-----------------~

44 (because it is an in~dequate, limiting definition ofbeing human, because

WHITE feeling guilty is such a burden). Studies of dominance by the dominant
should not deny the place of the writer in relation to what slhe is writing
I cf, Herbert Marcusc,
One Di",tnsio"al Man,
45

805[00, Beacon Press,

about it, but nor should they be the green light for self-recrimination or 1964,
BY RICHARD DYER
trying to get in on the act.
Power in contemporary society habitually passes itself off as embod­ 2 cf, Winthrop Jordan,
ied in the normal as opposed to the superior I. This is common to all WIr;le over Black)
Harmondswonh,
forms of power, but it works in a peculiarly seductive way with white­ Penguin, 1969; Peter
ness, because of the way it seems rooted, in common-sense thought, in Fryer, Srayi'l POfJn,
London, Pluto, 1984.
things other than ethnic difference. The very terms we use to describe
the major ethnic divide presented by Western society, 'black' and
'white', are imported from and naturalised by other discourses. Thus it , Made by Tony
Dowmunl, Maris
is said (even in liberal text books) that there are inevitable associations of Clark, Rooney Martin
white with light and therefore safety, and black with dark and therefore and Kobena Mercer for
Albany Video) London.
danger, and that this explains racism (whereas one might well argue
about the safety of the cover of darkness and the danger of exposure to
the light); again, and with more justice, people point to the Judaeo·
T HIS I SAN ART I C L E about a subject that, much ofthe time Christian use of white and black to symbolise good and evil, as carried
as I've been writing it, seems not to be there as a subject at all. Trying to still in such expressions as 'a black mark', 'white magic', 'to blacken the
think about the representation of whiteness as an ethnic category in character' and so on. Z I'd like to look at another aspect of commonsensi­
mainstream film is difficult, partly because white power secures its cal conflations of black and white as na'tural and ethnic categories by
dominance by seeming not to be anything in particular, but also considering ideas of what colour is.
because, when whiteness qua whiteness does come into focus, it is often I was taught the scientific difference between black and white at prim­
revealed as emptiness, absence, denial or 'even a kind of death. ary school. It seemed a fascinating paradox. Black, which, because you
It is, all the same, important to try to make some headway with grasp­ had to add it to paper to make a picture, I had always thought of as a
ing whiteness as a culturally constructed category. 'Images of studies colour, was, it turned out, nothingness, the absence of all colour;
have looked at groups defined as oppressed, marginal or subordinate ­ whereas white, which looked just like empty space (or blank paper), was,
women, the working' class, ethnic and other minorities (e.g., lesbians apparently, all the colours there were put together. No doubt such
and gay men, disabled people, the elderly). The impulse for such work explanations of colour have long been outmoded; what interests me is
lies in the sense that how such groups are represented is part of the pro­ how they manage to touch on the construction ofthe ethnic categories of
cess of their oppression, marginalisation or subordination. The range black and white in dominant representation. In the realm of categories,
and fertility of such work has put those groups themselves centre-stage black is always marked as a colour (as the term 'coloured' egregiously
in both analytical and campaigning activity, and highlighted the issue of acknowledges), and is always particularising; whereas white is not any­
representation as politics. It has, however, had one serious drawback, thing really, not an identity, not a particularising quality, because it is
long recognised in debates about women's studies. Looking, with such everything - white is no colour because it is all colours.
passion and single-mindedness, at non-dominant groups has had the This property of whiteness, to be everything and nothing, is the
effect of reproducing the sense of the oddness, differentness, exception- . source of its representational power. On the one hand, as one of the
ality ofthese groups, the feeling that they are departures from the norm. people in the video Being White' observes, white domination is repro­
Meanwhile the norm has carried on as if it is the natural, inevitable, duced by the way that white people 'colonise the definition of normal'.
ordinary way of being human. Paul Gilroy similarly spells out the political consequences, in the British
Some efforts are now being made to rectify this, to see that the norm context, of the way that whiteness both disappears behind and is sub­
too is constructed, although only with masculinity has anything ap­ sumed into other identities. He discusses the way that the language of
proaching a proliferation of texts begun. Perhaps it is worth signalling 'the nation' aims to be unifying, permitting even socialists an appeal in
here, before proceeding, two ofthe pitfalls in the path of such work, twO terms of 'we' and 'our' 'beyond the margins of sectional interest', but
convolutions that especially characterise male writing about masculinity goes on to observe that:
- guilt and me too-ism. Let me state that, while writing here as a white
person about whiteness, I do not mean either to display the expiation there is a problem in these plural forms: who do they include, or, more pre­
of my guilt about being white, nor to hint that it is also awful to be white cisely for our purposes, do they help to reproduce blackness and Englishness
r~

