Telling one’s, or a community’s, story is subject to complex reductionsims of racial and sexist stereotyping. The subjugation of specific ethnicities, particularly African-Americans, and genders, particularly women, by whites and men respectively represents a clear example of unjustified exercise of power by specific groups over another. Indeed, by belittling and/or demonizing one group by another, only power can be exercised “justifiably”. There is no shortage, indeed, of lenient or more violent means by which a dominating group controls another, subjugated one. The superiority / inferiority duality is probably one most common mechanism adopted by oppressors in order to subjugate oppressed groups or individuals. In so doing, i.e. by reducing rich differences into single dualities, power structures are sustained and ‘inferior” groups and individuals remain in constant check. The case for discrimination between different groups and individuals is, moreover, based on no less reductionist, one-dimension justifications. Notably, if racial discrimination against African-Americans is based almost exclusively on skin color alone, sexist discrimination against women is based on “inherent” mental and physical inferiority of women to men. To better illustrate mechanisms of discrimination, specific examples are explored. Specifically, by a closer examination of specific classic and modem works for discriminatory practices, a clearer image can emerge of how power structures are maintained by justifying discriminatory practices. This paper aims, hence, to illustrate discriminatory practices by examining Fredrick Douglass’s “Learning to Read and Write,” Virginia Woolf’s "Shakespeare's Sister," and Chimamanda Adichie’s speech “The Danger of a Single Story”.
In “Learning to Read and Write” (Douglass), Douglass expresses eloquently how he has come to be demonized by his mistress who – having been tender and kind and was even his instructor – came to demonize him, under her husband’s instructions. If anything, learning to read and write is, to white oppressors, a “dangerous” process slaves should not experience, at all costs. Accordingly, whenever Douglass is seen reading or writing, he becomes subject to all sorts of physical and psychological humiliation. By belittlement, isolation and punishment, Doulagss – as a for-life slave, under his master’s full control – exemplifies how a racially different person can be discriminated against only based on his skin color. The slave becomes, accordingly, framed by his master’s will and whims. This is manifest in how Doulagss, a black, enslaved child, is made to sneak up and go around barriers set up by his enslaver in order to practice his newly found and enjoyable exercises of reading and writing.
Paradoxically, by learning to read and write, Doulagss experiences mixed feelings of anger, disillusionment and deep chagrin. If anything, his mental enlightenment has brought about emotional distress as he understands, gradually, how he is not inferior to his white masters but is, in fact, made to feel inferior and only because of his skin color. Interestingly, Doulagss concludes his piece by his very skill he eventually masters: writing. By so concluding, Doulagss emphasizes, rhetorically, his resistance to his master’s (not his actual one but an abstract, metaphorical white one) willful behavior. From a master’s perspective, Doulagss (not actual Fredrick Doulagss but an abstract, metaphorical black one) is not entitled to read and write because he is a slave and education, according to White Christianity, disrupts an “inevitably” hierarchical relationship between a white master and a black slave. From a slave’s perspective, slaves are just as entitled as whites to learn to read and write, an entitlement expressed metaphorically by Doulagss’s following his little master’s writing in his copybook.
In "Shakespeare's Sister” (Woolf), Woolf employs an ingenious extended metaphor in order to emphasize sexist practices under Elizabeth I. Notably, after priming readers on how women are consistently absent in Elizabethan literature, Woolf draws a parallel by imagining a hypothetical sister of Shakespeare. Denied access – or, more accurately, adequate access – to reading in order to perform house chores, Shakespeare’s sister is discriminated against by her own family because she is only a woman who is prepped for marriage. By choosing rebellion over submission, Shakespeare’s assumed sister faces a tragic fate as if to emphasize her metaphorical suicide (by fleeing away) before he actual suicide. The absence of women in Elizabethan literature is, accordingly, portrayed metaphorically by Shakespeare’s sister absence from life as if, according to Woolf, inability to express oneself in full equals actual death.
In a postmodern context, Adichie explains subtle and often coarse means of classism and sexism (TED). Mainly, by giving examples from her own life as a little girl brought up in Nigeria and later as a US college student, Adichie shows how isolation into social classes and gender-based barriers is, if anything, a gross reduction of rich, life accounts into single, incomplete stories. In her account, Adichie details her intellectual development as she learns to tell stories, not based on single accounts, but informed by multiple perspectives. Taking her personal and professional development into action, Adichie launches an initiative to spread reading and writing in Nigeria. From a face value, Adichie’s initiative could be just as any non-for-profit project aimed at addressing immediate social inequalities. At a deeper level, Adichie’s initiative is meant to address class differences and sexist practices by empowering socially disenfranchised, particularly women. True, much has been achieved on ground in Nigeria and elsewhere in order to empower disenfranchised persons and women. However, much more remains to be done. If anything, Nigerian law – and, for that matter, a host of national laws world over – needs to change underlying philosophy in gender relations area by removing discriminatory codes against women, particularly a recent law requiring women to secure husband’s approval for passport renewal. Globally, much discriminatory practices remain in place against women, practices sustained only by oppressor’s will.
Works Cited
Douglass, Fredrick. "Learning to Read and Write." Pasadena City College. ." Pasadena City College, n.d. Web. 30 May 2016.
TED. "The Danger of a Single Story." Online video clip. TED. TED, July 2009. Web. 30 May 2016.
Woolf , Virginia. "Shakespeare's Sister." Haverford College. Haverford College, n.d. Web. 30 May 2016.
