From the beginnings of reading Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark, I was struck by this quote: “It is further complicated by the fact that the habit of ignoring race is understood to be a graceful, even generous, liberal gesture” (9-10). Morrison is emphasizing that whether it is explicitly there or not, race affects every person’s lived experience in one way or another. Putting yourself “above” race by electing to ignore it serves as nothing more than a demonstration of privilege. Turning a blind eye does not make one any less complicit, only more ignorant. This quote reminded me of the false viewpoint of those who “don’t see color.” The identity of POC is integral to who they are, so diminishing that does nothing. That is not the way to equality in my opinion. No one is asking us not to see color; we are asked not to treat anyone differently because we see it.

I also wanted to highlight this excerpt from the second section “Romancing the Shadow:”

Africanism is the vehicle by which the American self knows itself as not enslaved, but free; not repulsive, but desirable; not helpless, but licensed and powerful; not history-less, but historical; not damned, but innocent; not a blind accident of evolution, but a progressive fulfillment of destiny (Morrison 52).

None of these statements were necessarily a surprise to me, but the way Morrison proved and led up to these points was enlightening. What is freedom if there is not an alternative to compare it to? What is the importance of being a free person to an early American unless it grants them privilege above others? The entire identity of the early American in literature is founded upon what they are not. They are making history and fulfilling their destiny, a part of which is “righteously” exacting the oppression they escaped from onto those who cannot escape.

When Morrison uses the phrase “a blind accident of evolution,” I am reminded of the pseudointellectual applications of phrenology. Some individuals were so dedicated to proving that they were irrefutably better than others that they so intensely clung to this pseudoscience. With the word “history-less” in reference to the Africanist presence, it calls forth the level of dehumanization that slaves faced. They were stripped of names and relationships, but also their history. I recall readings in past literature classes of slaves taken from Africa where there existed a thriving tribe civilization with its own dynamics, but there was no heed paid to the lives of those the white people deemed less than themselves.

Sometimes, I still grapple to wrap my head around what made the white individuals so convinced they were better. Was it really just an assumption based on skin color and rooted in narcissism? Was it fear of being overpowered by what they refused to understand? When Morrison says the American knows itself as desirable, it does so through the comparison to the “repulsive” Africanist presence. I am aware that it is a different time in which we grapple to understand the systems of racist oppression and that my privilege in not having experienced racial oppression play a role in this lack of understanding, but I can’t help but ask those “why” questions. Why didn’t Americans wish to become allies with those other than themselves? Was there no consideration of the possibility of mutual gain? When I think of the roots of America, with the Puritans who fled from religious persecution and set up their own city on a hill to avoid being treated poorly, it seems so counterintuitive to want to become the oppressor instead of creating a society free of oppression.

Playing in the Dark - Likewise Book Reviews

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