Helen Morrison Whiteness And Gender Analysis

In the feminist community there has been a lot of debate and discussion about "bad feminism" and the lack of inclusivity within many brands of feminism. Taylor Swift and her girl squad comprised of models, singers, actresses, and entertainers such as Lena Dunham and Gigi Hadid and are always a topic of discussion amidst these debates. Swift has been coined the face of "White's Only Feminism", a brand of feminism that ignores the intersectionality between race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, gender identity, and other characteristics when devising ways to combat the oppressive societal systems impacting men, women, and non-gender conforming individuals.

Mrs. Johnson is an African American mother of two, Dee and Maggie Johnson. Mrs. Johnson’s exposition informs the reader of both her appearance as well as her dreams of how she looked. The mother is not feminine, but instead manly and overweight with rough hands. Mrs. Johnson is highly skilled in butchering, and can slaughter an animal just as well as a man. She informs the reader she dreams, “I am the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake. My hair glistens in the hot bright lights (7).” In this she is not only hinting at Dee’s superficial view of life, but also at wanting to impress her daughter and feel worthy. Mrs. Johnson had a challenging upbringing being poorly educated,

It has always been assumed that races have a certain look; a person can always tell what a person is by their mannerisms, their speech and the overall way they carried themselves even if they looked a certain way. However, this is mainly due to stereotypes that have long plagued our society and what one “expects” someone to look like just based on the negative connotations that are associated with skin complexion. When we read certain literature, the description of the character is the first thing that we look for as it is a way for us to somewhat bond with the character and attempt to see the story through their eyes. Toni Morrison’s Recitatif explores how the author describes each character not expressing their race leaving a bit of mysery to the reader and attempts to breaks down the stereotypes that exist for each race. Through a literary analysis, the reader is able to see those stereotypical assumptions about the color of one’s skin and how they should cease to exist in any world whether it is literal or figurative.

Love is blind and it can take over your mind. Desiree husband, Armand, was a plantation owner and he made sure that African Americans were never happy again. However, after his beloved wife had his first son he begins to go blind mentally. He did not really care about what the slaves were doing or saying, instead he focused on his pride; his wife and son. He was possessed with happiness. You would think that love overpowers everything but when it comes in battle with racism, racism prevailed. The book itself holds so much racism. For example, when it states “ the yellow- nurse woman,” meaning, she is a woman who is mixed with African American and Caucasian. The term “yellow-nurse” was a way of saying a light skin African American. They may not have taken offense then but now, when calling someone”yellow” it is a racist stereotype towards Asians or Latin people.

In the novel, Chesnutt uses mixed race characters, which have both black and white ancestors and these characters display the conflicts between black and white societies. Within the novel, Janet Miller is the best example of a mixed race character. Janet’s father was from the white aristocracy, while her mother was a slave and a servant. Janet is emotionally hurt because she doesn 't receive the same affection like white half-sister. She views herself as black and submits to the segregation of the time. In comparison to societal views, Olivia Carteret also cannot view her sister as an equal which is incredibly sad. Janet’s angry compassion for her white sister sets the novel’s climax and represents hope for equality between the races. The Millers are well educated and were brought up in the white world where they exclude themselves from the poor and uneducated members within the society. However, the whites within society do not welcome them due to their race because they think that Africans lack sense of purity. When exploring the complexity of mixed races in the South Chesnutt describes, “looking at these two men with the American eye, the differences would perhaps be the more striking, or at least the more immediately apparent, for the first was white and the second black, or, more correctly speaking, brown...but both his swarthy complexion and his curly hair revealed what has been described in the laws of some of our states as a “visible admixture” of African blood”

     Ar’n’t I a Woman? Written by, Deborah Gray White shows the trials and hardships that African American Women faced during the years of the infamous plantations up to the civil war. In this book White describes how the images of “Jezebel” and the “Mammy” and how they were the most vulnerable group with the least amount of formal power in Antebellum America. She compares the life of men and women in the slave society, and how truly different they were. The roles of women are shown through the slaves’ life cycle, family life, slave society networks, and the civil war. Each of these various aspects of life are discussed very vividly in the book, and serve purpose in showing how African American

In the novel Passing, Nella Larsen explores the intricacies of the social and ethical pressures mounted on the middle class bourgeoisie black community. The middle class black, as they aspired to embody the stereotypical image of middle class which boader on white values, represses their individuality and “blackness”. Some of the mixed race, African Americans who were pale enough to pass for white, take that opportunity to marry white men and escape the burden of racism and segregation and also escape the poverty line. This is the case of one of the novel’s protagonist Clare. However, some of these mixed race African Americans took pride in staying “true” to their race and kind, but ironically gives in to the pressure by “passing” when it is beneficial to them. Irene and Brian Redfield are the Gold standard of the middle class bourgeoisie family. Brian, a doctor and Irene the accessory, wife and perfect hostess, both struggle in their loveless marriage as they try to balance their need for self fulfillment with the pressures of appealing to their social class. As they acknowledge, confront and pursue their search for personal fulfillment, it becomes imperative that they repress their sexual and racial proclivities being that they are black. More so, their sense of personal fulfillment is inevitably tied to the fulfillment of the demands of their social class which deceptively boaders on white values of

