I am reminded of a lesson I learned in a class about race and society. When a crime is committed and reported in the news, if the accused person is non-white, disproportionately the race of the individual is identified. If the suspect is white, there is often no mention of race. This illustration makes it rather clear how such representations can be severely detrimental to the images of particular races. They will be stereotyped as criminals.
I see this happen in daily life when someone shares a detail about another person that is not pertinent to the story, such as "There's this black guy...." or "Some gay guy..." It always strikes me as unnecessary. Why do we feel the need to mark "otherness?" I'm still trying to decipher exactly what Gates recognizes in our language system that is problematic. It seems to be more than people simply sharing extraneous information. There is a way in which language discriminates. "Otherness" is marked explicitly and implicitly.
"...how can the black subject posit a full and sufficient self in a language in which blackness is a sign of absence? Can writing, with the very difference it makes and marks, mask the blackness of the black face that addresses the text of Western letters, in a vice that speaks English through an idiom which contains the irreducible element of cultural difference that will always separate the white voice from the black?" (Gates 12).
Does anyone have another example to better explain this? I can see how a black author will always be read as a black author. When an author is non-white, race is taken into account. This might not always be true, but I'm making a generalization in attempts to better understand the situation. Gates says, "Black writing, and especially the literature of the slave, served not to obliterate the difference of race; rather, the inscription of the black voice in Western literatures has preserved those very cultural differences to be repeated, imitated, and revised in a separate Western literary tradition, a tradition of black difference" (Gates 12).
I do see this at play, but if anyone has any further examples, they'd be appreciated. Thanks!
1 comment:
I completely agree with your assessment of this issue. Our language has become racialized whether we want it to or not. We seem quick to point out otherness, regardless of our opinions on race. Considering history though, I think it is unavoidable to discuss history and art in a racialized way. Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright cannot just be discussed as great authors, although they are both terrific. Their skin color and experience with race is essential to understanding their art and the culture context they were writing in. I agree though, that racializing everyday language is detrimental to the experience of different races because it arises from a racist white-centered way of speaking. Yet, it is important to not pretend that we live in a post-racial society where we don't identify people based on physical characteristics. Skin color and race can be a source of pride for many people and I see no problem with this as long as it is not a vehicle for discrimination.
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