Name :- Alisha S Vaghasiya
Sem :- 3
Paper No :- 11 Postcolonial Literature
Topic :- Colonialism and portrayal of black character in literature.
Submitted to :- S.B.Gardi department of English MK Bhavnagar university
Year :- 2019 - 2020
Colonialism
The establishment of a colony in one territory by a political power from another territory, and the subsequent maintenance, expansion, and exploitation of that colony. Colonialism involves unequal relationships between the colonial powered and the colony and often between the colonists and the indigenous peoples.
The European colonial period was the era from the 15th century to the mid-20th century when several European powers established colonies in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. At first the countries followed a policy of mercantilism, designed to strengthen the home economy at the expense of rivals, so the colonies were usually allowed to trade only with the mother country. By the mid-19th century, the powerful British Empire gave up mercantilism and trade restrictions and introduced the principle of free trade, with few restrictions or tariffs.
The Archetypes of black women as portrayed in literature and in popular culture can be explored on a continuum that is cross-cultural which illuminates the shared experiences of black women in America and within the countries that constitute the African diaspora.
Matriarch
The Matriarch is arguably the most common portrayal of black women in popular culture. She represents the grandmother figure that plays a dominant role in keeping her family together by always offering words of wisdom that are either direct quotes from the bible or “common sense” wisdom that can only be attributed to her old age. The physical appearance of the matriarch is usually rough with every bit of her age being portrayed by her hands and skin. The skin color of the matriarch is usually dark as the dark color of the matriarch’s skin is used to further illustrate that she is a strong and powerful woman. Common representations of the matriarch in film can be found in Tyler Perry’s character Medea that frequently appears in his movies and screenplays. In the novel, The Harder They Come, authored by the Jamaican writer Micheal Thelwell several women throughout the novel represent the Matriarchal figure for Ivan, the main character in the book.
Mammy
The Mammy is a common portrayal of the black woman in popular culture. She is akin to the matriarch figure because she is also big and her skin is typically dark. The mammy figure is often associated with a popular brand of food items such as the Aunt Jemima brand of pancakes and syrup, which places the mammy into the role of home maker that is also commonly associated with the matriarch. However, the mammy figure does differ from the matriarch in many ways mainly because of her personality traits. Unlike the Matriarch figure, the mammy is without age-old wisdom and is instead ignorantly and blissfully happy despite her subordinate and demeaning role as a servant to whites. The Mammy figure has recently received renewed attention with the film adaptation of the novel, The Help being released.
The strong black woman
The archetype of the strong black woman as portrayed in popular culture is an ambiguous character that can have an array of personality traits. The strong black woman is often portrayed as fiercely independent, notoriously single, and easily angered. The strong black woman archetype also overlaps with the afrocentric archetype that also portrays the black woman as being independent and angry. However, unlike the archetype for the afrocentric woman, the strong black woman is often portrayed as a woman without intellect or rather her book smarts is often depicted as a negative quality that makes her hard and self-centered and is also used to justify why she is profusely single. Another important characteristic of the strong black woman is that she appears to never face a hardship that she cannot overcome alone or simply with prayer.
Jezebel
The Jezebel is a well-known representation of the black woman in popular culture. The idea of the black woman as a Jezebel dates back to the seventeenth century and was supported by pseudo-scientific observations on the black female body, specifically, her protruding buttocks and hanging genitalia that was said to prove that black women were by nature promiscuous. In correlation with the presumption that this type of woman is promiscuous, she is portrayed as a vixen and desirable to all men. Halle Berry, Josephine Baker and even Beyoncé Knowles are examples of this type of character because they have all portrayed themselves as sexual objects either by the way of provocative dance or nudity.
Afrocentric
The Afrocentric black woman is often depicted as a social activists with an eye for racial injustice and prejudice.However, the afrocentric black woman is best known for her physical appearance that is distinctly different from the norm of American society. The black woman who is considered to be afrocentric is usually dark skin, wears her hair in its natural state and doesn’t dress in accordance with the latest trends of fashions.
The mulatto
The tragic mulatto is a woman who is of mixed heritage as a result of either rape or an illustrious affair that occurred during a time period in which miscegenation was either illegal or considered taboo. Despite, the tragedy of her heritage, the tragic mulatto is depicted as universally beautiful and highly sought after. Physically, she is portrayed as having fair skin, loose wavy hair that is thick and long and her physical features are closely aligned to the European standard of women having small lips, small noses, and an overall lean but curvy shape. A representation of the tragic mulatto in literature can be found in Victor Sejour’s Le Mulatre published in 1n 1837.
The Racially Ambiguous Black woman
The idea of the racially ambiguous black woman is a depiction of black women that is rather new. She is often identified in popular culture as the token black girl because she is the black woman who is usually cast in television shows, talk shows or movies as the lone black cast member. The personality and social life of this archetype is what makes the black woman appear to be without race. For instance, she is typically really happy, quirky, agreeable and has a diverse group of friends and boyfriends. This archetype can be found in the hit teen show, That’s So Raven, in which the lead character is Raven, a black woman with a bubbly, quirky and carefree attitude and a best friend who is white.
