CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
The discrimination based on race or racism existed to be a hundred years ago but the word of ‘racism’
1
itself was used in the late of 1930s.
2
Historically, Frederickson, in Rasisme: Sejarah Singkat, divided history of racism in three period;
middle ages racism, modern racism and 21
st
century racism. Middle ages racism began with anti Judaism in the early of Christian society. Anti Judaism appeared
when the Jews resisted the Christian hegemony of their belief and culture. Modern racism grew in the idea of scientific Enlightment. Modern racism was based on
physical typology. It began when Carl Linnaeus, naturalist Sweden, put the human into a species in genus primate and try to separate that species into several varieties,
such as the discrimination between European with African, American Indian and Asian. Then the 21
st
century racism began with the clash of Western civilization and Islam.
The construct of race were based on the idea that white people were superior and colored people, especially black people, were inferior.
3
This construction of white people were superior over the other race, made a conception which then known
1
Racism is a form of discrimination based on race, especially the belief that one race is superior to another. Racism may be expressed individually and consciously, through explicit thoughts,
feelings, or acts, or socially and unconsciously, through institutions that promote inequality between races.
2
Frederickson, M. George, Rasisme: Sejarah Singkat, Yogyakarta, Bentang Pustaka, 2005, p. 8
3
www.psychology.ciu.edutopicracism.htm retrieved on Sept 25
th
, 2006
1
as white supremacy.
4
White supremacy is sometimes used in a more limited sense to indicate a philosophical belief that whites are not only superior to others, but should
rule over them.
5
So, white supremacists believe that different race ought to live together in the same society and the white race ought to rule the other races.
In Middle Ages European society, which was white society, using religion to construct Black people. European believes that the Africans were black and they were
descendant of Ham –son’s of Noah who cursed by God because peep at his father when he was drunk and undressed. As a cursed descendant by God, Black considered
worth to be slave.
6
The concept of race also present slavery as a moral institution understood in America in 1850s. As a Sen Toombs of Georgia said:
The white is the superior race, and the black the inferior; and subordination, with or without law, will be the status of the African in this
mixed society; and, therefore, it is in the interest of both, and especially of the black race, and of the whole society, that this status should be fixed,
controlled, and protected by law.
7
The concept of white racism or implied superiority over the other races also appears in several conceptions such as the concept of Nazi dogma –Hitler’s ideas of
race belief on lighter skinned people descendant from Aryan—, colonialism, racism and also discrimination. Henceforth the concept of superiority over the other races
was often used as a moral excuse for slavery or colonialism by Western Europeans.
4
White supremacy is a racist ideology which holds that the white race is superior to other race.
5
www.wikipedia.comsupremacy.htm retrieved on Oct 10
th
, 2006
6
Frederickson, M. George, Rasisme: Sejarah Singkat, Yogyakarta, Bentang Pustaka, 2005, p. 39
7
The view from the South, www.etymonline.comcwdixie.htm retrieved on Oct 10
th
, 2006
2
The ideology of race or white supremacy is now a part of a global ideology, hegemony
8
, not only in social and cultural but also in everyday individual behavior. Individuals who identify themselves as white and individuals who identify
themselves as person of colored can be classified into race construction. The individual racist believes that hisher own race is superior over the other race and
behaves in way to maintain hisher superiority over the perceived inferior position. Discrimination in hiring e.g. John refuses to hire Mary because she is of race Y,
9
be little to someone else and name calling such as Negro or nigger for black people or
Afro American are examples of racist behavior. As Edward Said said that “before the West control the East in physical,
political and military, the West firstly control the East in cultural”.
10
And culture
plays important role for white people to dominate colored. Literature as part of
culture is used to counter the white hegemony. Through literature colored people speak for their minority throughout the couplets’ poem. They can also speak for the
author’s opinion or view from their article. Many of Western literature confirm the concept that West is superior
and East is inferior. But there is a text from South Africa which contrasts with that. One of the authors who write the relation between whites and colored especially
black is John Maxwell Coetzee better known as J.M. Coetzee, was born in South Africa on February 9th, 1940. He has received many achievements in literature, even
8
Hegemony is the dominance of one group over the other groups, with or without the threat of force, to the next extent that, for instance, the dominant party can dictate the terms of trade to its
advantage; more broadly, cultural perspectives become skewed to favor the dominant groups.
9
Racism, www.ebroadcast.com.aulookupencyclopediaracism.html retrieved on Jan 6
th
, 2007
10
www.irib.irworldservicenovember2005orientalism.htm retrieved on Nov 4
th
, 2006
3
in his own country or abroad, and from the world literature institutions. He has achieved Central News Agency CNA three times in South Africa 1978, 1980, and
1983. He is the only South African’s writer who achieves Booker Price twice for his work Life and Times of Michael K and Disgrace. And he earned the Noble Prize of
literature in 2003.
11
One of Coetzee’s literary works is Disgrace novel published in 1999. Coetzee is a South African author who represents the political situation and
political conflict between blacks and whites in pre and post apartheid.
12
Disgrace deals with the situation of whites in South Africa and the way it changing.
Disgrace is a novel which is closely linked with the social condition of white society set in post Apartheid South Africa of the 1990s. Disgrace tells about two
white persons, David Lurie and his daughter Lucy, who live closely with Petrus a black South African and has direct interaction with social life of South Africa’s
society. David Lurie is a man of fifty-two years old, who teaches Communications and Romantic poets at the Technical University. He is fired for sexual harassment
after having an affair with one of his students. David Lurie confesses guilty but refuses to apologize it. Then David Lurie decides to stay with his daughter, Lucy,
who kennels dogs and raises flowers at smallholding in the Eastern Cape. For a while their lives look peaceful but then three black strangers, two men and a boy, who
arrive on the farm, attacked them. They shoot Lucy’s dogs, set fire on David and steal their car. They also raped Lucy, and she is pregnant as the result of the raped. As
11
www.amconmag.comarticle2.html retrieved on Sept 9
th
, 2006
12
www.lrb.co.uk retrieved on Sept 9
th
, 2006
4
white people, David Lurie and Lucy, have to follow all the social rules in society where the power of whites has been reduced.
White supremacy indeed can be said as a part of a global ideology. As being said before that many Western literatures shows the domination of Western people
than colored people, in the case is black people. Disgrace is a text from South Africa which contrasts with the domination of western people. It becomes the reason for the
writer to analyze the whiter and black characters in such a novel. The writer also analyzes the theme of this novel Disgrace deeply.
The reason why the writer decided to choose this issue is because there are some interesting plots in the novel. The political apartheid in South Africa, where
white people subordinate the black, was changed in the novel. The author told to the readers, David Lurie as the main character and white became subordinate by Petrus
where black. This change told by the author through David’s daughter, Lucy, which had been living beside Petrus as her neighbor. Some accident made Lucy depends on
Petrus, to make her save.
B. The Focus of the Study
Kategori