The Last

"But equally valuable is a serious intellectual effort to see what racial ideology does to the mind, imagination, and behavior of masters."
This point remains invisible in so many conversations. It is hardest to see and challenge a system through which you benefit directly. An example: The cult of womanhood defined femininity as submissive, chastise, etc. It was not difficult for black women to feel the consequences of this construction, because they were defined out of it, so to speak. White women, on the other hand, were still oppressed by these definitions, but also revered when they conformed. Thus, a system that identifies you as "master" is hardest to challenge. This point to me is so crucial. Often we try to undo hierarchy, by placing oppression itself along a hierarchy. I like points like Gilroy's and this one, that call for us to recognize the ways in which we are all limited by the current system.

In this book she's illustrating this point through a discussion of literary criticism, but the argument is quite political by nature. It's important to her not only to further "enshrine" the current system by creating separation or even inclusion (in some instances). She makes the claim that we fail to understand all major American literature without understanding the presence of black characters and the context of the book (which is American... which cannot be separated from a slave history): "What is surprising is that their refusal to read black texts- a refusal that makes no disturbance in their intellectual life- repeats itself when they reread the traditional, established works of literature worthy of their attention." P. 13