Racism in the Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
Question: "The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is a closely personal account of the tragedy of one man. It is also an indictment of a racist society where the white man, assuming authority on the basis of racial superiority, can so comprehensively abuse this authority."Discuss this statement with detailed reference to the text. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is a powerful story of a black man's revenge against an unjust and intolerant society, where the whites assume and abuse authority on the basis of racial superiority. Jimmie is mistreated and racially abused throughout the entirety of the novel. This racial abuse is what leads Jimmie to his murderous rampage in the middle of the novel. Keneally wrote this novel with the purpose of trying to eliminate racism against the aborigines, and to rid society of the concept of racial superiority, and the abuse of the authority, which is created by the concept. Each time Jimmie is racially abused, he becomes more and more provoked, until he lets out his anger against white society by carrying out all the murders. Jimmie Blacksmith discards his aboriginal ancestry and tries to fit into the white culture and follow the white ways of life, only to eventually be rejected from it, due to
" Jimmie knew that he was lying, and told him that he'd measured them all with his tape, and Healy's reply was to say "My tape that counts. The main part of this that involves the theme of racial abuse, is when they put forward the reason that they werent getting them food because of the way "the place has turned into a blacks' camp. After he had made fun of Jimmie's "dark and deadly tribal secrets," he moved on to give him a sarcastic speech, telling him how much better the Europeans are than the aborigines. Farrell quickly assumes that the contents of Jimmie's bag, his tools for fencing, were stolen. " These few incidents were fairly minor, in terms of racial abuse, compared to when Farrell asked Jimmie if he was a missionary black. The Newbys did this because they were concerned that Jimmie could leave, before finishing the job, if they kept fowarding the payments in the form of groceries. Keneally is trying to free the blacks from this prison of racism and inferiority. After this knock-back, Jimmie asks him for a reference at least. None of the white farmers even bothered to look at the reference when Jimmie tried for work at several places. When Jimmie had completed his contract with the Hayses, and was being paid, he was once again short-changed, because he is black. This incident involved the office-chief yelling racist insults at Jimmie, such as "Get out of here, you black layabout!" This sort of insult, mentioning that he is black, is exactly the sort of racial abuse created by the feeling of racial superiority on the white man's behalf. Lewis found many "fictional faults" with Jimmie's work, much the same way as Healy did. Mr Neville plays a key role in the event of Jimmie trying to become part of the white world, because he plants the idea of how the white world is better and has more opportunities, in Jimmie's mind, which is the first sign of racial superiority in the novel.
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