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The Caribbean Area:

The Caribbean Area:. Slavery and Creolization, Education vs. Indigenous Cultures. What are the themes we have covered so far?. South Asia Racial/Class Composition in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka Religion: Indian gods: Krishna & Ganesh; Religion in Iran

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The Caribbean Area:

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  1. The Caribbean Area: Slavery and Creolization, Education vs. Indigenous Cultures

  2. What are the themes we have covered so far? • South Asia • Racial/Class Composition in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka • Religion: Indian gods: Krishna & Ganesh; Religion in Iran • Gender, Bride-Bride game & Marriage • West & South Africa • In Nigeria(Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba); Liberia(Bassa vs. Congo); South Africa (Apartheid, AIDS) • Folk belief (Sangoma, dibia man, mask) • Love of eating sweets, bullying at school  war games & Education Children’s Experience of • Civil Wars (displacement – child soldier) • Racial, Class, Language and Cultural Differences • City (Mumbai,  Monrovia, Jos, Nsukka, Johannesburg) vs. Country • Modern (radio, violin) vs. Traditional Culture

  3. The Caribbean Area: Stereotypes Beaches, Cruises, Pirates, Treasure Island = Hispaniola = Haiti (Friday from Robinson Crusoe) Image sources: 1, 2, 3. 4

  4. Recent News in the Caribbean Area • Haiti: Earthquake 2010, 1, 12 • Rachel Wheeler (from Florida)– Champions for the Poor a 12-year-old that raised 250,000 US dollars to build 27 homes in Haiti (source) • famous for its legends of pirates (source《金銀島》Treasure Island; Pirates of the Caribbean） • drug dealing

  5. What color is Friday’s skin?  Not yellow, because the aborigines were mostly eliminated there. The few Caribs left were mixed with the black slaves, who get associated with Cannibalism. 2. Can Friday speak? Does Caliban only know how to curse? (The Tempest: Prospero, Miranda and Caliban; Coetze Foe: Foe, Friday and Susan Barton) (The Middle Passage) Slavery  Colonial Education Creolization (in people and language) Caribbean Disapora Cultures Image source

  6. Our Focuses: Race Relations in Education & Marriage

  7. Outline • The Caribbean Area: • Definitions & History of colonization • The Texts We Read • Creolization: Definitions • English language & of people • Race Relations  Conflicts and Displacement; • Caribbean Poetry and Music at a Glance: • Caribbean poetry; Derek Walcott & dub poetry • Popular culture: Different ways; Calypso, (Raggae & Rap) • Our Course: Thematic Continuity, Geographic Expansion

  8. Definition (1): the Caribbean –3 groups 1. the Bahamas to the North East of Cuba  the Greater Antilles the Lesser Antilles

  9. Brazil 背風群島 向風群島

  10. Definition (2): the Caribbean • Don’t forget the triangular trade!!! • “discovered” by Columbus in late 15th c., Spanish colonization, followed by the British, French and Dutch. • names: • West Indies (Anglophone) –a misnomer (also East Indians); • the Antilles (Francophone) • the Caribbean as a term encompassing both • Composed of immigrants only: diaspora (離散族群) • the aboriginal communities [Amerindians-- Arawaks, Caribs, etc.] exterminated; • Immigrants from Africa, Asia and Europe. Columbus & Arawak-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B1C-v0BzTE

  11. Image of the Caribbean Jan van de Straet’s engraving “America”--the new world as a woman

  12. History of Colonization & Slavery in the Caribbean Area • 1492-96 -- Columbus’s “discovery” of the West Indies • The Middle Passage • Colonialism in the Caribbean The Bitter Reality of Satisfying Europe's Sweet Tooth: middle passage & sugar production Image source

  13. More Documentaries • Slavery in Jamaica (The House of Beckford), part 1, part 22:30 (luxuries and all things Oriental) 12:30 Excessive wealth of the whites ; part 4 Fonthill Abbey • Coolies: How Britain Re-Invented Slavery • Best Documentary Movies - Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners Profit And Loss - Official • 40:50 London-- center of sugar commerce • 48:41 a duchess as an example  • 52:00 mix-raced Nathaniel  • 57:40 wouldbe planter owner (out of the system of plantation)  

  14. Fonthill Abbey~ Beckford’s House (or Beckford's Folly)

  15. Ways of Rebellion (1) • 16th-18th centuries --Colonial period:  also a period of wars among colonial nations and pirates, and conflicts between the white masters, black slaves and mulatto. • Rebellion (1) –the Maroons* e.g. Abeng – (from a West Africa); used primarily as a signaling device; served as a vital means of communication when the Maroons were at war with the British (e.g.) e.g. in Sugar Cane Alley

