Assignment – 11 Racism and Language
Abstract
With
the passage of time language has become an integral part of our lives. For us
it is a medium of communication and expressing our thoughts and emotions. But
when we deeply analyze about its dynamics, we come to know that language is not
merely a medium to communicate, it is the most important vehicle to do both, to
control people and to exploit them. It can exploit one's identity and culture
and it can also develop a new insight towards life.
Frantz Fanon was a French psychiatrist who examined the colonization from a psychological point of view. According to him, 'BLACKNESS IS WITHIN THE MIND'. The linguistic constructions of race affect the minds of black and white people consciously or unconsciously. It is a language which creates binary and makes one race superior than the other. In his doctoral thesis and later on considered as a key text of post colonialism, 'Black Skin White Masks', Fanon criticized the impact of language to create racism in the mind of both white and black people and how Black people make use of one language to overcome racism. Similarly in 'A Tempest' by Aime Cesaire we can also find the use of language to colonize the black and make them inferior to the white people. It is adopted from Shakespeare's 'The Tempest', which explores the relation between colonizers and colonized people. This assignment will illustrate the language and racism with the help of two texts - 'The Black Skin White Masks' by Frantz Fanon and 'A Tempest' by Aime Cesaire.
Introduction
Postcolonial Literature is not
a literature which was written after gaining independence, it is a literature
which resists colonialism, which tries to decolonize the mind of people.
Countries which were once ruled by Britishers are still in the notion of
colonialism. Language plays an important role in making people colonial.
Foucault has remarked that:
"Language is controlled by
those who hold power in society"
It means the use of language is
assigned by what those in power want to say. In Racism, language plays a vital
role, it is the use of language which creates binaries and constructs an inferiority
complex within the mind of colonizers and colonized people. White people always
feel superior to black people and consider them more civilized people. Whites
thought that Black people are just for exploitation and slavery. Racism is also
a theme in American literature and in other literature also. In Mark Twain’s “The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and in Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of
Darkness one can find the theme of racism. But Fanon's 'The Black Skin
and White Mask' is not focused on politics and economic exploitation, because
Fanon was a psychiatrist and he examined racism and the complex of inferiority and
superiority within the mind, as well as how language plays a vital role to
create racism in black people's mind.
"Black man is sealed in
black identity
White man is sealed in white
identity"
The second text is by Aime
Cesaire, which he rewrites the text of The Tempest by Shakespeare. Caliban is
taught the language of Prosepro, his master and which creates the effect of
master slave relation and inferiority complex. Let's have a brief introduction
of both authors.
About the authors:
Ania Loomba observes about
Benita Perry and her statement about Frantz Fanon and Aime Cesaire:
On the other hand, Benita Parry reads Fanon
(and his fellow Martiniquan Aimé Césaire) as authors of liberation theories … [who] affirmed the intervention of an insurgent, unified
black self, acknowledged the revolutionary energies released by valorising the
cultures denigrated by colonialism and, rather than construing the colonialist
relationship in terms of negotiations with the structures of imperialism, privileged
coercion over hegemony to project it as a struggle between implacably opposed
forces. (1994a: 179)
(Loomba, 150)
Frantz Fanon was a French psychiatrist, poet and an Afro-Caribbean author and politician. His doctoral thesis, 'Black skin white mask' is one of his noble works by him. He was also a political philosopher as well as an anti-colonial writer. Aime Cesaire was one of the founders of the negritude movement in Francophone.
Language and Racism in 'Black
Skin, White Masks'
The first chapter of the book 'Black
Skin White Masks' is titled as 'The Negro and Language'. In
this chapter Fanon explores how language creates the feeling of inferiority. In
Martinique, where there was French colony, French language was the language
of power and culture. There was inferiority complex by race which
was identified by the treatment given to the native people by
colonizers. In the beginning of this chapter, Fanon says,
'All the top people of
Martinique either came from France or received their education in France.
Here one can see how French
language has power and how it creates inferiority in the mind of Black and
people. If one learns French language, then they feel superior to the people
who don't know the French. Most of the native people from the island Martinique
spoke Creole - a dialect, but they feel more inferior than who knows
French. Here the black people think if they will start to speak French language
then there will be no racism. So, French language becomes a better language
than Creole because this language has the power to make people superior. Black
men cannot change their skin, but to overcome racism they can learn a language
which can make them equal to the whites. But even if Negro people speak perfect
French then also White people will say,
'Here is a black man who
handles the French language unlike any white man today'
When we are starting to speak
another language, then we unknowingly start to appreciate its culture. A Black cannot
be a white, so they start to become culturally white. In Fanon's words,
'Unwittingly become culturally
white'
Because they think white
represents wealth, beauty, intelligence and virtue and it is language which can
make them culturally white. In French one says 'He talks like a book' but
in Martinique one says 'He talks like a white man'. Here one can find
inferiority within the language. There is a desire to be treated equally and
Negro people think language can give this equality. In the conclusion we can
cite a quote by Fanon,
'Even if you speak
perfect French the racism does not stop'
Language is not just a tool to
communicate, it has become a part of our culture. One cannot stop racism by the
use of language, but one can provoke racism with the help of language.
Role play of Language in ' A
Tempest'
Aime Cesaire' A Tempest' is a
reaction against Shakespeare's play 'The Tempest'. It was originally written in
French language with the title Une Tempest. This play is a
reaction against colonial discourse. Aime Cesaire was also a Black postcolonial
writer, who once said,
'Colonization has taken
away from his is not only land, but also his language, culture and identity'
In this play Prospero is
a white colonizer whereas Caliban is a Black slave and Ariel is mulatto
slave. They are enslaved by white master Prospero. Caliban is black slave but
he argued with Prospero and resist against him, then Prospero tells him,
'Since you're so fond of
invective, you could at least thank me for having taught you to speak at all'
White colonizers think that
even they have to teach the language to the black people. In ' The White
Man's Burden' a poem by Rudyard Kipling, we can find that White
man's think that it is their duty or burden to civilize the black, and
this responsibility is given by God. In this contact of racism language
is played a role to make the black inferior. When Prosepero was claiming
that he had made Caliban a civilized man from an animal, then in reply Caliban
said,
'In the first place,
that's not true, you didn't teach me a thing! Except to Jabber in your
language so that I could understand your orders; chop the wood, wash the
dishes, fish for food.
Language is just a tool to make
black people inferior to the whites. Prospero taught him a language to give him
orders and ruled over him.
Conclusion
Thus, language is a vehicle for
colonial oppression, it makes one superior and one inferior. Fanon says at the
end of Black Skin, White Masks that,
'In no way should I
dedicate myself to the revival of an unjustly unrecognized Negro Civilization.’
Racism affects the minds of
black people, they started to feel everything is inferior then Whitney's
culture, traditions and even language is also inferior then their language.
Everything is based on language. It is a language which gives power to one. We
have briefly analyzed both text which has centralized the issue of Race and the
role play by language of colonizers.
Work Cited
Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/postcolonialism.
3rd ed., PDF, Routledge, 2005.
Césaire, Aimé. A Tempest: Based
on Shakespeare's The Tempest, Adaptation for a Black Theatre. Translated by
Richard Miller, PDF, Ubu Repertory Theater Publications, 1992.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Charles L. Markmann, PDF, Pluto P, 2008.
References
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of
Darkness. Edited by Robert Hampson and Owen Knowles,
Penguin Classics, 2007.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Penguin, 1986. Print.
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