Race and Birdie

Lost in Caucasia an shew on the fiction Caucasia by Danzy SennaAds by GoogleAssociate Nursing Courses www. keiser-education. com Earn A Degree In Nursing From Keiser University. Register Today Why am I posting this? This is an essay I wrote for a Womens Studies course I took in University. When writing an essay or an assignment for school the hardest break d stimulate for me was figuring emerge where to start. I believe that getting a a couple of(prenominal) ideas by depicting examples and reading otherwise messs essays always helped me figure out how I would write my own essay and how to get started.That is why I decided to sh ar my essay with all of you. Hope this helps Caucasia A refreshful by Danzy Senna Pin It Caucasia A novel by Danzy Senna Introduction Caucasia by Danzy Senna is a narrative of a young bi-racial girls jaunt of coming to lavation consciousness as she is forced to leave her infrastructure in the south end of Boston (a racially mixed area), and dethaw into Caucasia (the vacuous nation). One of the main themes in the novel is the issue of race. Senna explores the contradictions betwixt a visible racial individuality and a unverifiable individuality operator, and as a consequence destabilizes the idea of race.The novel Caucasia illustrates the intersectional complaisant constructions of fairness with hoots struggles with identity, her standpoint, and the structures of unlikeness and race seen by means of her eyes. Identity Caucasia examines the relationship of identity with the self (body and mind) and how others perceive us in our bodies. Senna shows the reader how identities of gender, race and nationality are intersectionally and socially constructed. In the beginning of the novel wench has no name, her identity is shaped and formed by how others see her.The confusion bird happens with her identity is not sole(prenominal) ascribable to the dissent she feels between her body image and her physical body which cl ose to childish girls deal with, but she also feels confusion regarding the mixed messages she receives from the light and desolate communities because of her white flake. The characters of doll and Cole are some(prenominal) bi-racial, however others (including their own parents) see Birdie as white and Cole as abusive. During Birdies childhood and her time at Nkrumah, Birdie was raise to have a strong relentless identity.This identity was problematized by her white skin and facial features. At times Birdie felt as if she was valued less then Cole for not fitting the abusive image Others before had made me see the disputes between my sister and myselfthe metric grain of our hair, the tints of our skin, the shapes of our features. But Carmen was the one to make me feel that those things somehow mattered. To make me feel that the differences were buddy-buddyer than skin (Senna, 1999, p. 91). Birdie begins her identity quest by attempting to disappear, to start out invis ible. Birdie recalls a story told to her by Cole about Elemeno.That Elemeno is not only a language, but also a people and a enjoin of guard duty and inclusion. Cole explained to Birdie that people in Elemeno constantly flip-flop shape and colour in a quest for invisibility in order to survive as a species. The power of the Elemeno people lays in their ability to disappear into any surroundings. In response to Coles story, Birdie asks What was the point of surviving if you had to disappear? (Senna, p. 7-8). Ironically the story of the Elemenos would foreshadow Birdies own disappearance into Caucasia for her own survival.The destiny for Birdie to disappear or become invisible in order to survive in Caucasia echoes the writings of bell maulers (1992). In speech of the power and terror of the white gaze historically in the U. S. , hooks explains that there is safety in the pretense of invisibility (hooks, p. 340) and how black people have learned to wear the masque (hooks, p. 34 1) in an effort to become and remain in that safe haven of invisibility from the terrorizing white gaze. Birdie appears to have been wearing the mask since her time in Nkrumah.The hostility of the other children toward Birdie in beginicular, at the all black school forces Birdie to wear the mask and put on a racial consummation for her schoolmates in Nkrumah and she even begins to learn to speak in slang to ruin fit in. The character of Birdie resembles that of a chameleon, constantly taking on the colour of those around her in an attempt to become invisible. This racial performance shifts through with(predicate) Birdies jaunt as she attempts to fit in with the white teenagers in New Hampshire.Birdie begins to act, talk, and dress like the New Hampshire teens and as a consequence begins to disappear into Caucasia (the white nation) and her falsified identity of Jesse Goldman. As hooks points out, for white people there is an assumption and fantasy of safety (hooks, p. 340). Thi s poop be seen in Sandy Lees assumption that she bottom of the inning easily disappear into whiteness, which she takes for granted. Despite Sandys rejection of her history of white privilege, she always has the safety in knowing that she has the option of disappearing into the safety of whiteness.For Birdie disappearing into whiteness does not denote safety, it signifies losing herself and her adjust identity. Birdie must contain and compromise her own true identity in order to have this pretense of invisibility. Eventually, Birdies loss of her true identity drives her to flee New Hampshire and remove her mask. I wondered if I too would forever be fleeing in the dark, abandoning move of