism is Still Oppression in A Small Place In part fictional and part autobiographical novel “A Small Place” published in 1988, Jamaica Kincaid offers a commentary on how the tenets of white superiority and ignorance seem to emerge naturally from white tourists. She establishes this by using the nameless “you” depicted in the story to elucidate the thoughts they have when visiting such formerly colonized islands. This inner mentality of the white tourists reveals how tourism is still a form of oppression for the natives of such formerly colonized tourists as it continues to exploit them. I will be focusing primarily on page 10 of the text to illustrate this. Kincaid expresses clearly that the egoistic thoughts of the nameless “you” belong …show more content…

She points out how white tourists think that the establishments and systems left behind from colonization are things that the natives should be thankful for. White tourists think that the natives “are not responsible for what you have; you owe them nothing; in fact, you did them a big favour, and you can provide one hundred examples.” (10) Ironically, while they seem to think that the natives should be thankful for certain remnants of colonization, white tourists refuse to take responsibility for the actions of their ancestors that caused former colonies to be in the state they are in now. In thinking that the “West got rich not from the free …and then undervalued labour” (10), but instead through the “ingenuity of small shopkeepers in Sheffield and Yorkshire and Lancashire, or wherever”, white tourists refuse to acknowledge that it was the oppression of these former colonies that led to the growth of their own race whilst attributing to the decline of these colonies. In believing in their own superiority and refusing to acknowledge this, white tourists continue to willingly take part in a system that oppresses natives of formerly colonized islands because they see no wrong in doing

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