Essay On African American Identity

When analysing American society through postcolonial theory, the basic division shows how imperialism created a binary construction in society's mindset and the creation of a group identity rather than a personal identity. Due to the focus of this paper on African Americans and their relation to the dominate Euro-Americans, other ethnics groups, such as Native Americans, are not included in this society analysis. Moreover, this paper does not presume that the position between coloniser and colonised is a stable one, as, how the novel will highlight, it is undergoing a change and reflects many gray areas in this binary opposition. This analysis is to provide a simple first step in understanding a complicated issue in the relationship between African Americans and Euro-Americans. The creation of the 'Us' versus 'Them' mentality meant that in this case the European descendants are the 'Us', or, in other words, the dominant ruling group or race in America, while the African Americans due to their enforced
In other words, as Edward Said argues in Orientalism that “the Orient has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience” and that “European culture gained in strength and identity by setting itself off against the Orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground self...”1 Orientalism is usually referred to situations such as colonisation in Asia, however, its theory can provide a greater understanding of the situation in the United States as for the Euro-Americans, their identity was made through the labour of African Americans which provided their prosperity, and their superiority was further established through its dominant relation to African Americans. Hence, African American identity was, therefore, established in society through its diasporic nature as well as their relation to