Gay rights are also an issue of regular discussion. This sector of society is so marginalized that many states by law do not allow them to marry each other. Instead, they are expected to practice their courting and dating rituals in what is described as a "normal" way. Even religion is used as a basis for this type of discrimination.
Indeed, despite many efforts to the contrary, discrimination is still very much a part of life for those who do not assimilate into mainstream society. This is Baraka's focus of rebellion. According to the author, black authors and artists are to unite against such discrimination by offering the world a culture that is unmarred by other influences. Anything else is the beginning of assimilation and ultimate cultural death, as symbolized by Clay. Indeed, his point is not difficult to understand. Certainly, the assimilation of a gay person into mainstream heterosexual life would mean the denial of his or her true sexual orientation. The assimilation of a Jew into Christian society would mean that he or she is no longer Jewish, but has become Christian.
However, some argue that assimilation and discrimination are not the only options when considering the nature of modern society. According to the author Chielozona Eze, there is a third possibility, particularly in terms of culture. Eze mentions the concept of transculturalism (Eze, 2005, p. 29), by means of which cultures do not assimilate each other, but rather adopt what they regard as useful elements of each other so that each might develop into a new type of culture. In this way, the core culture remains without denying beneficial influence from the culture of contact. Such transculturalism would also make tolerance easier, as members of each culture can recognize themselves in the mirror of the other.
This is a far friendlier and more tolerant type of meeting platform for cultures. Baraka's purist view is very much grounded in the historical resentment of Africa towards Europe for the injustice of slavery. Transculturalism on the other hand recognizes that no...
While Baraka's play Dutchman ends in fatal violence against a young black male endeavoring in vain to assert his individual identity and manhood, Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, which takes place in the 1950's, on Chicago's South Side, ends with Walter Younger Jr. being defeated in his quest for individual independence, autonomy, and a sense of authentic manhood apart from his race by a crooked partner and supposed
This may not have been the lesson of the drama, but it certainly reminded me of this fact. In another way, I find the story unsettling in that it indicates how oftentimes the minority person is punished solely by virtue of his being a different color, or looking different in some way (Editors of Salem Press). It is not only the different color that causes punishment and social penalization. Other
His own work was also published in a wide variety of literary magazines several of which were prestigious and nationally respected. His publication and involvement in publishing impressive accomplishments for an African-American man in the United States in the 1960's (Woodward, 1999). In 1957 he moved to Greenwich Village in New York and became interested in both in jazz and the Beat Movement. The following year he began the Totem
As a character, Celie's own experiences have not engaged her on the same levels that Shug's sexual experiences have. This is to say that Celie's life and collection of experiences have not been personally gratifying or freeing in the way that Shug suggest sexual experiences should or can be. To Shug, sex is more about the personal gratification and the freedom of bodily and emotional expression that comes with
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