l
46 as mutua{ly exclusive categories? .. why are contemporary appeals to 'the for white peiformers in films such as Brief Encounter, say, or Ordinary 4',
people'in danger of transmitting themselves as appeals to the white people?' People (if these are unimaginable played by black actors, what does this
tell us about the characteristics of whiteness?) or, related to this, consid­
On the other hand, if the invisibility of whiteness colonises the defini· eration ofwhat ideas ofwhiteness are implied by such widespread obser­
tion of other norms - class, gender, heterosexuality, nationality and so vations as that Sidney Poitier or Diana Ross, say, are to all intents and
on - it also masks whiteness as itself a category. White domination is purposes 'white'. What all these approaches share, however, is reference
then hard to grasp in terms of the characteristics and practices of while to that which is not white, as if only non-whiteness can give whiteness
people. No one would deny that, at the very least, there are advantages any substance. The reverse is not the case - studies ofimages of blacks,
to being white in Western societies, but it is only avowed racists who Native Americans, Jews and other ethnic minorities do not need the .
have a theory which attributes this to inherent qualities ofwhite people. comparative element that seems at this stage indispensable for the study
Otherwise, whiteness is presented more as a case of historical accident, of whites.
rather than a characteristic cultural/historical construction, achieved
through white domination.
The colourless multi-colouredness of whiteness secures white power ***
by making it hard, especially for white people and their media, to 'see' ,
whiteness. This, of course, also makes it hard to analyse. It is the way The representation of white qua white begins to come into focus - in
that black people are marked as black (are not just 'people') in represent­ mainstream cinema, for a white spectator - in films in which non-white
ation that has made it relatively easy to analyse their representation, characters playa significant role. I want to look at three very different
whereas white people - not there as a category and everywhere every· examples here - Jezebel (USA, Warner Brothers, 1938), Simba (GB,
thing as a fact - are difficult, ifnot impossible, to analyse qua white. The Rank Studios, 1955) and Night of the Living Dead (USA, 1969). Each is
subject seems to fall apart in your hands as soon as you begin. Any characteristic of the particular genre and period to which it belongs.
instance of white representation is always immediately something more Jezebel is a large-budget Hollywood feature film (said to have been
specific - Brief Encounter is not about white people, it is about English intended to rival Gone with the Wind) built around a female star, Bette
middle-class people; The Godfather is not about white people, it is aboul Davis; its spectacular pleasures are those of costume and decor, of gra­
Italian-American people; but The Color Purple is about black people, cious living, and its emotional pleasures those of tears. Simba is a film
before it is about poor, southern US people. made as part ofRank's bid to produce films that might successfully chal­
This problem clearly faced the makers of Being Whire, a pioneering lenge Hollywood at the box office, built around a male star, Dirk
attempt to confront the notion of white identity. The opening vox pop Bogarde; its spectacular pleasures are those of the travelogue, its emo­
sequence vividly illustrates the problem. Asked how they would define tional ones excitement and also the gratification of seeing 'issues' (here,
themselves, the white interviewees refer easily to gender, age, national· the Mau-Mau in Kenya) being dealt with. Nighr of the Living Dead is a
ity or looks but never to ethnicity. Asked if they think of themselves as cheap, independently-produced horror film with no stars; its spectacu­
, Plul Gilroy, Th....
Ai"·1 No B/aele in rh, white, most say that they don't, though one or two speak of being lar and emotional pleasures are those of shock, disgust and suspense,
Union ]ocJr, London, 'proud' or 'comfortable' to be white. In an attempt to get some white along with the evident political or social symbolism that has aided its
Hutchinson, 1987, pp
55·56. See 1110 lhe
people to explore what being white means, the video assembles a group cult reputation.
Irguments lbout to talk about it and it is here that the problem ofwhite people's inability The differences between the three films are important and will inform
feminism Ind ethnicity
in Hlze! Carby, 'White to see whiteness appears intractable. Sub-categories of whiteness (Irish· the ways in which they represent whiteness. There is some point in try· 6 SeeT E Perkins,
