Allusion, Volume 06 No 01 February 2017, 31-38 Racial Oppression against African American Slaves in Harriette Gillem Robinet’s Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule Ovriza Dien Kartika Titien Diah Soelistyarini English Department, Universitas Airlangga Abstract Children’s literature does not only play an important role in educating young readers but also raising racial awareness. A novel entitled Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule by Harriette Gillem Robinet raises an issue of racial oppression experienced by African American characters. Portrayed as a young boy growing up in slavery era and Reconstruction, Pascal, along with other black characters in the novel had to deal with racial oppression from the white. Thus, this study aimed at examining how racial oppression was presented in the novel by applying African American Criticism. Specifically, the six features of Feagin’s Systemic Racism were applied in order to explain how systemic racism worked and relateed to white economic domination in the novel. This study showed how Pascal and other black characters experienced many kinds of racial oppression that led to stereotype, prejudice, and marginalization that further reinforced the roles of the white as powerful oppressor and the black as the oppressed. Keywords: African American, racial oppression, racism, slavery, systemic racism 1. Introduction African Americans cannot be separated from the history of slavery in America. As slaves, they received terrible treatments and had to struggle for freedom. For more than two centuries, they had been enslaved in order to produce millions of white’s wealth (Feagin 2006, xi). The exploitation of African Americans as slaves was based on the ideology that was very harmful for black people. White colonialism demanded that black Africans perceived the white as more superior and intelligent, while blacks were defined as lazy, unintelligent, and incompetent (Schaefer 2008, 39). African Americans were treated as something less than human, and white people thought black people as savages or beasts. According to Jean R. Soderlund (2005, 55), the tendency of white people to exploit Africans as slaves was rooted from ethnocentrism, hierarchical beliefs, and prejudice against blackness. The white assumed that darker skinned people were inferior hence suitable for enslavement. Their darker skin color was seen as tools for the visible badge of enslavement. As a result, the white discriminated African Americans, which then resulted in oppression. The discrimination and oppression toward African American were not only seen in differences of characteristic and physical appearance from white Americans, but also white domination. African Americans often referred to as minority group because the majority population in United States is white people. In addition, white people have more economic, sociological and political power in America (Spector 2014, 126). Thereof, white people have interest to oppress racial minorities, the black people. Therefore, white Americans become more powerful because of their domination on many aspects. The great power of white Americans causes racial oppression toward minorities. Racial oppression is designed to deny, disregard, delegitimize a certain social group, in which makes their status beneath the oppressor group (Allen 1997, 177). During slavery period, white Americans prohibited black people to have education, decent housing, and public accommodations. They suffered much violence by the slaveholders and police agencies. African slaves labored before dawn until dark, with whips and chains, which mean whites’ control (Feagin 2006, 23). Thus, forms of oppression resulted in privilege to the white Americans. Racial oppression is also portrayed in many literary works including children’s literature. Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule is a historical children’s book written by Harriette Gillem Robinet (1998). This novel 31 Allusion Volume 06 No 01 (February 2017) | Ovriza Dien Kartika; Titien Diah Soelistyarini is very interesting for young readers since it raises racial awareness and adds knowledge of African American during the slavery era. This novel may help children learn about racism and prepare them to face discrimination and oppression toward them. The story focuses on Pascal, the main African American character, who experienced white oppression along with the other black characters. This study only focuses on the oppression resulted from systemic racism practiced by white Americans in order to examine how racial oppression is presented in children’s literature entitled Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule by Harriette Gillem Robinet. Previously, there have been some studies on racism and slavery in literary works, such as Utama (2012) who examines systemic racism in Crash movie, and Sari (2012) who investigates racial discrimination during slavery era in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Meanwhile, Bickford and Rich’s study (2014) concerns with misrepresentation of slavery in children’s literature. Even though all these studies help to give more understanding of