Soul Bleaching: A Note on Shame, Internal Monologues, and White HegemonySay no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay In The Autobiography of a Former Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson, the unnamed protagonist lives his life walking between white and black. He is a man who can choose to be a person of color, or can “pass” as a white man, and as his title suggests, he chooses the life of a white man. But even as he struggles with the idea of ​​choosing a race, he is naturally inclined to elevate white people and subtly discriminate against black people. These events take place in his inner monologue even though he knows internally that he himself is black. Although this could be seen as a betrayal of one's race, the text confirms the reality that the hegemony of the white population is so pervasive that it even alters the norms and feelings of the black community within it. The narrator's feelings are only a reflection of his world. Even as a child, the narrator falls into patterns of discrimination against other black children. He describes naturally siding with the white children in elementary school and an event where he “ran after [the black children] throwing rocks at them” (10). Discovering that he himself is black is a moment of considerable distress for him, a realization that he will remember clearly for the rest of his life. Coming to this conclusion, he knows he cannot continue to associate with the white cliques, but he also refuses to associate with the black kids at this time. He acquires a tendency surprisingly early to disassociate himself from people of color. Also later in life, he continued to demean people of color in more subtle ways. In the Club, the white widow's romantic interest who frequents the place is referred to as a "bad man" and a "gruff black despot" (89) without him being known personally. When our narrator travels through the South, even the people he loves are described with condescension and condescension, such as the worshipers and speakers he meets at the multi-day religious event he stumbles upon. Finally, when confronted with the murder of a man by fire, his emotional response is neither empathy nor even horror. Instead, he describes a “great wave of humiliation and shame” (137). This life-altering event actually makes him self-conscious about being a black man, someone belonging to a race “that could be treated this way” (137). For him, understanding that a murder had just occurred without consequence or reproach was to recognize in him an apparent inferiority in the darkness, and it was at this moment that he chose to get rid of it. Conversely, the narrator also elevates the white people he meets, perhaps unconsciously, and shows a marked preference for them over people of his own race. The millionaire is a very prominent example and evidence of the narrator's immense respect and love for him can be seen throughout the middle of the book. However, his exaltation takes its most articulate and poignant form in the way the narrator describes the women. Chronologically, he first sees the woman in the theater, calling her "so young, so beautiful, so ethereal" (98), an almost apt description for a goddess. When we realize that her father is also the narrator's father, and that this girl is his half-sister, we ultimately imply that this woman is undoubtedly white. The narrator's penchant for glorifying white women does not end there. When he meets his future.