'Rethinking
Womln Listen! Bilek ness, Jewishness, Britishness) take over, so that the particularity of ing to see this continuity across three, nonetheless significantly differ­ Stereotypes' in
Feminism Ind the
Boundaries of
whiteness itself begins to disappear; then gradually, it seems almost ent, films. There is no doubt that part of the strength and resilience of Michele Birrell et II
(eds), R.p",,,,'o,io.
Sisterhood' in Centre inexorably, the participants settle in to talking with confidence aboul stereotypes of non-dominant groups resides in their variation and and Cultural Practice,
for Contemporary
Cultural Studies, TAl
what they know: stereotypes of black people. flexibility - stereotypes are seldom found in a pure form and this is part New York, Croom
Helm, pp 135·59;
Empi" Srrik.. Bock, Yet perhaps this slide towards talking about blackness gives us a clue of the process by which they are naturalised, kept alive. 6 Yet the Steve Nelle, 'The
London, Hutchinson,
1982, pp 212·23.
as to where we might begin to see whiteness - where its difference from strength of white representation, as I've suggested, is the apparent Sime Old Story',
Scrttn Education
blackness is inescapable and at issue. I shall look here at examples of absence altogether of the typical, the sense that being white is co­ AutumnlWinter 1979/
mainstream cinema whose narratives are marked by the fact of ethnic terminous with the endless plenitude of human diversity. Ifwe are to see 80, nos 32·33, pp
5 John 0 ThomplOn, 33·38. For I practicll
'Screen Acting Ind the difference. Other approaches likelf·t"o yield interesting results include: the historical, cultural and political limitations (to put it mildly) of white example see the British
Commutation Test l • the study of the characterisation of whites in Third World or diaspora Film Institute study
SeT"" Summer 1978,
world domination, it is important to see similarities, typicalities, within
pick, Th. Dumb Biondi
Yol19 no 2, pp 55·70. cinema; images of the white race in avowedly racist and fascist cinema; the seemingly infinite variety of white representation. S'ITIoryp•.
the use of the 'commutation test'5, the imaginary substitution of black All three films share a perspective that associates whiteness with
8 order, rationality, rigidity, qualities brought out by the contrast with also invisible, everything and nothing. It is from this that the films' fas­ 49
black disorder, irrationality and looseness. It is their take on this which cinations derive. I shall discuss them here in the order in which they
differs. Simba operates with a clear black·white binarism, holding out most clearly attempt to hang on to some justification of whiteness, start­
the possibility that black people can learn white values but fearing that ing, then, with Simba and ending with Night.
white people will be engulfed by blackness. Jezebel is far more ambiva­
lent, associating blackness with the defiance of its female protagonist ­
whom it does not know whether to condemn or adore, Night takes the 'Simba'
hint of critique of whiteness in Jezebel and takes it to its logical conclu·
sion, where whiteness represents not only rigidity but death. Simba is a characteristic product of the British cinema between about
What these films also share, which helps to sharpen further the sense 1945 and 1965 - an entertainment film 'dealing with' a serious issue. 91t
of whiteness in them, is a situation in which white domination is con­ is a colonial adventure film, offering the standard narrative pleasures of
tested, openly in the text of Simba and explicitly acknowledged in Jeze. adventure with a tale of personal growth. The hero, Alan (Bogarde),
bel. The narrative of Simba is set in motion by the Mau-Mau challenge arrives in Kenya from England to visit his brother on his farm, finds he
to British occupation, which also occasions set pieces of debate on the has been killed by the Mau-Mau and stays to sort things out (keep the
issues of white rule and black responses to it; the imminent decline of farm going, find out who killed his brother, quell the Mau-Mau).
slavery is only once or twice referred to directly in Jezebel, but the film Because the Mau-Mau were a real administrative and ideological prob­
can assume the audience knows that slavery was soon ostensibly to dis· lem for British imperialism at the time of the film's making, Simba also
appear from the southern states. Both films are suffused with the sense has to construct a serious discursive context for these pleasures (essen­
ofwl]ite rule being at an end, a source ofdefinite sorrow in Simba, but in tially a moral one, to do with the proper way to treat native peoples;
