Black bottoms, yellow skin : from Ma Rainey to Maxine Hong Kingston's Tripmaster monkey

Publikationstyp:
Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Metadaten:
Autoren
Sammlungen
  • metadata
ISSN
0340-2827
Ausgabe der Veröffentlichung
3
Zeitschrift
Amerikastudien : AmST = American studies
Schlüsselwörter
  • 810 Englische Literatur Amerikas
  • 810 American literature in English
Sprache
eng
Paginierung
Seiten: 405 - 423
Datum der Veröffentlichung
2000
Herausgeber
Winter
Datum der Datenerfassung
2020
Datum, an dem der Datensatz öffentlich gemacht wurde
2020
Zugang
Public
Titel
Black bottoms, yellow skin : from Ma Rainey to Maxine Hong Kingston's Tripmaster monkey
Ausgabe der Zeitschrift
45

Datenquelle: METADATA.UB

Andere Metadatenquellen:
Abstract
The following essay explores the overlaps between African-Americanness and Asian-Americanness by focusing on the ultimate emptiness of 'race' as a critical concept. Based on a comparison between August Wilson's play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Maxine Hong Kingston's novel Tripmaster Monkey, the essay suggests that both texts are preoccupied with the physical manifestations of race: the blackness of Ma Rainey's bottom, the yellowness of the skin of Hong Kingston's protagonist Wittman Ah Sing. From a deconstructive perspective, it can be claimed that both the real and the fictional Ma Rainey, as well as Wittman Ah Sing, are flaunting the meaninglessness of their own skin color like a mask. This mask confirms and, at the same time, defies the racist gaze. It is a mask which recurs in the silence surrounding Ma Rainey's blues. Given its entrapment in stereotypes of culture and of race, the mainstream may hear but may not be able to understand an African-American woman's song about black bottoms. At the same time, the essay questions some of the prerogatives of deconstruction by exploring Houston Baker's thesis of the convergence and possible sameness of assimilationism and defiance. If the difference between consent and defiance is visible only to the initiated, the political viability of a masked smile seems dubious at best.
Autoren
ISSN
0340-2827
Ausgabe der Veröffentlichung
3
Zeitschrift
Amerikastudien/American Studies
Schlüsselwörter
  • American literature
  • 1900-1999
  • Wilson, August(1945-2005)
  • drama
  • <i>Ma Rainey's Black Bottom</i>(1985)
  • race
  • skin color
  • masks (costume)
  • cultural assimilation
  • Kingston, Maxine Hong(1940- )
  • <i>Tripmaster Monkey</i>(1989)
Sprache
English
Paginierung
405 - 423
Datum der Veröffentlichung
2000
Herausgeber
Universitätsverlag Winter GmbH
Titel
Black Bottoms, Yellow Skin: From Ma Rainey to Maxine Hong Kingston's <i>Tripmaster Monkey</i>
Ausgabe der Zeitschrift
45

Datenquelle: MLA

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