  16. Ways of rebellion (2): • petit marronage (小走私) in francophone islands • pretend sickness, steal, or even poison their masters. • with music, dance, religion (voodon), or simply their different ways of living; • examples: the school children’s tales of zombies; the songs the laborers sing—at the field, after Madouze dies-- in Sugar Cane Alley; • open rebellion (Haitian revolution)

  17. History of Colonization in the Caribbean Area • 1808 --1838 Britain and USA abolished slave trade; complete abolition of slavery in British colonies • 1845 East Indian indentured laborers in Trinidad; Chinese indenture in French colonies (e.g. Wide Sargasso Sea) • East Indian and Chinese indentured laborers: • In Guyana and Trinidad: Indian population--mostly rural; blacks—more urbanized; Indians in trade; blacks—civil servants

  18. History of Colonization in the Caribbean Area 1919-1939seen as Slums of the Empire. • Negritude (Aimé Césaire); • Back to Africa movement (started in the 19th century; supported later by MARCUS GARVEY)  Rastafari movement • Madouze’s account in SGA riots & strikes in 1935-1938 and afterwards

  19. History of Colonization in the Caribbean Area • Since the 50’s • Colonization in reverse: West Indian migration to England  restrictions imposed to Canada, etc. • Independence movements: • 1958-62 -- The Federation of the West Indies • Independence:  1962 -- Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago; 1966 -- Barbados and Guyana;

  20. American Imperialism in the Caribbean Area (Cf. Bob Marley sitehttp://www.bobmarley.com/) • Economic • the area becomes the tourists’ heaven and a cheap labor factory (capital, technology and management shipped to the area to use the labor power without leaving the profits there.) • Cultural Explotation & Caribbean self-expression – Bob Marley and The Wailers - Caribbean Nights Documentary • music styles – the emergence of reggae 13: 50 Marley’s Trenchtown and the musical styles (from rhythm & blue to Ska to reggae )

  21. History of Colonization in the Caribbean Area • Neo-Colonialism of the U.S.A. • military intervention (e.g. "Caribbean Basin Initative"– bribing Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean to support the armed confrontation in Grenada and the war in El Salvador.

  22. The Caribbean Textsand Their Locations • The Wide Sargasso Sea(1966) –1840’s (Martinique), (Grandbois) Dominica, Jamaica (near Spanish town) • Sugar Cane Alley (1983) –Martinique 1930’s • Abeng(1984) by Michelle Cliff -- Jamaica 1950’s • Olive Senior "Bright Thursdays" (published in 1986-- Jamaica • Annie John (1985) –Antigua 1950’s • "Children of the Sea" (1993; from Krik, Krak! 2004) -- Port-au-Prince Haiti 1960’s – 90’s

  23. Creolization (1): Dictionary Definition • language: mixture of languages, esp. in Southern US and the Caribbean area. “This is the story of patois, pidgin and creole; the story of Empire striking back.” (episode 9-1) B. People 1). Original meaning: Native, local,”pure”; 2). Native-born whites; (e.g. Antoinette in WSS) 3). Hybrid (mixed-blood)

  24. Definition (2): Creolization in the Caribbean • Language – • the mixture of English and African tribal languages into some special kinds of native languages (Patois, such as French Patois, Jamaican Patois).   • e.g. Liberia epi 9-3; Beijan: 5:30 The English used in Barbados-- closest to standard English • Jamaican creole (9-4dub poetry opening; 2:30), • postcreole continuum“*(後新生語連續體)-- parallels the social hierarchy to some degrees (--those speaking in creole are looked down upon).  • Postcolonial usage of creole  dub poetry— the empire strikes back

  25. Color System (Shadeism) in the Caribbean Society • People -- • Europeans born in the Caribbean, • mulatto • “Dying to raise their color all of them” (199) (e.g. “Bright Thursday”) • The color triangle: white brown dark Hair –less curly Tightly curly kinky Clear, yellow, Red, light brown Brown, light black

  26. Race Relations: multiple division • Post-emancipation period – conflicts • between different races (e.g. the English vs. the French), • between plantation owners and small farmers, ex-slaves and contract laborers • between the newly rich and the declining aristocrats. • Discriminated: mulatto and creole. • In the contemporary Caribbean area and diaspora: the Bajan vs. the Jamaican, all against Haitian, etc. WSS

  27. Consequences of creolization • racial conflicts; • split sense of identity – in between Europe and Africa (e.g. Black Skin, White Mask –Frantz Fanon from Martinique) • diverse and dynamic culture (Walcott on its music, painting and language)

