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RACE AND RACISM IN

AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE

Dr. Vijay D. Misal

Assistant professor of English
Dept. Moreshwar College, Bhokardan

ABSTRACT in this system the people were

African-American literature is exploited by white people. They
designed with a mission to make were not considered as human being
their consciousness known to the in the society so they suffered a lot
world. Its aim is to change social, from social injustice and inequality
political, economical aspects of and these problems were reflected
society. African-American literature through writing in African American
has proceeded along with different English literature. Thus, in this
paths and taken different turnings. present research paper we are going
There were a lot of issues held in the to focus on race and racism concept.
African American countries like a KEYWORDS
race, racism, identity, Ethnicity, African-American literature, race,
racial discrimination, slavery racism, identity, Ethnicity
system, Racial segregation, etc. thus

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RESEARCH PAPER
Introduction :
The study of racism in Afro-American English literature requires an examination of the
social structure of “racial” groups and racial inequalities. Racism is the belief that groups of
humans possess different behavioural traits corresponding to physical appearance and can be
divided based on the superiority of one race over another. Modern variants of racism are
often based in social perceptions of biological differences among the people. These views
can take the form of social actions, practices or beliefs, or political systems in which different
races are ranked as inherently superior or inferior to each other, based on presumed shared
inheritable traits, abilities, or qualities.
Definition of Race and Racism :
The concept of race corresponds to occupy a highly argumentative area of academic debate.
The word „race‟ has been associated with ideas of inferiority and superiority, hierarchy and
persecution. Race as a science, race as a pseudo-science, race as a social construct. As Miles
(1993) argues, whatever the manner in which the term is used it implies.
“an acceptance of the existence of biological differences between human beings,
differences which express the existence of distinct, self reproducing groups.”
“Race refers to a category of people who share certain inherited physical
characteristics, such as skin color, facial features, and stature. A key question about
race is whether it is more of a biological category or a social category.”
Most people think of race in biological terms, and for more than three hundred years, or ever
since white Europeans began colonizing nations filled with people of color, people have been
identified as belonging to one race or another based on certain biological features. It is now
widely accepted that this classification system was in fact created for social and political
reasons. There are actually more genetic and biological differences within the racial groups
defined by society than between different groups.
When we defined Racism concept so, it is a relatively modern concept, arising in the
European age of imperialism, the subsequent growth of capitalism, and especially the
Atlantic slave trade. This means that, although the concepts of race and racism are based on

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observable biological characteristics, any conclusions drawn about race on the basis of those
observations are heavily influenced by cultural ideologies. Racism, as an ideology, exists in a
society at both the individual and institutional level. However Racism defined as..
“an ideology of racial group superiority that justifies or prescribes a system of racial
domination or exploitation, racism is perpetuated by the beliefs and behaviours of
individuals and by the institutions in which they are embedded.”
“The marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially
constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people.”
Racism is a combination of systems, institutions and factors that advantage white people and
for people of color, cause widespread harm and disadvantages in access and opportunity. One
person or even one group of people did not create systemic racism, rather it is grounded in
the history of our laws and institutions which were created on a foundation of white
supremacy exists in the institutions and policies that advantage white people and
disadvantage people of color; and takes places in interpersonal communication and behaviour
(e.g., slurs, bullying, offensive language) that maintains and supports systemic inequities and
systemic racism.
In the above definition, the term “white supremacy” refers to the systematic marginalization
or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that
privileges people who identify as white. It does not refer to extremist ideologies which
believe that white people are genetically or culturally superior to non-whites and/or that
white people should live in a whites-only society. It is certainly easy to see that people in the
United States and around the world differ physically in some obvious ways. The most
noticeable difference is skin tone: Some groups of people have very dark skin, while others
have very light skin. Using such physical differences as their criteria, scientists at one point
identified as a race. In America, racism spread around in the country especially in south and
black people were treated rudely. They did not have full rights as the white citizens. The
Africans were considered as ruthless and ugly people. Many black people lost their right and
given different names like colored, Negros, Black, African American.

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Historical examples of attempts to place people in racial categories further underscore the
social constructionism of race. In the South during the time of slavery, the skin tone of slaves
lightened over the years as babies were born from the union, often in the form of rape, of
slave owners and other whites with slaves. When slaves were first brought to the Americas
almost four hundred years ago, many more were taken to Brazil, where slavery was not
abolished until 1888, than to the land that eventually became the United States. Brazil was
then a colony of Portugal, and the Portuguese used Africans as slave labor. Just as in the
United States, a good deal of interracial reproduction has occurred since those early days,
much of it initially the result of rape of women slaves by their owners, and Brazil over the
centuries has had many more racial intermarriages than the United States. So people are to be
treated with dignity, they require economic rights, social rights including education, and the
rights to cultural and political participation and civil liberty. . However its moment is struggle
for human rights and against exploitation of white people.
Race and Racism in African American Literature :
This research paper focuses on how „race and racism‟ are evidently brought out in the
African American English literature. African American literature is grounded in the
experience of black people in the United States. Even though African Americans have long
claimed an American identity, during most of the United States history, they were not
accepted as citizens and were obviously discriminated. These all problems or issues of race
and racism were focused by authors in African American literature. Authors described their
views by writing work such as poems, drama, novels etc. and helped to capture the voice of
the nation. They have fearlessly explored racism, abuse and violence as well as love, beauty
and music. While their names and styles have changed over the years, they have been the
voices of their generations and helped inspire the generations that followed them. It is very
difficult to analysis race and racism in a single research paper so, we are focussing on few
important figures who were freshly shaping much of racial discourse.
Maya Angelou was American poet, author and activist. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri
in 1928. Often referred to as a spokesman for African Americans and women through her
many works, her gift of words connected all people who were “committed to raising the

