The perception of an entire culture can be shifted by visual and verbal imagery used by an author. In order, to differentiate ourselves between races we use sight and site, according to Hum. The visible corporeal differences and physiological features we use in design influence our opinion on social attributes such as identity, intelligence, morality, and nationalism (Hum 194). This is how the racist imagery of Africans and American Indians changed societal perception as they were portrayed “primitive” and “savage.” These types of imagery shape how we view a particular culture and categorize them as “the Other.”
There are instances when a message that could be viewed as
progressive still rely on overtly racial depictions or “sight in design.” For
example, Hum uses the political cartoon of Columbia protecting the Chinese man
despite featuring derogatory picture of the man himself. It is easy to see how these characteristics can
create a social hierarchy since black writing can viewed as otherness. As Gates
points out in his essay, “black signifiers, regardless of their intent or
desire, made the first political gesture in the Anglo-African literary
tradition "simply" by the act of writing. Their collective act gave
birth to the black literary tradition and defined it as the "Other's
chain," the chain of black being as black people themselves would have it.”
(Gates 12)
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