"Shifting Positionalities: Interrogating Cultural Pluralism": A Playwright's Response

COMMENTS ONPROCESS "Shifting Positionalities: Interrogating Cultural Pluralism A Playwright's Response Valetta Anderson Cultural Pluralism in an ideal society describes the result of two or more unique cultural groups, working together to achieve common goals, without losing the elements of the culture which make them unique. From an African American perspective, however, American society is far from ideal and Cultural Pluralism might well become the latest euphemism to explain away the still present inequities resulting from European American nationalism and racism. One's culture in America is traditionally defined by one's ancestral origins. When these definitions of origin also imply skin color, they are used to permanently locate individuals of color within a predetermined, socioeconomic caste. Lorraine Hansberry's plays are defined by her African American designation, which implies that they speak from and, therefore, to her particular culture, alone. Yet, Eugene O'Neill's work speaks to the breadth of the American experience. In spite of his Irish American origins, O'Neill is considered an "American" playwright, which implies a facade of whiteness, ignoring the actual status of his immigrant past. Effective dialogue on Cultural Pluralism must include the plurality of cultures within the European American community as well as the rest of America's communities. Otherwise the dialogue becomes about cultural duality, the white Americans and the other Americans. And issues of pluralism become reminiscent of the divide-and-conquer strategems of the past. Since the intellectual focus of African American literature has been predominated by "proofs" of our humanity to a "mainstream" audience, our body of literature, especially that which is included in The Canon, is filled with images of our relationship to and struggle with European Americans and, therefore, written to an assumed European American audience. Our real identity as people is, finally, gaining its place on the American stage. Social progress, however slow, is the inevitable result of the kind of persistence that the Women and Theatre Program helps foster. Nevertheless, these new images of African American relationships within our own culture are subject to the pens of theatre critics and funding sources, who, in too many instances, still insist 85 86 Valetta Anderson they know what is "dramatically" important to our presentations of self. However practical it may seem for grant applications and box office receipts to write with mainstream preferences in mind, to do so not only assumes an European American audience, but empowers that audience to dictate the standards by which our work and, consequently, our culture is defined. Therefore, my second response to the issues raised on Cultural Pluralism is twofold. First, we must continue to develop means to identify playwrights whose works are relevant to their own cultures, even though they may not receive recognition from their broader, Eurocentric community. Second, to playwrights of color, remember that our work becomes the next layer of the cultural base of future generations. They are our audience and will seek their identity within and identify themselves by the work we now do. The questions of identity and visual apprehension, discussed during the WTP Conference, have been part of the African American experience, since the birth of the first mulatto child. Gideon Gibson's son, Jordan, who travelled west with Daniel Boone in 1774, was a quadroon, the son of a white woman and mulatto man (Williamson 30-31). He was portrayed as Gideon in the television series, Daniel Boone, and played by Rosy Grier, a visually obvious African American. Had he been played by a quadroon, viewers would not have been any more aware of his African descent, than Jordan's actual contemporaries were, as, "The Gibsons and others opted to dissolve their African ancestry in seas of whiteness" (32). It is ironic that this one-named (to protect the real Gibsons, perhaps) composite of two men, who fathered a now white family, became part of American lore as visually of African descent. So, what is visual apprehension ? What does one's looks have to do with one's culture? Obviously many Americans with African ancestors can and have chosen to identify themselves as part of one or another European American cultures. Is it "passing" to choose the obvious visual rather than...