Jezebel producing that mixture of disapproval and nostalgia character· . toughness versus niceness). It does this partly through debates and dis­
istic of the white representation of the ante-bellum South. Night makes cussions, partly through characters cleaily representing what the film
no direct reference to the state of ethnic play but, as I shall argue below, takes to be the range of possible angles on the subject (the bigoted
it does make implicit reference to the black uprisings that were part of whites, the liberal whites, the British-educated black man, the despotic
the historical context of its making, and which many believed would black chief) but above all through the figure of the hero, whose adven­
alter irrevocably the nature of power relations between black and white lUres and personal growth are occasioned, even made possible, through
people in the USA. the process of engaging with the late colonial situation. The way this
The presence ofblack people in all three films allows one to see white­ . situation is structured by the film and the way Alan/Bogarde rises to the
ness as whiteness, and in this way relates to the existential psychology occasion display the qualities of whiteness.
that is at the origins of the interest in 'otherness' as an explanatory con· Simba is founded on the 'Manicheism delirium' identified by Frantz
cept in the representation of ethnicity,' Exi:stential psychology, prin­ Fanon as characteristic ofthe colonialist sensibility 10; it takes what Paul
cipally in the work ofJean-Paul Same, had proposed a model of human Gilroy refers to as an 'absolutist view of black and white cultures, as
7 See Frantz Fanon,
growth whereby the individual self becomes aware of itself as a self by fixed, mutually impermeable expressions of racial and national identity,
Black SkiN, Whi" perceiving its difference from others. It was other writers who suggested [which] is a ubiquitous theme in racial "common sense" 'II. The film is
Mask" London, Pluto, 9 Sec John Hill, Sex,
~ 986;Edward Said,
that this process, supposedly at once individual and universal, was in organised around a rigid binarism, with white standing for modernity, Class and Realism,
Orinrtalism t London. fact socially specific - Simone de Beauvoir arguing t'hat it has to do with 'reason, order, stability, and black standing for backwardness, irrational­ London, British Film
Routledge and Kegan ,Institute, 1986, chaps
Paul,1978; Homi K
the construction ofthe male ego, Frantz Fanon relating it to the colonial ity, chaos and violence. This binarism is reproduced in every detail of 4 and 5.
Bhabha, 'The Other encounter of white and black. What I want to stress here is less .this the film's mise-en-scene. A sequence of two succeeding scenes illustrates
Qucstion - the somewhat metaphysical dimension 8, more the material basis for the this clearly - a meeting of the white settlers to discuss the emergency,
Stereotype and 10 Frantz. Fanon , op cit,
COIOftllt Discount't shifts and anxieties in the representation of whiteness suggested by followed by a meeting of the Mau-Mau. The whites' meeting takes place p 183.
Serif" November· Simba, Jezebel and Night. in early evening, in a fully lit room; characters that speak are shot with
December 1983, vol 24
no 6, pp 18·36. The three films relate to situations in which whites hold power in standard high key lighting so that they are fully visible; everyone sits in II Paul Gilroy, op Cil, p
society, but are materially dependent upon black people. All three films rows and although there is disagreement, some of it hot-tempered and 61; see Errol
Lawrence, 'In the
8 See Bonila Parry, suggest an awareness of this dependency - weakly in Simba, strongly emotional, it is expressed in grammatical discourse in a language the Abundance of WAler
'Problems in Current but still implicitly in Jezebel, inescapably in Night. It is this actual British viewer can understand; moreover, the meeting consists of the Fool is Thirsty:
Theories or Colonial Sociology and Black
Discouno', Oxford dependency ofwhite on black in a context ofcontinued white power and nothing but speech. The black meeting, on the other hand, takes place at Pathology', in Cenlre
Lirerary RlfJi"", vol 9, privilege that throws the legitimacy of white domination into question. 'dead oftlight, out ofdoors, with all characters in shadow; even the Mau­ for Contemporary
nos 1·2, 1987, pp Cuhural Studies, op
27·58. What is called for is a demonstration of the virtues of whiteness that Mau leader is lit with extreme sub-Expressionist lighting that drama­ cit, pp 95·142.
would justify continued domination, but this is a problem ifwhiteness is tises and distorts his face; grouping is in the form of a broken, uneven
 l