myself that I no longer wanted, in search of some part that had escaped me. Killing one girl in order to permit the other one free (Senna, p. 289).Birdies disappearances throughout her journey were identity forming processes and important for her search for her sense of self and her identity. B irdies identity quest began by attempting to disappear and become invisible, however, her quest comes full circle as she once more than finds herself at the end of the novel. Throughout the novel Birdie also struggles with her familiar identity. Senna challenges the categorization of identities through the character of Birdie and suggests that identity is fluid. Birdie does not fit into the rigid categories of white or black or lively or straight, she is in-between.Standpoint Senna also examines whiteness and its social construction from the character Birdies standpoint in the novel. Standpoint refers to the location or orient within the relationship of domination and subordination, that affects what people see or do not see. Ruth Frankenberg (1993) argues that there is a direct relationship between experience and standpoint. She argues that those who are the oppressed in the systems of domination are more likely to see the structure of domination because they experience it (Fra nkenberg, p. 5).In Caucasia, Birdie backside see whiteness in ways others crumb not due to the fact that Birdie sits on the boundary of whiteness. In fact, for this same discernment Birdie cannister see blackness in ways that others can not. To the black community Birdie is seen as white, but in comparison to the white community she feels like she is black. She looks on at each end of the spectrum to the structures of whiteness and blackness from in-between both. She becomes aware of the white gaze and the power of the white gaze in ways that others can not.Birdie becomes aware of the power of the white gaze very early on as she experiences the terror it puts in her father when he is questioned by the jurisprudence and accused for kidnapping a little white girl (Senna, p. 60-61). Structures of remainder and Race The setting of the novel Caucasia plays an important role in its mental test of the social construction of whiteness. The novel is set during the 1970s in the raciall y tense city of Boston in the mix of the civil rights relocation in America.Caucasia made it apparent that the nation was very fractured and reinforced on processes of exclusion (and inclusion) and othering. The history of America as a nation has been built through the violent creation of difference, and as a consequence the power and wedge of difference continues into the time of this novel. Sandy Lee refers to the nation as This war they call America (Senna, p. 331), illustrating the fractured nationalism that exists within the nation. These inequalities that structure differences are relational (relationship between privileged and oppressed).Frankenberg argues that whiteness is a racialized identity that is constructed in relation to the racialized other (Frankenberg, p. 13). The foundation of white supremacy is based on the belief that whiteness is a pure category and a prevalent race and as such, it must be protected and kept intact. This essentialist escort of racism (seein g race as various) is seen in Caucasia in many instances through the reactions to Birdie and Cole from others and how others see them. We can see this in point through the characters of Carmen and Grandma Logan.The differential treatment of the two sisters by both these characters shows the hidden prejudices that exist within people shaped by the structures of difference and race. In regards to Grandma Logan, Birdie recalls she believed that the face was a mirror of the soul. She believed, deep down, that the race my face reflected made me superior. Such a simple, comforting story to live by (Senna, p. 366). Grandma Logan also represents the generational history of whiteness which has placed her in a position of privilege.In hooks examination of whiteness, she explains that white people can safely imagine that they are invisible to black people (hooks, p. 340). This is in part due to the normalization of whiteness by white people in which they view whiteness as non-racial or rac ially neutral. In Caucasia, Senna constructs whiteness as being the object of exact scrutiny through her character of Birdie. At the beginning of the novel, Birdie describes most people she sees as having caramel or cinnamon bark skin without ever identifying them by race.On the other hand, Birdie all the way identifies white people by race with no mention of skin tone. Thus, it becomes evident to the reader that there is a reversal from the usual data format in society in which whiteness is seen as the norm. In Birdies world it is black people who are the norm and white people who are the exception. Conclusion Through Birdies journey in Caucasia, the author illustrates the intersectional social constructions of whiteness and rejects the rigid categories of identity that have been socially constructed.Senna also examines the relationships of power and subordination of whiteness and blackness, through the eyes of Birdie who stands in-between the boundaries of these constructed cat egories. Finally, through Birdies journey of race cognizance we see the structures of difference and how they affect lives. Birdies journey illustrates that the citizens of America all live in very different Americas according to their racialized, gendered, and sexualized experiences and how these categories intersect to create greater difference and further fracture the nation.