Dutchman," a Play Written by Essay

This may not have been the lesson of the drama, but it certainly reminded me of this fact.

In another way, I find the story unsettling in that it indicates how oftentimes the minority person is punished solely by virtue of his being a different color, or looking different in some way (Editors of Salem Press). It is not only the different color that causes punishment and social penalization. Other external, such as age, handicap, and looks can penalize one too. These are externals as Clay points out to Lula: "You really don't know anything about me." Meaning: You don't know anything about the real me. You are judging me according to facts or myths that you mentally construct upon. The real 'me' slips by you unexamined and ignored. This may be a lesson to those who engage in stereotypes. Doing so is harmful not only to victim but also to perpetrator since the perpetrator ends up drawing irrational and often faulty conclusions, slipping a deceptive mask onto the victim when the real 'me' -- the personality of the victim could have accorded the perpetrator numerous benefits had he only avoided the stereotype.

The drama can also provide a message to minorities who attempt to fit in with the White people around them (or with the dominant race) at the risk of toppling their heritage and racial values. The message that Lula imparts loud and strong is that one can never succeed in brushing off one's heritage and roots. Whether rightly or wrongly, people inevitably categorize the other according to such externals and, therefore, rather than concealing them, the person of minority race should embrace his race and proudly accept it for what it is.

Although the play was a gloss on White attitudes to Blacks and represented the Black Nationalist mood of the 1960s, the play's message is as current as ever. Prejudice perseveres today in the form of subtle rather than blatant bias.According to Fiske (2002), 80% of Americans practice subtle bias, which is manifested by neglecting individuals of the out-group altogether, and by demonstrating favoritism to one's in-group (Brewer & Brown, 1998). Moderate prejudice, occasionally, transposes itself into "modern" or "symbolic racism" where antipathy appeals to convention for approval: Prejudice, in other words, persists, but because publicly condemned, it surfaces in a disguised form where it adopts conventionally approved arguments for its retention. Only a few individuals, nowadays, such as a Lula, dare to conspicuously voice their bias, but when they do, bystanders often turn away and, to maintain the peace, may sometimes end up by throwing the body overboard. "The Dutchman" touches upon such pressing issues of the time as racial stereotypes, prejudice and oppression. These scenes still exist today.

Source

Editors of Salem Press. Notable African-American Writers: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones),

2006. Salem Press. Web. 21 Jan. 2012.

Fiske, S.T. (2002). What we know now about bias and intergroup conflict, the problem of the century. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 123-128.

Rebhorn, Matthew. "Flaying Dutchman: Masochism, Minstrelsy, and the….....