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James Weldon Johnson's Autobiography Of An Ex-Colored Man

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While Du Bois brought into light one problem of the racism issue in the world—James Weldon Johnson brought forward another in his famous piece of work: Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. Throughout his autobiography, Johnson continues to use the term ‘dazed’, in the text, Johnson writes: “One day near the end of my second term at school the principle came into our room and, after talking to the teacher, for some reason said: ‘I wish all of the white scholars to stand for a moment.’ I rose with the others. The teacher looked at me and, calling my name, said: ‘You sit down now, and rise with the others.’ I sat down dazed” (Johnson, 808). The term ‘dazed’ implies that the boys social conditioning was naïve. He had no idea about the world and …show more content…

The dominants of society have given the subordinates such labels that have altered the way that they are viewed in the world; allowing the subordinates to believe the lie that there is something defective about them (Moore, 2017). According to Jean Baker Miller, in the book: Maternal Metaphors of Power in African American Women’s Literature, “Once a group is defined as inferior, the superiors tend to label it as defective or substandard in various ways. These labels accrete rapidly. Tragic confusion arises because subordinates absorb a large part of the untruths created by the dominates” (Moore, 2017). Initially, ‘the ex-colored mans’ mother shows sadness and almost a sense of shame when he asks her if he is ‘black’—her reaction just goes to show that she suffers and feels pain knowing that she is black and so is he. The dominates have manipulated society to the point where the subordinates have lead to believe that they are the defects of humanity. In, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, the mother has kept the secret of the boy’s heritage because she did not want him to see the cruelty in the world and feel as if he did not belong. In a world where a group seems any less than the superior—it will always be labeled as defective in the society of the dominant (Moore,

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James Weldon Johnson's book, Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, is a brilliant and masterful piece of fiction written in the notion of an autobiography. Within the “autobiography,” James Weldon Johnson constructs a fabricated account of a young biracial man in turmoil with his racial identity within a highly prejudiced contemporary 19th-century America. As you would expect, the story contains numerous different themes of racial identity, sense of belonging, and even of racial “passing”. However, despite all these persistent themes, one stands out the most. The theme is music.

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