Zora, the author of Dust Trucks on a Road, was born in 1891 in Notasulga, Alabama and died in 1960. She was regarded as one of the best and contemporary American novelists, anthropologists, and folklorists of the Harlem Renaissance (Meisenhelder, n.p). While she was three, her family moved to Eatonville Florida, one of the first all-black towns to be established in the United States. This was a place where the blacks existed independently and as they desired. Due to this, Zora often referred to it as her birthplace. The death of her mother was the beginning of her misery as her father remarried a younger woman. The experiences she went through as she grew from girlhood to womanhood lay the foundation for her literary work. Together, her father and the stepmother sent Zora to a faraway school and with time, they stopped paying for her tuition, which led to her expulsion. Her desire for independence made her seek employment at a time when getting a job for a woman was hard. She secured a job as a maid, and later as an assistant to a lead singer. She was able to go back to school where she attended the Morgan College and then joined Howard University where she specialized in writing and anthropology.
Some of the characters used by the author to develop the theme of racism and sexism include Zora’s father, her mother, the step mom and her allies. The father was a mayor and before the mother’s death kept his family together. The mother, on the other hand, was loving and always encouraged her to “jump at de sun” on noticing that Zora had a desire to explore the outside world (Hurston 67). Her death marked the beginning of the author’s miserable life. The new stepmother was in constant conflict with the author and, as mentioned, she and Zora’s father send Zora to a faraway school. These are the main characters that helped Zora develop her autobiography.
Four events brought out in the autobiography make the view of sexism and racism clear. The historical I event which triggers the author to write about the events that took place previously is the first event. The narrator I is the second event, and it stands for the life of the narrator herself. The protagonist in the book forms the object I, which is the third event, and ideological I is the final of the events. This factor tends to embody all the other levels, hence bringing out the author’s self that is created from all these levels when intertwined. The historical I speak of the dominant American group, but at the same time grounding the culture of the African Americans (Praseedha 51).
The historical I know of the class, race, and gender that subjected the African Americans to inferiority, but at the same time having the knowledge of the resourcefulness and cultural strengths of this particular race. The author notes that the slaves from Africa came from different cultures and tribes, but it is the everyday circumstances that made them build a common culture that was still regarded as inferior by the dominant culture. As she advocates on the need to drop the ideologies of race, class and gender, the historical I used by Zora chooses to concentrate on those incidents that show the adaptive skills conveyed by her and the entire group. Object I is applied to explain the dominant political ideologies hence playing the role of a protagonist in her endeavors. The narrator I, on the other hand, is able to deal with the expectations of the author as she tries to achieve identity through the rhetoric leading. This author decides to let the reader take part in the social, political and religious strategies, which they use to identify with her scientific view. This event lets the reader veer away from Zora’s childhood life, hence helps disrupt time, logicality and place. The event introduces Eatonville as Zora’s birthplace a place purely occupied by the African Americans (Praseedha 52).
Racism is not a biological factor, but a social and political reality. The race is not defined by one’s skin color, whether black, white or brown, but by the political and social realities that describe the evolution of the societies that existed in the western history. Some of these realities include the American institution of the slave trade, the Atlantic slave trade and the colonization of Africa by the Europeans. In her autobiography, though, Zora breezily dismisses the issue of racism, which was one of the factors that contributed to the vice of racism by claiming that the whole topic of racism was pure fiction: “Racial solidarity is a fiction and always will be. Therefore, I have lifted the word of my mouth” (Hurston 329). In her efforts to dismiss the issue of racism, she consequently dismisses the issue of slavery too by stating that she observed futility at the grave of a white man who has not existed for a long time. This means that she thinks slavery is also mere fiction. This is not so as historically slavery is not fiction. The African Americans were enslaved by the Americans who believed that their race was superior to the blacks and other minority races.