its source to find a white man lying covered in blood on the ground. The had turned him down, telling him, as he recalls on the drive to his 53
52
black man kneels by his side, apparently about to help him, but then, to brother's farm, that he had 'no sense of responsibility'. Now he realises
the sound of a drum-roll on the soundtrack, draws his machete and that she was right; in the course of the film he will learn to be respon­
plunges it (offscreen) into the wounded man. He then walks back to his sible in the process of dealing with the Mau-Mau, and this display of
bike and rides off. Here is encapsulated the fear that ensues if you can't growth will win him Mary.
see black men behaving as black men should, the deceptiveness of a But this is a late colonial text, characterised by a recognition that the
black man in Western clothes riding a bike. This theme is then reiter· Empire is at an end, and not unaware of some kinds ofliberal critique of
ated throughout the mm. Which of the servants can be trusted? How colonialism. So Simba takes a turn that is far more fully explored by, say,
can you tell who is Mau·Mau and who not? Why should Alan trust Black Narcissus (1947) orthe Granada TV adaptation of The Jewel in the
Peter? Crown (1982). Here, maturity involves the melancholy recognition of
This opening sequence is presented in one long take, using panning. failure. This is explicitly stated, by Sister Clodagh in Black Narcissus, to
As the man rides off, the sound of a plane is heard, the camera pans up be built into the geographical conditions in which the nuns seek to estab­
and there is the first cut ofthe film, to a plane flying through the clouds. lish their civilising mission ('I couldn't stop the wind from blowing'); it
There follows (with credits over) a series of aerial shots of the African is endlessly repeated by the nice whites in The Jewel in the Crown
landscape, in one of which a plane's shadow is seen, and ending with ('There's nothing I can do!') and symbolised in the lace shawl with but­
shots of white settlement and then the plane coming to land. Here is terflies 'caught in the net' that keeps being brought out by the charac­
another aspect of the film's binarism. The credit sequence uses the ters. I have already suggested the ways in which liberalism is marginal­
dynamics ofediting following the more settled feel ofthe pre.credit long ised and shown to fail in Simba. More than this, the hero also fails to
take; it uses aerial shots moving through space, rather than pans with realise the generically promised adventure experiences: he is unable to
their fixed vantage point; it emphasises the view from above, not that keep his late brother's farm going, nor does he succeed in fighting off a
from the ground, and the modernity ofair travel after the primitivism of man stealing guns from his house; he rails to catch the fleeing leader of
the machete. It also brings the hero to Africa (as we realise when we see the Mau-Mau, and is unable to prevent them from destroying his house
Bogarde step off in the first post-credit shot), brings the solution to the and shooting Peter. The film ends with his property in flames and - a
problems of deceptive,unfixed appearances set up by the pre-credit touch common to British social conscience films - with a shot of a young
sequence. black boy who symbolises the only possible hope for the future.
Simba's binarism both establishes the differences between black and The repeated failure of narrative achievement goes along with a sense
white and creates the conditions for the film's narrative pleasures - the ofwhite helplessness in the face of the Mau-Mau (the true black threat),
disturbance of the equilibrium of clear-cut binarism, the resultant Con­ most notably in the transition between the two meeting scenes discussed