  28. The people’s resistance to colonialism:some examples ofCaribbean Poetry – Ref. As I worked, watching the rotting waves comepast the bow that scissor the sea like milk,I swear to you all, by my mother's milk,by the stars that shall fly from tonight's furnace,that I loved them, my children, my wife, my home;I loved them as poets love the poetrythat kills them, as drowned sailors the sea. You ever look up from some lonely beachand see a far schooner? Well, when I writethis poem, each phrase go be soaked in salt;I go draw and knot every line as tightas ropes in this rigging; in simple speechmy common language go be the wind,my pages the sails of the schooner Flight.But let me tell you how this business begin.(from “The Schooner Flight” • Caribbean poetry (introd.) • Derek Walcott (e.g.) –combination of Western culture and creolized culture and island landscape • “I happen to have been born in an English and a Creole place, and love both languages. …” • “ I who am poisoned with the blood of both,Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?” "A Far Cry From Africa“ Derek Walcott, 1957

  29. The people’s resistance to colonialism:some examples ofCaribbean Poetry • Dub poetry: forerunner of hip-hop • an extension of reggae culture (“new raggae”) • a form of performance poetry having its roots in popular Jamaican culture, and more particularly in reggae and Rastafarianism.  • The movement has served to bring poetry back to the people

  30. Dub poetry • openness to pop culture and esp. to music (reggae and calypso); appeal of public performance; acceptance of social responsibility --poetry has a “function” (poetry vs fiction as a middle-class genre) • amateur poetic practice in the WI (e.g. Jamaican creole ) • e.g. Edward Braithwaite,

  31. About a Rasta Man “Brother Man the Rastaman, beard full of lichens地衣brain full of licewatched the mice ” After smoking his pipe of his gangja, he speaks of his people in ‘Bablylon town’ “So beat dem drumsdem, spread dem wings dem,watch dem fly dem, soar demhigh dem, clear in the glory of the Lord. Watch dem ship demcome to town dem full o' silk demfull o' food dem an' dem 'plane demcome to groun' dem full o' flash demfull o' cash dem silk dem food demshoe dem wine dem that dem drink deman' consume dem praisin' the glory of the Lord. Kamau Brathwaite“Wings of a Dove”

  32. So beat dem burndem, learn dem that demgot dem nothin' but dembright bright baubles that will burst demwhen the flame dem from on high demraze an' roar dem an' de poor demrise an' rage dem in de glory of the Lord.  Bob Marley, a Rasta Kamau Brathwaite“Wings of a Dove”

  33. Mikey Smith • “Roots” • “Black and White” • Different implications of “black” • Michael Smith; • Image source

  34. “Colonization in Reverse” (1)Louise Bennett What a joyful news, Miss Mattie; Ah feel like me heart gwine burs-- Jamaica people colonizin Englan in reverse By de hundred, by de tousan From country an from town, By de ship-load, by the plane-load, Jamaica is Englan boun. (source: 4:49)

  35. “Colonization in Reverse” (2) Dem a pout out a Jamaica; Everybody future plan Is fi get a big-time job An settle in de motherlan What a islan! What a people! Man an woman, ole and young Jussa pack dem bag an baggage An tun history upside dung! --Louis Bennett (e.g.) (source)

  36. Mutabaruka • “dis poem” ; another reading • starts with middle passage, but extends to all kinds of racism all over the world. Note: nyahbingi drumming • http://www.mutabaruka.com/lyrics.htm • Music video of the 2006 song Della and Mutabaruka

  37. The people’s resistance to colonialism:some examples ofPopular Culture • Calypso: originated in the songs of African slaves who worked in the plantation fields of Trinidad. Forbidden to talk to each other, they used calypso to communicate feelings and information. • e.g. Work songs in Sugar Cane Alley. • e.g. "Dan is the Man".

  38. "Dan is the Man" • In education, he is • taught to be “a block-headed mule” • with his world filled with nonsensical nursery rimes. • How about the education in the film Sugar Cane Alley?

  39. The Caribbean Texts –and their Themes • Sugar Cane Alley –a boy’s experience of 1930’s labor exploitation; Western education vs. local cultures; cultural identities • The Wide Sargasso Sea –1830’s (abolishment of slavery)  poor creolewomen (girls) vs. a black girl, Tia • Abeng by Michelle Cliff – another creolegirl whose great grandfather, Judge Savage, burned his hundred slaves on the eve of their emancipation. * Claire and Zoe • Olive Senior's "Bright Thursdays" –a creole girl’s experience and fear of white culture and open space • Annie John –a black girl’s growth to reject of her mother/culture. • "Children of the Sea" –refugees from Haiti; two voices

  40. Thematic Continuation in our course

  41. The Caribbean area and the Caribbean diaspora Canada The U.S. “Children of the Sea”; Fugees Annie John M. Cliff, B. Marley Wide Sargasso Sea Sugar Cane Alley Derek Walcott England FranceIndia

  42. Next Week Jean Rhys (Dominique) Wide Sargasso Sea Book I Education Sugar Cane Alley

  43. References • The Evolution of Afro-Caribbean Music<http://www.cariwave.com/Evolution_Afro_Caribbean_Music.htm> • Caribbean Poetry: Barbados<http://www.courses.vcu.edu/ENG-snh/Caribbean/Barbados/index.html >

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