{"id":896,"date":"2023-09-10T22:36:34","date_gmt":"2023-09-11T02:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/?p=896"},"modified":"2023-09-10T22:36:52","modified_gmt":"2023-09-11T02:36:52","slug":"896","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/2023\/09\/10\/896\/","title":{"rendered":"Communicating Humanity Through Color"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I found the contrast between the colorful excerpts that describe the Dursley family and the rather reductive and simple descriptions of Cho Chang and Dean Thomas from the Harry Potter<\/em> series to be quite eye-opening. This discussion regarding the use of color in writing left me wanting to further explore the racialization of language. How do we invoke race in writing and speaking? What are the consequences of the use of words like \u201cblack\u201d on the people whom they describe and the English language itself? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found Richard Wright\u2019s Native Son<\/em> provides the perfect medium for exploring these questions. Throughout the book, Wright uses colors in multiple ways to describe race, physicality, and personality. For example, frustrated by Gus\u2019 hesitancy to rob Blum\u2019s store, Bigger calls his friend a \u201cyellow black bastard\u201d (28). Here, \u201cyellow\u201d is a derogatory reference to Gus\u2019 lighter skin and his cowardice. This moment demonstrates the multiple meanings invoked by color. Beyond the use of color to denote physical appearance and character, Wright shows how racialized language links color to the notion of humanity. One way in which he accomplishes this is by bringing to the forefront our understanding of the word \u201cblack\u201d not only to describe racial identity and skin color but also arouse many of the negative connotations and stereotypes associated with blackness, and, by extension, the race itself. Bessie describes Bigger as \u201cplain black trouble\u201d and herself as a \u201cblind dumb black drunk fool\u201d (230). She seems to have internalized the belief that her and Bigger\u2019s blackness, and arguably the entire race to which they belong, is inextricably connected to these other disparaging adjectives. At the time of the trial, the Chicago Tribune<\/em> notes that \u201cthough the Negro killer\u2019s body does not seem compactly built\u2026 his skin is exceedingly black\u201d (279). The paper suggests that despite the fact that Bigger lacks other features that might mark him as a criminal, his blackness is incriminatory enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I argue that, through the use of racialized language, white people are afforded the complexity inherent to the use of multiple colors when describing them while nonwhites are reduced to nothing more than the single color of their skin. I am afraid that this is not a problem unique to writing\u2013 in our colloquial language, we too become authors who reinforce the normativity of whiteness when we refer to a white friend as \u201cgreen-eyed brunette\u201d while our nonwhite friend becomes \u201cthe tall Black girl.\u201d It is hard to ignore the tragic irony that arises from this conclusion: whiteness, though defined as the absence of color, is often described the most colorfully, reinforcing the humanity of white people and denigrating that in blackness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I found the contrast between the colorful excerpts that describe the Dursley family and the rather reductive and simple descriptions of Cho Chang and Dean Thomas from the Harry Potter series to be quite eye-opening. This discussion regarding the use of color in writing left me wanting to further explore the racialization of language. How … Continue reading Communicating Humanity Through Color<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4680,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[471414],"class_list":["post-896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-native-son"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896","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\/4680"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":898,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896\/revisions\/898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}