flict that the hero has to resolve. His ability to resolve it is part of his above. Alan has left the meeting in anger because one of the settlers has
whiteness, just as whiteness is identified in the dynamism of the credit criticised the way his brother had dealt with the Africans (too soft);
sequence (which in turn relates to the generic expectations ofadventure) Mary joins him, to comfort him. At the end of their conversation, there
and in the narrative of personal growth that any colonial text with pre· is a two-shot ofthem, with Mary saying of the situation, 'it's like a flood,
tensions also has. The Empire provided a narrative space for the realisa­ we're caught in it'. This is accompanied by the sound of drums and is
tion of manhood, both as action and maturation.l~ The colonial land· immediately followed by a slow dissolve to black people walking
scape is expansive, enabling the hero to roam and giving us the enter· through the night towards the Mau-Mau meeting. The drums and the
tainment ofaction; it is unexplored, giving him the task ofdiscovery and dissolve enact Mary's words, that the whites are helpless in the face of .
us the pleasures of mystery; it is uncivilised, needing taming, providing the forces of blackness.
the spectacle of power; it is difficult and dangerous, testing his machis· Simba is, then, an endorsement of the moral superiority of white
mo, providing us with suspense. In other words, the colonial landscape values of reason, order and boundedness, yet suggests a loss of belief in
provides the occasion for the realisation ofwhite male virtues, which are their efficacy. This is a familiar trope of conservatism. At moments,
not qualities of being but of doing - acting, discovering, taming, con­ though, there are glimpses of something else, achieved inadvertently
15 cr, Stuart Hall, 'The
White. or their Eyes: quering. At the same time, colonialism, as a social, political and econom­ perhaps through the casting of Dirk Bogarde. It becomes explicit in the
Racist Ideologie. and ic system, even in fictions, also carries with it challenges of responsibi. scene between Mary and Alan just mentioned, when Alan says to Mary,
the Media' in George
Bridges and Rosalind lity, ofthe establishment and maintenance oforder, ofthe application of 'I was suddenly afraid of what 1 was feeling', referring to the anger and
BrunI (eds), Silver reason and authority to situations. These, too, are qualities of white hatred that the whole situation is bringing out in him and, as Mary says,
Liningl, London.
Lawrence and manhood that are realised in the proc.ess of the colonial text, and very everyone else. The implication is that the situation evokes in whites the
Wishart, 1981, pp explicitly in Simba. When Alan arrives at Nairobi, he is met by Mary, a kind of irrational violence supposedly specific to blacks. Of course,
28·52. being white means being able to repress it and this is what we seem to
woman to whom he had proposed when she was visiting England; she
54 see in Alan throughout the film. Such repression constitutes the stoic 55
16 See Andy Medhurst, glory of the imperial hero, but there is something a,bout Bogarde in the
'Oirk Bogarde' in
CharJ~ Barr I 111/ Our
part that makes it seem less than admirable or desirable. Whether this is
Ytltn-dayl, London. suggested by his acting style, still and controlled, yet with fiercely grind­
Brilish Film Institute,
1986. pp 146-54,
ing jaws, rigidly clenched hands and very occasional sudden Outbursts of
shouting, or by the way Rank was grooming him against the grain ofhis
earlier, sexier image (including its gay overtones)16, it suggests a notion
of whiteness as repression that leads us neatly on to Jezebel.

