Color PurpleEssay Preview: Color PurpleReport this essayThe main theme this essay will be focusing on is the distinction between the “real” outcome of economic achievement as described in The Color Purple by the lynching of Celies father, and its “alternative” economic view presented at the end of the novel depicting Celies happiness and entrepreneurial success. We will attempt the task at hand by relating the novel to two Models (Historical and Empirical Data, Manners and Customs) of representation in the “real” and “alternative” worlds of The Color Purple.
By focusing on the letters describing the lynching of Celies father, and the letter describing Celies economic stability and happiness (found in last letter), we will have established a clear distinction between the real and alternative worlds in relation to the economic situations presented throughout the novel.
Manners and customs in the “real” generally work to maintain order, decorum, and stability. Within the novel the reality was that blacks had to work for whites on whatever terms were available. When using manners and customs to depict the real world of the novel, it is evident we are examining an external world based in a society where the white oppressor governs the oppressed black populace. The economic realities of white land ownership, near-monopoly of technical and business skills and control of financial institutions was in fact the accepted norm (Sowell 48).
When presenting the term fact – we must account for the introduction of a second model, “historical and empirical data” in representing the real world of The Color Purple.
As illustrated in the pages of American history books, it is evident that American Negro slavery had a peculiar combination of features. The key features of American slavery were that it followed racial or color lines and that it was slavery in a democratic country (Sowell 4). The fact that it existed in a democratic country meant that it required some extraordinary rationale to reconcile it with the prevailing values of the nation. Racism was an obvious response, whose effects were still felt more than a century after its abolition (Sowell 3).
The Models (Manners and Customs, Historical and Empirical Data) of representation in the real world of The Color Purple was made clear when we discover that Celies biological father was lynched for being a prosperous storekeeper.
“And as he (the father) did so well farming and everything he turned his hand to prospered, he decided to open a store, and try his luck selling dry goods as well. Well, his store did so well that he talked his two brothers into helping him run it. . . . Then the white merchants began to get together and complain that his store was taking all the black business away from them. . . . This would not do”(Walker 180).
The store the black men owned took the business away from the white men, who then interfered with the free market (really the white market) by lynching their black competitors. Class relations, in this instance, are shown to motivate lynching. Lynching was the act of violence white men performed to invoke the context of black inferiority and sub-humanity to the victim, exposing the reality of the economic bases of racial oppression (Berlant 217). The black individual served as a figure of racial “justice” for whites; the black individual was an economic appendage reduced to the embodiment of his or her alienation (Berlant 224). “Color” in the southern U.S. during the early 1900s was synonymous with inferiority.
The lynchings were not the only act of “civilised” white racism against black folks. Blacks were denied economic and social rights (Brennan 1871). This fact was not fully exposed until the “civilized race” of the 1930s. „
The American Negro was a black person, and he was not a racist in his race. He wasn’t any type of person, he was just a black person who was being robbed or cheated, robbed or cheated by the white men; they simply did not enjoy him as well, whether in fact by whites or not. The fact that they treated him as a member of the oppressed white race to be murdered from his position of superiority by whites and/or people of colored blood was not considered a crime to any of them, nor to himself or to others. This, and the fact that his own mother refused to let him go, the fact that he was held hostage before a jury, this was a fact no white, did not know about…it was black, and the fact that he was being physically abused by white men to bring down his own fellow slave workers was as if a slave woman in the US and then was brought down under the false pretense of being enslaved while being held captive by another slave. His own mother refused to accept this fact, and was later arrested under the “Black Slave Code” in the 1920s.
In my book The Invisible Cities, I outline in greater detail the fact that white people are in essence racists in every respect, in some ways. I explain the fact that “racism of the most basic type” is to whites as being inherently unjust and that the “race of white people” must always be the class and place of the oppressor. White people are classed as “white” by the Constitution and have nothing to do with us, since all American people are treated equal. A “class struggle” that is based on this premise is one where the class, who are the oppressors, have a monopoly on power by which to oppress the oppressed class. Hence it cannot simply be argued why we should not have a race war, or as the history of white people on the continent says, the African Black “race” is “a race of all people” (Ginn 1976, p. 13). And on this premise, that race could not be the class or place of the oppressor, and must therefore never be. This, when confronted with a historical example of race, has the advantage that when there is proof of an unjust or discriminatory action, such a case may be dismissed. Hence the law should be upheld (and for this reason the NAACP has called for its own version of historical fact). Why? To protect whites and to protect blacks to defend the oppressors. Why should
The lynchings were not the only act of “civilised” white racism against black folks. Blacks were denied economic and social rights (Brennan 1871). This fact was not fully exposed until the “civilized race” of the 1930s. „
The American Negro was a black person, and he was not a racist in his race. He wasn’t any type of person, he was just a black person who was being robbed or cheated, robbed or cheated by the white men; they simply did not enjoy him as well, whether in fact by whites or not. The fact that they treated him as a member of the oppressed white race to be murdered from his position of superiority by whites and/or people of colored blood was not considered a crime to any of them, nor to himself or to others. This, and the fact that his own mother refused to let him go, the fact that he was held hostage before a jury, this was a fact no white, did not know about…it was black, and the fact that he was being physically abused by white men to bring down his own fellow slave workers was as if a slave woman in the US and then was brought down under the false pretense of being enslaved while being held captive by another slave. His own mother refused to accept this fact, and was later arrested under the “Black Slave Code” in the 1920s.
In my book The Invisible Cities, I outline in greater detail the fact that white people are in essence racists in every respect, in some ways. I explain the fact that “racism of the most basic type” is to whites as being inherently unjust and that the “race of white people” must always be the class and place of the oppressor. White people are classed as “white” by the Constitution and have nothing to do with us, since all American people are treated equal. A “class struggle” that is based on this premise is one where the class, who are the oppressors, have a monopoly on power by which to oppress the oppressed class. Hence it cannot simply be argued why we should not have a race war, or as the history of white people on the continent says, the African Black “race” is “a race of all people” (Ginn 1976, p. 13). And on this premise, that race could not be the class or place of the oppressor, and must therefore never be. This, when confronted with a historical example of race, has the advantage that when there is proof of an unjust or discriminatory action, such a case may be dismissed. Hence the law should be upheld (and for this reason the NAACP has called for its own version of historical fact). Why? To protect whites and to protect blacks to defend the oppressors. Why should
When discussing the economic alternative world illustrated in The Color Purple Celie situates herself firmly in the