INTRO TO AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES
Examining the various ways Skin Color shapes the Black Experience in course literature
Behind the Veil
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Dubois explains the notion of “the veil”. The metaphor “life within the veil” denotes the shadowy yet substantial line that separated Whites from persons of African descent. Explicitly, this concept refers to the literal darker skin of Blacks as a physical delineation of Black difference from whiteness. Additionally, the veil symbolizes “lack of clarity” and addresses White inability to legitimize Black culture. Similarly, this “lack of clarity” addresses Black inability to legitimize themselves outside of the European standard. Through these concepts, Dubois articulates significant issues created from existing systems of oppression. His explanation of these ideologies acknowledges internalized prejudice about skin color as a leading contributor to larger systems of racism and oppression. Additionally, these philosophies emphasize the importance of tolerance and acceptance as a way to promote human brotherhood and eradicate inequality. Further, these concepts brilliantly analyze current systems to foretell an ominous future for world practices that emulate the above system.
David Walker's Appeal
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Walker’s work granted students the opportunity to examine additional ways scholars situate skin color in African American studies. Dissimilar to the literary reputation of Wheatley, David Walker is recognized as one of the most militant voices in early African American protest writing. Namely, Walker is acknowledged as a “relentless disturber of the peace” who passionately advocates for Black nationalism.
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Inside of his appeal, Walker states, “white racism as a national problem of which slavery was its most egregious manifestation.” Walker goes on to position that Blacks are “the most degraded, wretched and abject beings that have ever lived since the world began.” Here, Walker references skin color as a marker of difference that perpetuates oppression and establishes a clear relationship between skin color and cultural persecution. His work demonstrates how a flawed system utilizes skin color to generate systems of oppression that are fueled by cruelty, intolerance, and fear. Further, Walker explicitly employs skin color to depict racism and explain the abject ignorance that ensures the Black experience is defined by the inhuman system of slavery.
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Conversely, Walker’s appeal illustrates skin color as symbol of unity that upholds homogeneity, shared experience and self-determination. For Whites, skin color is a possessive investment that guarantees an autonomous and free life. For Blacks, skin color is a symbol of suppression that utilizes racism to justify the marginalization of an entire ethnic group. Within this model, skin color functions to establish separate, monolific communities that coexist in a parasitic relationship. This relationship reinforces division but is maintained by unified groups that practice unified attitudes and beliefs. To that end, David Walker’s appeal employs skin color to demonstrate its sizeable influence on racism, prejudice, and oppression.
How it Feels to Be Colored Me:
Zora Neale Hurston
BUT I AM NOT tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not be long to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all but about it. Even in the helter?skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seer that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more of less. No, I do not weep at the world??I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.
Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the grand daughter of slaves. It fails to register depression with me. Slavery is sixty years in the past. The operation was successful and the patient is doing well, thank you. The terrible struggle that made me an American out of a potential slave said "On the line! " The Reconstruction said "Get set! " and the generation before said "Go! " I am off to a flying start and I must not halt in the stretch to look behind and weep. Slavery is the price I paid for civilization, and the choice was not with me. It is a bully adventure and worthi.all that 1 have paid through my ancestors for it. No one on earth ever had a greater chance for glory. The world to be won and nothing to be lost. It is thrilling to think?to know that for any act of mine, I shall get twice as much praise or twice as much blame. It is quite exciting to hold the center of the national stage, with the spectators not knowing whether to laugh or to weep."