oppression in systemic racism, this study deals more with racial practices and oppression by the whites during slavery and Reconstruction era portrayed in children’s literature. Since the novel of Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule deals with racial oppression, this issue becomes the main focus of this study. The novel is analyzed with African American Criticism, specifically Oppression Theory by Joe R. Feagin who explains how the idea of racism and oppression was practiced by white Americans. There are six features in Feagin’s Oppresion Theory, namely white racial frame and its imbedded ideology, alienated social relation (control vs loss of control), constant struggle and resistance, racial hierarchy with divergent group interest, whites’ unjust enrichment, unjust impoverishment and other cost for the oppressed and related racial domination. All these features connected to one thing, i.e. white economic domination that comprises wealth, status, and privilege generation at the expense of racialized “other”. In this qualitative research, Robinet’s novel Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule was used as primary data, while the secondary data were taken from various electronic and printed books, articles, and other scientific publication related to racial oppression. This study focuses on the main character, Pascal, and other black characters who experienced white oppression. By doing close reading on the novel, and highlighting its narratives and dialogues, the study identified the six features of systemic racism 2. Constant Struggle & Resistance: By All Means Available During slavery, African Americans had have struggled and resisted the racism practiced by whites. African slaves sometimes do the resistance as one of expressions of freedom. In addition, African Americans also resisted enslavement through their struggle (Schaefer 2008, 22). In Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule, the story started when Pascal was surprised to meet Gideon, his brother, who came back after running away from his master’s plantation. The struggle and resistance were depicted in the story and shown in Pascal’s perception when he remembered Gideon’s experience. Pascal thought back… Gideon sometimes stuck a burr under a saddle to make a horse throw the overseer, but one day he was caught... He got whipped all the time, but he kept on until Master grew angry and found a buyer. When Gideon found out that he had been sold, he ran away (Robinet 1998, 8) Another evidence portraying Gideon’s resistance was shown when Pascal heard Gideon talking back to a white man commanding Gideon to give up and get back to him. “You ain’t scaring me. I been a soldier and I traveled and I know all about freedom. Nobody owns me now and nobody will... I ain’t doing what no white man tells me, never no more… I be studying to get me forty acres and a mule.” (Robinet 1998, 40). African slaves rebelled on slavery system in many different ways. In the first quotation, Gideon did not fight his master physically or act brutally, but he showed his resistance toward his master on his own way. Gideon kept behaving badly until his master lost his tolerance. As a result, Gideon received violent punishments. Yet, he still had the courage to resist, struggle, and escape from his master’s plantation to pursue his freedom. In the second quotation, Gideon also showed his bravery in resisting a white man. He strongly believed that African Americans would be free from slavery and gain their rights, such as to own 32 Racial Oppression against African American Slaves in Harriette Gillem Robinet’s Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule a farm. Gideon did not allow himself to give up. Instead, he confronted the white man by using some challenging words. Gideon also convinced Pascal and Nelly to escape from their master’s plantation. They hoped for freedom and the “forty acres and a mule” promised by the Freedmen’s Bureau. In their escape, they faced many obstacles such as starvation, tirelessness, and rested hidden in the woods, however they continued ahead (Robinet 1998, 11). Pascal and his family have strong ambition to escape from slavery and belief in their dreams. According to John Hope Franklin (1999, 274), for slaves running away from plantation or their master’s house is a form of black resistance. They usually hid in nearby woods or visited their relatives on another plantation. Franklin further states that these slaves ran away to escape from harsh punishments, obtain their rights and freedom, or just escape from heavy workload of everyday life under slavery. Furthermore, Feagin (Feagin 2006, 13) states that black resistance, such as slave runaways, rebellions, abolitionism, and recent civil right movements, are evidences that whites oppressed blacks in the development of sytemic racism. Hence, slaves resisted the oppressor by using different ways because they wanted to be free from slavery and violence. The last portrayal of Pascal and his family’s determination for their freedom is when they planned to somewhere else. Pascal and his family wished for a better life after white people snatched their lands.