(1) During the debate, I was reminded of a text by Allan Johnson, a text I am reading for two classes with Dr. Aden this semester. It is called Privilege, Power, and Difference. As one might expect from a book with this title, it discusses racism at length. Johnson posits that everyone has "isms" inherent in them (sexism, racism, heterosexism, etc.) It is not possible to escape them. These "isms" exist because we are all different and we all have opinions about what is good and bad. "Isms" exist because culture tells them to exist and because we let certain people take control, for some reason (e.g., movies depict women as being passive, men and women treat each other differently in different cultures, and so on). Over the course of history, sets of accepted standards arise in each culture; in the US and Europe, the main standards seem to be white, male, and heterosexual. Keep in mind that there are many different characteristics. The European men in the Congo, including Marlow, thus, have all grown up in that kind of environment, with certain standards of what they deem to be civility and certain images of barbarism, savagery, etc. One of Johnson's main points is that people allow racism to happen by not doing anything about it; they might take advantage of privileges they receive as white male heterosexuals, for example, when they know that someone else, equally qualified, could not get them ONLY because of skin color or gender (and so on). One might also take privilege for granted: a white woman looks in the mirror and sees a woman, and a woman of color sees a "black woman." There is always a qualifier. (There are many other points that "prove" that people are racist, or have racism in them, but this post is already long enough, so I'll stop there.)
Okay, therefore...
(2) Marlow does not seem to try to do anything about racism, and through his words, he even perpetuates it. He does this by describing Africans derogatorily/negatively. Thus, even if Marlow later says that the Africans are, in fact, human, he does so in a way that still allows his bias and his racist attitude to show through: "We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there—there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were—No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it—this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity—like yours—the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly." He goes on to say more, but I'll stop there. In any case, my point is that, although Marlow mentions that the natives are free instead of shackled, he thinks of them as monsters in EITHER case. Then the idea that these people are NOT inhuman, that they ARE human, is "the WORST of it." He seems to be saying that thinking they are human is a bad/disgusting/blasphemous/etc. idea, and the comment is, therefore, racist, at least to me. He talks about the erratic behavior of the Africans. He says that it is thrilling to think that such a creature (as he might say) could be in the category of human, that such a being could be related to him REMOTELY (here, he keeps the Africans at a distance). Finally, he describes the situation, or perhaps the Africans themselves, as ugly (this part is kind of ambiguous). So, he is distancing his fellow humans from himself because he originally perceives them to be ugly, wild monsters. Even after thinking about it and relenting to their actually being human, he cannot seem to say that they are human beings without using some kind of qualifier. They are humans ONLY on a technicality. THIS, fellow bloggers, is racism.
Okay, so what did I miss?
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