Black's Survival In A White Word

“Africanisms… exist in all of us, independent of our knowledge or our volition” (Bradley 213). After being integrated into the American society, black people had a difficult time preserving their heritage. Often blacks could survive easier in America if they tried to act as white as they could in order to better adapt into the white society. However, the blacks still desired to preserve their culture, but they couldn’t without straying away from parts of the white culture.. In David Bradley’s The Chaneysville Incident, the black culture can only survive in a white-led country by shunning parts of the white society. The black culture can survive by shunning the white concept of death, technology, education, and protectiveness.

The white concept of death leads the black society into slavery, but by embracing the African belief of death blacks can escape servitude. John states that black people never believe “that a person has died. вЂ?Passed Away,’ perhaps. Or вЂ?gone home.’ But never died” (213). The Christian way of thought however brings in the idea that “death is cold and final” and those who are not servile to the white people will “forever burn in hell” (213). This threat drives the Blacks to listen to the white masters to prevent such a death. The black belief leads many men on slave ships to “actively pursue [death] by jumping overboard if the opportunity to do so present[s] itself” in order to escape slavery and return to Africa in the afterlife. While suicide may appear as a poor alternative to slavery, suicide is generally condoned in the novel, as CK, Moses, and John all commit suicide. By shunning the white belief that death is not a continuation of life leads many Africans to escape slavery through death and continue in their African traditions. Azacca, the old man in the group of runaways whom CK rescues, tells the story of how some men “did not do exactly as the [white men] said, and they were beaten, and chained, and starved. But it did not matter. For they believed the truth” (429). By killing themselves the group of runaways manages to preserve the African tradition in the history discovered by Moses, and later by John. By straying from the Christian belief system the runaways preserved the African cultural tradition forever. Judith evolves to become the carrier of the story of the runaway slaves. At first, “she [could] not understandвЂ"she thought that [Jack] was dead” (160), but after Jack tells her CK’s story, she begins to understand that death “was not an ending of things, but a passing on of spirit, a change of shape, and nothing more” (428). She receives the history of the runaways and by bearing away from her white culture and accepting the African tradition, preserving it until someone else craves the information she holds. By disregarding the white view of death, black people can retain their culture.

Technology causes the death of the black culture by alienating individuals from each other. Telephones consistently bring death in the novel. Death is present in both John hearing of Jack’s illness by telephone, and John calling Judith to tell her that Jack has died. The telephones represent the white presence in the predominantly black society, and thus bring the news of death to the black society, causing it to lose it’s ideals on death merely being a “passing on.” However, telephones are also considered as the cause of death of entire societies. Moses calls telephones “white man’s progress [and] colored man’s death” (152). The telephones cause the communication within the town to break down, and eventually lead to the death of the hill. By adopting the telephone, the Hill’s culture and society decays into a dead town with no communication system. White Technology increases the spread of death of both individuals and entire cultures by transmitting the information of death that the white men believe.

The teaching of white ideas to black children in the education system destroys black society. White society believes that education is vital in order to attain a proper understanding of our world. John originally believes as a child that the west wind “sound[s] like singing” (282). However, he learns in school that “it was just a sound, like a car honking; that if you knew the shape of the land and the [speed] of the wind… you could [know] the pitch” (283). The knowledge of how the sound was formed led John to believe that