(VCAA 2018) How does skin colour shape the experiences of the characters in the two texts?

Intro: Whether it be the vainglorious history of the colonies of Australia or the cotton fields of the
American South, both have born tragic legacies of disenfranchised and silenced peoples. Attempting
to rectify these injustices, Fred D’Aguiar’s The Longest Memory and Wesley Enoch / Deborah
Mailman’s The 7 Stages of Grieving, challenge a system where racist notions of skin colour dictated
the experiences of those oppressed and favoured those more ‘superior.’ Through exposing readers to
the traumatic experiences of those oppressed, both texts assert the importance of collectively listening
to those long-silenced voices so that the colour of one’s skin can no longer be a simplistic sign of
social division.

P1: Sanctioned by racist ideologies, the vast economic empires in both texts were founded upon
dehumanising policies that entitled one skin colour over the other.

In D’Aguiar’s text, the social and political privileges granted to the powerful patriarchs were
entrenched through deplorable abuses of power. Embodying the stale Southern beliefs that Africans
were “inferior,” Mr. Whitechapel and his fellow plantation owners employ the “whip that eats flesh”
to enforce the notion that slaves were “not like [them]”. Hence, this highlights the sole purpose of
these “public display[s] of savagery” was to assert the dominance of master over slave.

Carrying the same racist beliefs, the Virginian editorials erroneously equated slaves with “chattel” and
“stock”, highlighting their callous prioritisation of profit over human dignity. Through commodifying
slaves through cold economic rationale, plantation owners were able to have significant physical and
psychological control of those that were treated like an “investment.”

Where D’Aguiar blames constitutionally sanctioned injustices, Enoch and Mailman posit that colonial
prejudices and their ongoing impacts are the reasons why racism remains “ingrained and
institutionalised.”

Akin to the abuse of power of the plantation owners (in the first text), Enoch and Mailman aurally
expose the hostility of the European imperialists in ‘Invasion Poem,’ where the ominous soundscapes
of a “chair scrap[ing]” and “door closing” forebodingly conjure an image of entrapment. This
allegorical scene alludes to the “Invasion, Genocide, Protection [and] Assimilation” stages of
Aboriginal history, where the nature of the imperialist’s skin colour allowed them to suppress any
physical and psychological freedoms through a “single wave of a stick.”

With a greater focus on contemporary injustices, the deliberate sequencing into more modern scenes
reveals cultural genocide seeps into modern-day racial profiling. Whether it be the whitewashing of
Vocke’s death in ‘Mugshot’s’ detached court report, or the hypocritical depiction of Aboriginal
‘Marches’ as “defiant,” it is clear the experiences of Indigenous Australians are fabricated to suit the
privileged lifestyles of the mainstream public

Through the officious white voices in both the novella and the play, it is clear that the prejudice
woven into the social fabric results in a starkly different experience for marginalised characters.

P2: Inevitably, under such vicious assertion of white supremacist dogma, the experiences of people of
colour are predominantly characterised by forced compliance, repression and therefore suffering.

Emblematic of those acquiescing in the hope of living a “good, long life”, D’Aguiar presents
Whitechapel as the tragically indoctrinated “model slave” who attempts to suppress the associations
with his lost heritage. The emptiness of such a belief is coldly exposed through his wilful “forgetting”
yet inevitable “remembering” of traumatic experiences, echoing the cyclic oppression and emotional
defeat that imbues the centenarian’s life. Through viscerally depicting the emotional toll that
surrender has upon the will of powerless peoples, D’Aguiar captures that these traumatic experiences
become intergenerational.

As demonstrated by Great granddaughter’s harrowing encounter with the brutality of plantation life,
her dreams of “kiss[ing] the soil” of her African homeland are swiftly replaced by a psychological
“beating that never ends.”

Echoing the bleak prospects for those of darker skin colour, the staging in 7 Stages of Grieving of a
“freshly turned grave” and melting “block of ice” symbolically shapes the space as the desolate
aftermath of people “taught to cry quietly.”

Like Whitechapel’s belief that submission offers the best future, ‘Aunty Grace’ represents those who
have sought safety and acceptance through assimilation. Also acquiring a lifetime of grief, the
recurring motif of the Suitcase used to store photos of the deceased reflects her spiritual decay
resulting from the denial of her own identity.

Having a greater emphasis on those who are forced into submission without any choice, the
successive projections of words relating to “grief, sorrow [and] lament” in ‘Sobbing,’ visually
overwhelm readers as to why many Indigenous people choose to “feel nothing”. By borrowing
Brechtian aesthetics, the play politically provokes audiences to empathise with those who are numbed
by decades of brutalisation, and in turn, become dissociated from any sense of belonging.

Thus both texts jointly lament the oppressive and sorrowful experiences of those marginalised who
are often left to comply with the inherent injustices of prevailing narratives.

P3: Driven by a “future” that is not “just more of the past waiting to happen,” such harrowing
discrepancies in the experiences between those of different colours empower some to courageously
transcend homogeneity to resist despotism and prejudice.

Antithetical to his father, Chapel typifies the younger generation who realise that their skin colour
results in them being disenfranchised from “cradle to grave,” and thus become energised to pull at this
rusted “anchor” of slavery. Although such individual resistance results in physical defeat, his defiant
and powerful legacy worked to spread “seeds of discontent”, leaving even the most indoctrinated
slaves to question “how long the master’s daylight [can] rule over our nights?”

Such fierce “lightning” of revolutionary fervour inspired Lydia to overlook prejudice associated with
skin colour, and earnestly believe that she would want to “be black” or for Chapel “be white” so that
their relationship could have a place in society. Intending to “fill in the gaps of an eradicated past,”
D’Aguiar’s polyvocal structure brings these silenced voices into a harmonic chorus in asserting that
there are always those determined to discard the “prodigious carpet” of a shared past steeped in
indentured servitude.

Although set centuries and oceans apart, the eclectic play offers a paralleled picture of hope where the
desire for reconciliation in Australia is “like a song” that is “[catching] on.”

As opposed to being polyphonic, Enoch observes that the Monodrama presents a “universal theme”
through “one character”, where the Aboriginal Everrywoman comes to typify those who proudly
embrace their Indigenous skin colour of being “black and deadly” despite the transgenerational
trauma.

Sharing the defiant dignity and stoicism of Chapel, her participation in ‘March’ and ‘Walking Across
Bridges’ reveals it is the shared grief and longing for solidarity that unites Indigenous Australians to
“fight for most of [their] lives.” Such displays of solidarity and collective catharsis are shown to
crystallise into a more concrete form of hope, which arises when the broader public begins to
comprehend the indescribable anguish that Indigenous people have experienced. As demonstrated by
the “1/4 million people” willing to walk “across bridges”, it is clear more people are attempting to
standardise the privileges and autonomy given to those of varying skin colour, thus reintegrating the
“tapestry of Land and People” into the Indigenous cultural identity.

Overall, both texts present individuals and communities that have been cruelly swept aside, in the
hope that shining a light on such travesties will lead to a groundswell for change.

Conclusion:

Although the implication remains that the consequences of racial prejudice on individual and
collective identities continue to reverberate today, the simple existence of these two texts determined
to correct prevailing narratives suggests the spirit of resistance survives.

Whether it be African America or Indigenous Australia, D’Aguiar, Enoch and Mailman all provide
hope for meaningful reconciliation as more resilient and progressive voices publicly implore for social
change.

And so by the play's final curtain, as “the ice around our hearts” thaws, it may finally be possible to
unravel the “prodigious carpet” and genuinely begin “the entire fabric” again.