Differences
The idea of “differences,” which Trinh Minh-ha talks about in her speech, Not You/Like You, is a theme commonly found in post-colonial writing. In her line, “Many of us still hold on to the concept of differences not as a tool of creativity…but as a tool of segregation, to exert power on the basis of racial and sexual essences”, she demonstrates how we use each other’s “differences” as a form of segregation as opposed to a way of coming together (372). People separate themselves by complexion, race, culture, and class because it is more comfortable, but these groups tend to use their commonalities as a basis of power and a reason to be better than other groups. Minh-ha’s idea of “differences” as a segregative tool helps the reader to better understand other writings which deal with the same issue, such as Derek Walcott’s poem A Far Cry From Africa, Chinua Achebe’s speech, Colonialist Criticism, as well as his novel, Things Fall Apart. Minh-ha’s point of view depicts how something minute as a person’s race can affect their behavior, thought process, and even their environment.
In Walcott’s poem, the reader is introduced to a man mixed with English and African blood struggling between sympathizing with the Africans being persecuted or supporting their British persecutors. The differences between the two cultures is destroying him emotionally which we see by the use of the word “poison” The narrator’s diction in the line, “I who am poisoned with the blood of both” and in such phrases as, “divided to the vein”, displays how the cultural differences between the English and the Africans are emotionally destroying him. If the two cultures embraced one another’s differences instead of fighting, this man would not be torn between the “Africa and the English tongue [he] loves”.
Minh-ha says, “Difference should neither be defined by the dominant sex nor by the dominant culture”; however, we see it in, A...
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