Racial Hypocrisies: An Exploration in 'Our Nig'

Wilson shares the story of Frado as she navigates life as the black-sheep of the North in the mid-1800s. The pseudo-autobiographical novel Our Nig holds strong parallels to the how the modern world views relate to race relations. In the 1800s, the North portrayed itself as the haven for the Blacks much like the “post-racism’ America portrays itself today. The hypocrisies of these portrayals reveal themselves as one explores the themes of identity and its implications. The characters in the novel hold themselves to deterministic labels that dramatically dictate their actions, attitudes, and subsequently their identity. For some characters, these identities morph them into symbolic beings. The novel starts with the story of Frado’s mother Mag.

The derogatory term also dehumanizes her. The etymology of mulatto comes from the Spanish and Portuguese word mula, meaning mule. Frado suffers more than her mother who lives in sequester from whites, Frado suffers constant verbal and physical abuse. Note, this all happens in the north which was depicted as a place of solace for freed blacks in the 1800s. Far later in the book she discovers her runaway slave husband has far less injury than her own. Frado’s oppression and torment persisted in the land that promoted sanctuary for her race. In the 21st century, not much has

The same ideologies used to keep people enslaved carries on in the wake of the institution of slavery. American attempts to moves passed and forget its dark history like Mr. Bellmont, but the shadow of slavery and oppression still looms over those that hold ties to an enslaved legacy. That identity as less than human and less deserving carries with the younger generations who never experience to blow of the lash. The shadow will never lift until the average person takes it upon themselves to look inward and see how their inaction only spreads more