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moral standards of living in the United States.” She was influenced by Black authors like
Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Lawrence Dunbar, her love of language
developed at a young age. Her most famous work “ I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” was
published in 1969 and became the first in seven autobiographies of Angelou‟s life. She was a
prolific poet, her words often depicted Black beauty, the strength of women and the human
spirit, and the demand for social justice. Her first collection of poems “Just Give Me a Cool
Drink of Water „fore I Diiie” was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1972, the same year she
became the first Black woman to have a screenplay produced. Writing for adults and
children, Angelou was one of several African American women at the time who explored the
Black female autobiographical tradition.
James Baldwin was born in Harlem in 1924, Though he spent most of his life living abroad
to escape the racial prejudice in the United States, James Baldwin is the typical American
writer. He was best known for his reflections on his experience as an openly gay Black man
in white America, his novels, essays and poetry make him a social critic who shared the pain
and struggle of Black Americans. His “Go Tell it on the Mountain” work was published in
1953.He described the Speaking with passion and depth about the Black struggle in America
and it has become an American classic work. In his „Giovanni‟s Room‟(1956) raised the
issues of race and homosexuality at a time when it was taboo. And during the Civil Rights
Movement, he published three of his most important collections of essays, “Notes of a Native
Son” (1955), “Nobody Knows My Name” (1961) and “The Fire Next Time” (1963). In this
way James Baldwin provided motivation for later generations of artists to speak out about the
race and gay experiences in Black America.
Amiri Baraka was Born in 1934, known as a poet, writer and political activist. Amiri Baraka
used his writing as a weapon against racism and became one of the most widely published
African American writers. He was known for his social criticism and incendiary style,
Baraka explored the anger of Black Americans and advocated scientific socialism. Often
aggressive and intended to awaken audiences to the political needs of Black Americans,
Baraka was a prominent voice in American literature. He was often focusing on Black
Liberation and White Racism, he spent his most of life for fighting the rights of African

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34 | http://www.epitomejournals.com Vol. 5, Issue 12, December 2019, ISSN: 2395-6968

Americans. His representations of race and wisdom have made him an influential part of the
Black Arts Movement along with Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez and Maya Angelou.
Richard Wright was born in Mississippi in 1908. He was best known for his novels „Native
Son and Black Boy,‟ that reflected his own struggle with poverty and coming of age journey.
This work focusing on the struggle of Blacks in America for equality and economic
advancement. His novel „Black Boy „was a personal account of growing up in the South and
eventual move to Chicago where he became a writer and joined the Communist Party.
Toni Morrison was the greatest novelist who was awarded Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize.
Toni Morrison was considered the voice of African American women. She had published
„The Bluest Eye‟ in 1970 and „Sula‟ in 1973, The Song of Solomon was the book that set her
on the course of literary success. In „The Bluest Eye‟ Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl,
prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown
eyes that set her apart, she desires for normalcy, for the light-coloured hair and blue eyes that
she believes will allow her to finally fit in. Yet as her dream grows more eager, her life
slowly starts to collapse in the face of adversity and trouble. A powerful examination of our
fascination with beauty and conformity, Toni Morrison‟s first novel asks powerful questions
about race, class, and gender with the sensitivity.
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois in his canonical work of American literature. “The
Souls of Black Folk,” the masterpiece in Du Bois‟s considerable composition, has justified
every bit of critical acclaim and clarification. It was received since its publication in 1903.
Du Bois‟s achievement was to employ two tropes that summarized both the history of a
people freed from centuries of human bondage and railing at the beginning of a new century
against the most diabolical attempts to deconstruct the transformations shaped by the 13th,
14th, and 15th Amendments and entrap African Americans once again as quasi-citizens stuck
forever in the limbo of forms of neo- enslavement.
The following writers also explained very well the concept „Race and Racism‟ in their work
such as “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral(1773) ,” by Phillis Wheatley,
“Notes on the State of Virginia (1785),” by Thomas Jefferson, “An Essay on the Causes of
Variety of Complexion and Figure in the Human Species(second edition, 1810),” by Samuel

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Stanhope Smith, “Thoughts on the Colonization of Free Blacks (1816)” by Robert Finley,
“An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829),” by David Walker, “Crania
Americana (1839),” by Samuel Morton, “The Narrative of the Life (1845),” of Frederick
Douglass, “Uncle Tom‟s Cabin (1852)” by Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Our Brother in Black:
His Freedom and His Future (1881),” by Atticus Haygood , “Race Traits and Tendencies of
the American Negro(1896),” by Frederick Hoffman , “The Color Purple (1982),” by Alice
Walker, etc.
Conclusion :
Thus, the dominant theoretical explanations of racial inequalities highlighted in African
American literature by various authors. Authors analyzed race and racism concept at the
micro-level and focused specifically on social, psychological, economical, cultural, political
and personal experiences. We find that racial discrimination is positively associated with
increased crime in large part by extending depression, hostile, views of relationships, and
disengagement from conventional norms. In this way, we can understand very well the
concept of race and racism through the African American literature.

REFERENCES
Du Bois; W.E.B. (1903). The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Bantam Classic.
Wellman, David T. (1993). Portraits of White Racism. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Dain, Bruce (2002), A Hideous Monster of the Mind : American Race Theory in the Early
Republic, Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Feagin, Joe R. (2006). Systemic Racism: A Theory of Oppression, Routledge: New York
Graves, Joseph. (2004) The Race Myth NY: Dutton
Fredrickson, George M. The Arrogance of Race : Historical perspectives on slavery, Racism
and social inequality, Middletown ,CT: Wesleyan university press 1988.

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