'Jezebel'

Like Simba, Jezebel depicts a white society characterised by order and

rigidity, here expressed principally through codes of behaviour and Ablack character
rules of conduct embodied in set-piece receptions, dinner parties and, intruding in the
balls. This does contrast with the bare glimpses we get of black life in frame, while white
people talk: selling
the film, but Jezebel also explores the ways in which whiteness is related nowers in New
to blackness, materially and emotionally dependent on it yet still hold­ Orleans,
ing sway over it.
vision to pour Pres' wine, literally embodying the fact of slave labour.
Compositionally, Jezebel frequently foregrounds black people - scenes
The film's insistence upon the presenq: of black people is important in
often open with the camera moving from a black person (a woman selling
its perception and construction of the white South. As Jim Pines puts it,
flowers in New Orleans, a servant carrying juleps, 'a boy pulling on a rope
'black characters do not occupy a significant dramatic function in the
to operate a ceiling fan) across or towards white characters; black people ,n
film, but their social role nevertheless plays an explicit and relevant part 17 Jim Pints, Blacks
often intrude into the frame while white characters talk. This is particu­ in the conflict that arises between the principal white characters'I,. Film,. London. Sludio
larly noticeable during a dinner-table discussion ofthe future ofslaveryj Vista, 1975, p 54,
Jezebel is distantly related, through the sympathies ofits stars, director
when one of the characters, Pres (Henry Fonda), says that the South
and production studio, to progressive ideas on race, making it, as Pines
will be defeated by machines triumphing over 'unski1led slave labour', 18 ibid, p 55, See also
says, 'within the plantation movie tradition ... undoubtedly the most Thomas Cripps. Slow
the chief black character, Cato (Lou Payton), leans across our field of Fad. /. Black, New
liberal-in'clined"8. These ideas have to do with the belief or suspicion
York, Oxford
that black people have in some sense more 'life' than whites. This idea, University Press,
and its ambivalences, have a very long history which cannot detain us 1977, pp 299, 304,
here. It springs from ideas of the closeness of non-European (and even
non-metropolitan) peoples to nature, ideas which were endemic to those 19 S<e Cedric Robinson,
Black Marri'm.
processes of European expansion variously termed exploration, nation­ London. Zed Books,
building and colonialism. 19 Expansion into other lands placed the 1983,
humans encountered there as part of the fauna of those lands, to be con­
strued either as the forces of nature that had to be subjugated or, for • 20 See George
'liberals, the model of sweet natural Man uncontaminated by civilisa­ Frederickson, The
Black Imag. in th.
tion. At the same time, ideas of nature have become central to Western Whirt Mind, New
thought about being human, such that concepts of human life itselfhave York. Harper and

Row, 1972; David

become inextricable from concepts of nature. Thus the idea that non­ Levering Lewis When l

whites are more natural than whites also comes to suggest that they have Hdrlem Was in Vogue,
New York, Knopf,
more 'life', a logically meaningless but commonsensically powerful 1981.
notion.
Jezebel relates to a specific liberal variation on this way of thinking, a 21 I have discussed this
tradition in which Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Harlem Renaissance are in 'Four Films of
A sel piece dinner party Lana Turner MOfJ;t,
l

in J'uW: whiteness
key reference points 20 , as is the role of Annie in Sirk's Imitation of no 25, pp 30·52,
,

dependenl on blacknm, Life: 21 Ethel Mannin's statement may be taken as emblematic:

yel holding sway 0."
ii,