In “The Colored Exhibits,” published anonymously in the New York Freeman on December 13, 1884, the writer subverts his own praise of Black folks’ successful exhibition to advance a covert anti-capitalist critique. After his praise of the “great industrious progress” made by Black Americans, the author writes,
It is safe to say that what will be shown at New Orleans as the result of our labors will but very inadequately shadow forth the progress we have made–the most telling exhibitions of our industry and exfoliating genius will not be shown at New Orleans, for obvious reasons. Our people have not yet learned the great advantage of showing to the world the productions of their genius; they are yet a producing, not a commercial class,–industrious bees, not parasites–and what they produce is largely disposed of in their immediate neighborhood. . .Hence they do not adequately estimate the importance of such displays as will be made at New Orleans. (New York Freeman, “The Colored Exhibits”)
First, this Black writer suggests Black “industry and exfoliating genius” is synonymous with “progress.” The word “exfoliating” catches attention because of its seemingly strange use in the sentence. It is defined by Oxford Languages as, “[to] cause (a surface) to shed material in scales or layers.” As used here by the anonymous writer, “exfoliating” seems to signify the shedding of the chains of enslavement and layers of discrimination which otherwise inhibited many Black Americans from displaying their talents, or their genius as he writes. Through his use of “exfoliating,” the writer encodes a more critical meaning behind a show of humility. When the writer explicates “obvious reasons” as to why Black folks will not exhibit the entirety of their potential, he suggests they produce goods for their immediate community, a socialist practice. While it is possible the writer did not know about or would not have referred to this practice as socialism, which gained popularity in Europe in the mid-nineteenth-century, his comparison between industrious bees and parasites suggests he is well aware of the exploitative nature of racialized wage labor contracts. Bees pollinate and produce honey for their own hive, while a parasite is “an organism that lives in or on an organism of another species (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other’s expense” (Oxford Languages). Similarly to industrious bees, socialism promotes an economy supported by products made by and for the community. And similarly to parasites, capitalism promotes an economy in which the laborer produces goods for the nation or globe rather than their own community, and profit for the owning class that is expropriated directly from what Karl Marx calls their “surplus labor.” Thus, the laborer produces goods for others at the expense of the laborer.
Beyond the critique itself, the writer’s rhetorical strategy, which subverts white
supremacist values while appearing to affirm them, is worth noting. If progress is demonstrated through labor, it follows that the white American understanding of “progress” is synonymous with “capitalist success” and the exploitation of Black workers. This writer flips that understanding of progress through the short phrase, “—industrious bees, not parasites—” that reverses his meaning. Harriet Jacobs practices a similar subversion in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Written, in part, to elicit sympathy from Northern Christian white women, Incidents aims to convince them to join the fight for Black emancipation and liberation. Jacobs directly addresses “you happy free women” throughout the text, asking them to compare their own lives with her story of enslaved womanhood and motherhood (Jacobs 13). Within her appeals to white women, Jacobs covertly criticizes the racist system of enslavement that treats Black women like objects without agency and links that to white women’s privilege. To these white women, Jacobs writes, “O, you happy free women, contrast your New Year’s day with that of the poor bond-woman. With you it is a pleasant season[…]Children bring their little offerings, and raise their rosy lips for a caress. They are your own, and no hand but that of death can take them from you” (17). She then compares white women’s situation to that of the enslaved woman’s:
But to the slave mother New Year’s day comes laden with peculiar sorrows. She sits on her cold cabin floor, watching the children who may all be torn from her the next morning; and often does she wish that she and they might die before the day dawns. She may be an ignorant creature, degraded by the system that has brutalized her from
childhood; but she has a mother’s instincts, and is capable of feeling a mother’s agonies.
(17-18)
Although Jacobs may not believe enslaved women to be ignorant, she deploys the term to appeal to white women who may believe enslaved women to be uneducated due to their enslavement. While also criticizing enslavement, Jacobs discusses Black mothers’ suffering due to the loss of their children. This move is to elicit sympathy for Black mothers; to humanize Black women through similar understandings of womanhood and motherhood, deploying sentimentalism to motivate Northern white women to fight alongside enslaved Black women for emancipation and liberation.
The writer of the quasi-socialist article similarly writes a covert criticism of the capitalist American system through language that would flatter and appease white readership. When the writer refers to the “importance of such displays,” he implies that “importance” signifies the capitalist advantage of exhibiting at the Fair. The writer hides his critique of capitalism through the suggestion that Black Americans do not understand the benefits of presenting at the Fair, similarly to Jacobs’ discussion of enslaved women as ignorant. His article, albeit covertly, criticizes the American capitalist economy, into which the Fair is meant to integrate Black folks. Even so, he refers to “the importance of such displays,” perhaps because he knows Black folks must integrate themselves into the capitalist economy to support themselves. Unlike Though Black, A Man, who asserts that participation in the Fair would be “unmanly,” this writer criticizes the capitalist aims of the fair while still acknowledging the need for Black folks to exhibit.
Works Cited
“The Colored Exhibits.” New York Freeman, 13 Dec. 1884, p. 2. Readex: African American
Newspapers.
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Washington Square Press, 2003.