The Southern Tragedy
The southern tragedy is an archetype that typically borrows from old narratives within the black community and usually involves a blind devotion to religion, abuse, and the secrecy of this abuse (Consider the character’s in The Color Purpleas prime examples of this archetype). The archetype of the southern tragedy has evolved over the years and is often depicted as the black woman who is on well-fare, has many children, still a victim of some type of abuse but is also likely to be addicted to drugs. This type of archetype has become popular due to the increase of films that have sought to depict life in the ghetto in raw and captivating ways. (wordpress)
The Root's staff writer, Jenée Desmond-Harris, covers the intersection of race with news, politics and culture. She wants to talk about the complicated ways in which ethnicity, color and identity arise in your personal life — and provide perspective on the ethics and etiquette surrounding race in a changing America.
"There's a sad dearth of people of color in romantic fiction. I doubt it's racism. I think it's mainly because so many white writers, like me, simply don't know how to get it right, so we stay in our comfort zone. Any advice?"—Too White to Write?
If, by saying you want to write black women "correctly," you mean "in a way that's guaranteed not to inspire any complaints, constructive critiques or outright criticism," you should probably just stick to your genre's safely monochromatic cast of characters.
After all, views on depictions of black women in media are as diverse as their audiences. We aren't all alike, and our assessments of whether your book should be awarded a Nobel Prize or used for kindling won't be, either.
Of course, you're right to anticipate heightened sensitivity surrounding the characters you're contemplating, and that's with good reason. Quick background reading assignment: Iconic: Decoding Images of the Revolutionary Black Woman. In it, author Lakesia Johnson chronicles how figures from Sojourner Truth to Gabby Douglas have had to counteract media-fueled negative stereotypes thrust upon them (angry, emasculating, Mammy and sex object, to name a few).
You're probably familiar with those tropes, and with reactions to works like Kathryn Stockett's The Help, the novel-turned-blockbuster film about African-American maids working in Mississippi in the 1960s.
"Despite efforts to market the book and the film as a progressive story of triumph over racial injustice, The Help distorts, ignores and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers," the Association of Black Women Historians said in a scathing statement in response to the film, adding that it "makes light of black women's fears and vulnerabilities turning them into moments of comic relief."
To be fair, black writers don't get a pass here, either. The ABC series Scandal, brought to us by Shonda Rhimes (and currently causing between-seasons withdrawal symptoms among plenty of African-American viewers), has been accused of "send[ing] the message through its high-powered protagonist that black women don't deserve loving and healthy relationships," and "continuing perpetuation of the stereotype of a black woman whose libido and sexual urges are so pronounced that even with an education and a great job, and all these other things, she can't control herself."
And there's not even room to get into all the ubiquitous teardowns of the work of Tyler Perry. As the Washington Post's Vanessa Williams put it very diplomatically, his "films are often criticized for their cartoonish depiction of African-American life and, especially, his depiction of black women as either abused, struggling beings who are rescued by good men or ambitious shrews who are brought low by bad men." Plenty of others take it a step further and call his portrayals flat-out "dangerous."
Clearly, there's no box to check and no source of permission that will guarantee your work doesn't offend a single reader. But does that mean you should abandon your interest in making black women your protagonists and even — gasp — protagonists who are attracted to white men? (I can assure you, that's probably not as controversial as you think it is, Scandal being one example.)
No way, says Marita Golden, author of a dozen works of fiction and nonfiction, including Skin Deep: Black Women and White Women Write About Race. "White people, because of the emotional legacy as well as the historical and political legacy of racism, often feel that they do not have access to the black soul and the black spirit," she told me, "but I think writers have the right to write about anything." In fact, she said, "I really feel that white people should write about black characters."
But the key is that "comfort zone" you mention. You have to get there well before you put pen to paper.
The best way for you to do that, said Golden, is to "stop saying to yourself, 'I'm writing about a black woman.' Just write about a woman."
Easier said than done, surely. That's the reason "write what you know" is a literary cliché. And also the reason that Girls creator Lena Dunham decided to skip included women of color in her show altogether (she stopped short of renaming the show White Girls as some have recommended), tells NPR in 2012 that "there has to be specificity to that experience [that] I wasn't able to speak to."
So here's a start. Develop relationships that will allow you to become confident that can begin to speak to that experience, because you know African-American women as individuals. "Usually, white people who write meaningful books with black characters, they do have black people in their lives who they know deeply and respect," said Golden. To be clear, that is as friends not as research. Serious, meaningful, complete friendships with black people."
This is your first step toward allowing your new characters to emerge more naturally. Not as science projects, in which you're cautiously throwing in different ingredients and trying to predict the public reaction. And not through some sort of literary quota system. But by keeping their individual dilemmas, not demographics, in the front of your mind as their stories evolve. By seeing them as humans as complex as your real-life friends.
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