{"id":603,"date":"2021-04-25T16:07:13","date_gmt":"2021-04-25T20:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/?p=603"},"modified":"2021-04-25T16:07:14","modified_gmt":"2021-04-25T20:07:14","slug":"power-and-oppression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/2021\/04\/25\/power-and-oppression\/","title":{"rendered":"Power and Oppression"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Megan, in her presentation last week, spoke about Foucault and power in\u00a0<em>Giovanni\u2019s Room<\/em>. She mentions that \u201cthe power that David holds and does employ actually works towards his own oppression. Thus, it is not in spite of his power but because of his power that David experiences a sort of \u2018death\u2019 in\u00a0<em>Giovanni\u2019s Room.<\/em>\u201d Before this presentation, I was unaware of Foucault\u2019s idea of power not being autocratic or liberating, but being another form of oppression. I saw this in Baldwin\u2019s\u00a0<em>Going to Meet the Man\u00a0<\/em>as well. Jesse\u2019s power is derived from his memory of the castration of a black man, which is an incident that makes him think of himself, a white man, as superior to a black man. This power is bestowed upon Jessie by this incident and through society that believes a white man is superior to a black man. Power really becomes a form of oppression for Jessie, because without thinking about it, he cannot do something as simple as make love to his wife. He is a slave to this power which oppresses him. When a black man in jail is singing to him, disobeying Jessie\u2019s command, Jessie cannot help but beat the man up, to retain his mental superiority. Additionally, this power consumes his life to the extent that he cannot stop thinking about it even when he is trying to fall sleep. It is only after recalling a hate crime against a black man that Jessie can get an erection. Baldwin writes that Jessie \u201cthought of the morning and grabbed her, laughing and crying, crying and laughing, and he whispered, as he stroked her, as he took her, \u2018Come on, sugar, I\u2019m going to do you like a nigger, just like a nigger, come on, sugar, and love me just like you\u2019d love a nigger.\u2019\u201d (Baldwin 348) Jessie is oppressed by his power over black people because it consumes his life, in the day and in the night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Megan, in her presentation last week, spoke about Foucault and power in\u00a0Giovanni\u2019s Room. She mentions that \u201cthe power that David holds and does employ actually works towards his own oppression. Thus, it is not in spite of his power but because of his power that David experiences a sort of \u2018death\u2019 in\u00a0Giovanni\u2019s Room.\u201d Before this &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/2021\/04\/25\/power-and-oppression\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Power and Oppression<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3921,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[471414],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-native-son"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3921"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":604,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions\/604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}