Rachel Bowlby has expounded some of the basic tenets of gender subjectivity. Like other theorists, she is critical of the reform oriented ethos that has gained currency in the recent feminist discussion and discourse. Bowlby’s view adds further clarity to the method of the analysis of the text. Her view is mentioned below:

“White Lies” uses vivid color imagery to paint a picture of racism. It deplicts the use of imagery by very derscritive colors: “black place, red-boned,high yellow,near-white,light-bright”,” that pink and green shanty-fied shotgun section along the tracks”, most importantly , “white lies”. The colors aren’t used just to describe possessions; they also serve a deeper purpose. First, you can inference that Threthewey is a child of with mixed parents whose skin was light enough to “pass for white”.so you can imagine an almost white looking girl living in “black place”, or the black part of the town. You can probably inference that her mom was African American, because the speaker desired the “white lifestyle”. Because she would tell the white

The Breedloves are “poor and black” and “their poverty was traditional” (38) Additionally, Rosemary Villanucci, the white girl that lives next door in her father's cafe, “sits in a 1939 Buick eating bread and butter.” This shows that African Americans are lower than whites because the white girl lives above a cafe that her father owns and has the privilege to eat bread in a fancy car. Furthermore, Morrison strengthens this idea by introducing Maureen, a light skinned African American girl. “She was rich, at least by our standards, as rich as the richest of the white girl, swaddled in comfort and care” (62) “Black boys didn't trip her in the halls; white boys didn't stone her, white girls didn't suck their teeth when she was assigned to their work partners; Black girls stepped aside when she wanted to use the sink in the girls’ toilet.” (62) This shows that she was well respected by everyone due to her wealth. She had better food, better clothes, and everyone adored her because of this. Claudia and Frieda were not even remotely close to having the kind of wealth that Maureen was privileged enough to have, “the quality of her clothes threatened to derange Frieda and me. Patent-leather shoes with buckles, a cheaper version of which we got only at Easter and which had disintegrated by the end of May.”

Toni Morrison’s Sula, is a powerful novel surrounded around the lives of black female characters and how their day to day lives help shape the community around them. Morrison depicts the struggles of gender, friendship, and suffering through the lives of these characters. Most importantly, she tells a story about “The Bottom” (which was a black community) and how these characters struggled with prejudices and racism from the wealthier community “The Medallion.” Morrison incorporation of sex in the text helps to give the story depth. The attitudes towards sex in this novel helps the reader to understand the characters and how sex is a generational trauma that

Today, the legal parameters of abortion storms through the halls of American society with both political debate and social activism. Almost ninety years ago – when the women’s rights movement was only just gaining momentum – a story by Ernest Hemingway, “Hills like White Elephants”, met the print. It centered on the issue of abortion, and perhaps went even further to give voice to a feminist perspective concurrent with the times.

Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye follows the stories of numerous interconnecting characters, particularly two young girls Claudia and Pecola, as they try to understand the world around them. Their struggles specifically deal with the ideals of beauty and the pressures those ideals place on them through either the rejection of them or the attempt to take them on. While this passage seems to discuss the rejection of the societal praise of whiteness as beauty, through Claudia’s reaction to and understanding of the doll, Morrison actually communicates a desire to obtain and be worthy of that beauty in some manner.

Toni Morrison writes how at the beginning the mother hates her daughter’s skin complexion. The title, ‘Sweetness’, is actually the name of which the narrator want her daughter to address her. She does not want her daughter to call her “mother”. In fact she believes it would cause more issues within the community. The mother, Sweetness, is a lighter tone woman who feels that there is no way possible she could have had a child which such dark skin. It is all because of a term called colorism. Colorism is a form and tool of oppression that forces differential treatment of individuals and groups based on skin color (Okazawa). The short story give the audience a glimpse into the complex and hardships of African American life. Toni Morrison show how the characters struggle to function in a society they face with discrimination and feelings of inferiority

“And Keva,” my daughter added, “when we got to another area at The Chichén Itzá Pyramid, what did your momma see there?” Shyrlena spewed words out from between fudge-brown lips. Her skin glowed like soft, fudge swirls. She was prettier than a Georgia peach – a mother connotation. She and Alexis were about the same height and folks just didn’t make that stuff up when they asked, “Are you sisters?” Just different skin tones and one is as pretty as the other – again, a mother’s and a grandmother’s connotation.