Sexism, on the other hand, is simple discrimination against women by men. When a woman faces the social or cultural exclusion, this is referred to as sexism. History has attitudes, laws, stereotypes and taboos that require the woman to be subordinate, minor and silent. Ethnography made Zora’s narration one that combines the terms black, artist and woman together, a term that was not common during the Harlem Renaissance. With this, she can bring out the concept of sexism that dominated the society. This art and science helped Zora describe the daily routine of the people or culture she was studying. Through the art, she was able to place issues that touched on gender as primary concerns in the ethos of the African American society.
Through her story, the author can present the conditions of the culture in the American ethos. While still a young girl, the author’s father notes that her intelligent mind and eloquence would get her to the hanging man if not regulated. He, therefore, advises the mother to whip her, but she declined (“Dust tracks on a road”). This shows that women were expected to be submissive and stupid hence sexism. The book focuses mainly on the cultural subjugations and restrictions something that grounds the identity of the writer as it narrowly focuses on gender issue and racial discrimination. Very few details bring out the issue of gender inequality and racial tension as the book “stands as a monument of resistance to all impositions of specific form of visibility” (Hurston 158). This means that Zora’s story is more of an autoethnography instead of an autobiography, which is a recreation of her life by a member of the culture in the African American society.
The blacks did not receive the autobiography sentiments well as they felt that Zora was lying. Arna Bon Temps, for example, brings out the relationship between Zora’s relationship with the White describing how the whites saw her as a “colored girl the kind they wanted to encourage” (Hurston 158) an elaborate truth that racism and sexism were widespread. The truth is Zora existed at a period when segregationist was at its peak. The African Americans were looked down upon and seen as lazy, irresponsible, more violent and less intelligent “low dogs” who blamed the white Americans for their problems. The author, however, dispels these positions by stating that there were African Americans societies that thrived despite the widespread discrimination. She goes further to state that the whites and the blacks have for a long time coexisted side by side without any enmity, thus declaring further that the issue of racism was non-existent. In her other writings, however, such as the race leaders, Zora condemns leaders who propagate racism by not advocating for equality when they come into contact with the white leaders. To some extent, she advocates for violent confrontation to demand equality.
The Harlem Renaissance, a period that saw the growth of Zora’s career, integrated various writers. The writers included Counter Cullen and Langston Hughes and celebrated the black culture but were afraid that their criticism would make them not to be received well by the dominant culture, which was the white culture. This is proof that there was widespread racism, something Zora rubs off in her autobiography. Unlike most of the writers of the Harlem Renaissance, Zora felt it was her duty to write on the American “furthest down” instead of sending political messages, which would show that like other writers, she had a race problem. According to Fox-Genovese the author of my statue, my self it shows that there is a general tension in “black women’s relations to various dominant discourses” (198) as shown in Hurston’s Dust Tracks. Fox thus brings out the issue of racism, something Zora tends to hide. During the early twentieth century, Zora traveled to the interiors of the South America in search of information on the cultures of the black people. She collected stories and folklore that were unheard of by the black women. This move was called the Negros farthest down a period when she sought to showcase both the white and the black culture.
In conclusion, Zora’s autobiography was not informative on the issue of sexism and racism. She did not bring out the traditional sense of evidence as she kept insisting, as there was peaceful co-existence between the whites and the African Americans. The book, therefore, has had little impact on the ideologies discussed in the essay as the reader does not attain the real picture of the Harlem Renaissance. Zora’s autobiography is, therefore, a fail as it is a text that shows less of the author’s talent.
Works Cited
Dust tracks on a road. 21 August 2012. Web. 24 February 2016 <https://literarychronicles.wordpress.com/2012/07/21/dust-tracks-on-a-road-by-zora-neale-hurston-3/>.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Dust Tracks On A Road. Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott & Co, 1942. Print.
Meisenhelder, Susan. Gender, Race & Class in Zora Neale Hurston's Politics. n.d. Web. 24 February 2016 <https://www.solidarity-us.org/node/2838>.
Praseedha, G. " Zora Neale Hurston: Repositioning the ''blacks" and the "female"." 2010. Shodhganga. Web. 24 February 2016 <http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/20154/10/10_chapter%202.pdf>.
