Examples Of Victimization Of African Americans

Victimization is a part of survival rather than an existential strategy that is practiced by the people who want to have an upper hand. In the society of a country that is constituted of heterogeneous population, victimization seems to be an integral feature of the dominant society and the dominant culture. This is much true with the African American society which suffered victimization in the hands of the European (native) Americans. There was victimization not only of the blacks by the whites, but also the victimization of the blacks by the blacks themselves.
Deprived of their history, their language, their education, their family structure, their access to capital, even their gods, African Americans post-slavery were strangers both to themselves
and to American abundance. Black men are “a commodity of flesh and muscle which has lost its value in the market place” (Gem, Series introduction, x). The facts underlying this position may be found in the life of the African Americans themselves. August Wilson says that one reason is that the blacks do not stick on to their past history. They want to forget their position of being slaves. But Wilson says that they cannot rescue themselves if they cannot be what they are. If they want to forget their past history, they cannot find their sustenance anywhere. They are the people grappled with the question of freedom. There is the great migration from the agrarian South to the industrial North of these people to escape their pitiable plight. But even this migration is not danger-free. Their condition is little better than that of the slaves. The agony in the life of such a person and the people associated with him is the core of the play Gem of Ocean.