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Michelle Cliff's "If I Could Write This in Fire, I Would Write…
Michelle Cliff's "If I Could Write This in Fire, I Would Write This in Fire"
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Education vs. Religion
"We began each day with the headmis- tress leading us in English hymns. The entire school stood for an hour in the zinc-roofed gymnasium."(pg.13)
"Occasionally a girl fainted, or threw up. Once, a girl had a grand mal seizure. To any such disturbance the response was always keep singing.”(pg.13)
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Class Conflict
"the middle class began to abandon the island in droves. Toronto. Miami. New York. Leaving their houses and businesses behind and sewing cash into the tops of suitcases. Today - with a new regime (in thrall to the CIA) - they are returning. 'Come back to the way things used to be,' the tourist advertisement on American tv says. 'Make it Jamaica again. Make it your own.'" (p. 28)
"When the employers visit their relations in the country, the servants may be asked along - oftentimes the servants of the middle class come from the same part of the countryside their employers have come from. But they will be expected to work while they are there." (p. 29)
"The houseworker/mistress relationship in which one Black woman is the oppressor of another Black woman is a cornerstone of the expereince of many Jamaican women." (p. 30)
Educations VS. Race
"The student was dark––here on a scholarship––and the only woman who came forward to help her was the gamesmistress, the only dark teacher." (pg.14)
"The creole Jamaicans had a dif- ferent role: they were passing on to those of us who were light- skinned the creole heritage of collaboration, assimilation, loyalty to our betters. We were expected to be willing subjects in this outpost of civilization." (pg.14)
"Were the other women unable to touch this girl because of her darkness? I think so now. Her darkness and her scholarship." (pg.14)
Identity vs. Colonialism
"I had spent the years from three to ten in New York and spoke - at first - like an American. I wore American clothes: shorts, slacks, bathing suit. Because of my American past I was looked upon as the creator of games." (17)
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Colonialism/Exploitation
"We were sent American movies and American music. American aluminum companies had already discovered bauxite on the island and were shipping the ore to their mainland." (p 12)
"The tops of mountains. The roof of the world. Their so-called discoveries reek of untruth. How many dark people died so they could misname the physical features in their blasted gazetteer. A statistic we shall never know. Dr. Livingstone, I presume you are here to rape our land and enslave our people." (p. 20)
Sexism
"We said the men only wanted to sleep with Jamaican women. And that Englishwomen made pigs of themselves with Jamaican men." (p. 26)
"Her front teeth are gone. Her husband beats her and she suffers blackouts. I sit on her chair. She is given birth control pills, which aggravate her “condition.” (p. 16-17)
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