Annotated Bibliography

Julia McGrath

EL 6530-GBL: Multicultural Literature

Professor Camarasana

10 March 2021

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Aegerter, Lindsay Pentolfe. "Michelle Cliff and the Paradox of Privilege." ​National Council of Teachers of English​, Vol. 59, No. 8, National Council of Teachers of English, Dec. 1997, pp. 898-915, ​JSTOR. h​ ttps://www.jstor.org/stable/378298​.

Aegerter is an Associate Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. She teaches Postcolonial Literature for undergraduate and graduate courses. One main focus of her article is to shed light upon the outrage that Cliff's works cause inside her classrooms, and how mainstream, middle-class white students become enraged and defensive over Cliff's narrative. Aegerter's second focus explains how she helps her students understand different narratives without getting offensive and understand how Cliff uses specific language to map out her oppression and the oppression of other Jamaicans. Aegerter's source is important because her experiences as a Professor show how her white students dismiss racism, and she proves this through the paradox of privilege. Aegerter states, "I encounter most often when I teach Michelle Cliff's work, Students' irritation with Cliff is expressed in a variety of ways, but the common denominator is a wish that Cliff and people like her would 'just get over it.'" (899). Aegerter points out that the emotions that Cliff uses are to show the consequences of colonization, but rather than show sympathy towards colonization, mainstream white students become defensive and miss the point of Cliff's language, further suppressing her feelings.

Aegerter analyzes why mainstream students react in the manner that they do when it comes to reading about a historical narrative and racism correlates. Aegerter states,

Perhaps they are defensive because they perceive themselves to be the target of her rage and rebel against being blamed for something they "had nothing to do with." Perhaps they are simply tired of feeling guilty for something out of their realm of experience and out of their control. Perhaps it's plain and simple defensiveness: [...] They are reluctant to confront Cliff's anger and scorn, but it is those very things-conflict, rage, blame, scorn-that Cliff uses to express herself as a colonized subject attempting decolonization (900).

Aegerter's mainstream white students may feel that Cliff is blaming them for racism, but in reality, she is aware that decolonizing from the colonized subject gives her authority and individuality while acknowledging that racial oppression exists and affects everyone. The whites that do not acknowledge that racism exists and the blacks that colonized themselves under Western imperialism prove her emotions. When people try to fit a historical narrative, their identity solely revolves around that narrative, causing oppressed people not to realize that they suffer under oppression and the privileged people cannot grasp how privileged they are. Aegerter mentions the term Selective reading, which is an important concept as the mainstream white students read Cliff's book based on their experiences and narrative rather than Cliff's perspective. Selective reading negates the main focus and makes readers feel attacked rather than question the power struggle between the privileged and the oppressed.

Aegerter has her students read postcolonial literature and cultural literature and will even have them answer questions in groups to further discuss their experiences with oppression.

Aegerter states, "When we remember that perceptions of Americans are for the most part formed by and founded on television shows, popular film and music, the news media, and tourists "doing Europe" in ten days, we are more likely to interrogate with a touch of irony the sources of our own perceptions of other nationalities and cultures" (905). Aegerter wants her students to realize how the intersections between people and others are negatively influenced by televisions and books rather than real life. Aegerter's approach is to teach her white students not to diminish Cliff's anger towards her mistreatment but to acknowledge her oppression and that it exists.

Murdoch, Adlai H. "A Legacy of Trauma: Caribbean Slavery, Race, Class, and Contemporary Identity in 'Abeng'". ​Research in African Literatures​,Vol. 40, No. 4, Indiana University Press, 2009, pp. 65-88, ​JSTOR.​https://www.jstor.org/stable/40468162​.

Murdoch's article focuses on social and racial classification. Murdoch analyzes how slavery, race, class, and contemporary identity are complexities that reveal the challenges towards racial and historical consequences. Murdoch's article is useful as it not only analyzes the power imbalance between Clare and her parents but explains how history never mentioned enslaved Jamaicans. Murdoch states, "On one level, these historical trajectories and their associated paradigms of resistance and identity impinge on Clare Savage's desire for an independent postcolonial identity" (78). Clare displays an accurate story as she explains racism and acknowledges the violence that African Americans encounter. She narrates how these eye-witnessing accounts prove racial mistreatment. Murdoch believes that racial identity is mostly shaped and informed by nationalism, which would explain slavery, and feels that pride and superiority must be stripped.

Sethuraman, Ramchandran. "Evidence-Cum-Witness: Subaltern History, Violence, And

The (De)formation of Nation in Michelle Cliff's 'No Telephone to Heaven.'" ​National and Postnational Narratives Special Issue,​ Vol. 43, No. 1, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997, pp. 249-87, ​JSTOR.​https://www.jstor.org/stable/26285471​.

Sethuraman's overall focus argues how the narrative of non-western books is racialized, and further proves how the west remains quiet about the radicalized assumptions about its ideological assumptions. Sethuraman considers this as "the painful disruption/eruption of history as trauma and trauma as history" (251) and why identity may form through one's trauma within history. The article is useful because the writer makes it apparent that history can alter a narrative and how one writes someone else's identity and role through a distorted narrative. Cliff's book shows how many characters like Boy Savage and Christopher lose their sense of self and create clustered ones through racial tension and cultural stereotypes. These characters struggle to differentiate their identities from the racial stereotypes around them because they may not know how to juxtapose racial narratives from their identity.

Sethuraman goes over the relationship between colonialism, psychoanalysts, and empire and how they prove the power struggle between being a subaltern and having an individual identity. Sethuraman states, "Moral consciousness implies [...] a bright part and an opposing black part. In order to achieve morality, it is essential that the black, the dark, the Negro vanish from consciousness. Hence a Negro is forever in combat with his own image. How is a colonized subject supposed to escape the self-destructive trap of the specular image?" (259). Boy Savage struggles to escape the "specular image" (259) because history has altered his narrative; Kitty Savage notices the oppression and returns to Jamaica. Sethuraman's article points out how it can be difficult to escape a racial identity, especially when history paints non-white ethnic groups to be a certain way. Boy Savage, Kitty Savage, Clare, and Christopher, like most non-western ethnic groups, struggle with their historical trauma and how Western propaganda dismisses that trauma through a fake historical perspective.