아프리카인 이산과 현대 미국 흑인사회

The African Diaspora and Contemporary African American Community: Toni Morrison s Tar Baby

This paper aims to read Tar Baby in terms of the African diaspora and its significance in solving the crisis of contemporary African American community. Morrison invokes the oppressed history of the African slaves under the western colonizers through the legendary blind black horsemen. And it is shown that a huge profit of an American capitalist Valerian's candy company can be made due to labor exploitations of the Caribbean black natives. In addition, African Americans and the Caribbean natives all undergo the loss of their affirmative traditional values and sites of living under the strong influences of consumption capitalism. In this sense African Americans and black natives are all positioned in the African diaspora despite their class and cultural differences. In particular, the African diasporic consciousness is still maintained by black natives Thérèse and Gideon who have inherited the survival skills of a trickster figure. Morrison suggests that the crisis of contemporary African American community is closely related with the class conflicts within the community which have been intensified since lots of African Americans were incorporated into middle class after Civil Rights Movement. This crisis is represented through the conflicts of a new capitalistic middle-class woman Jadine and a working class vagabond Son. Whereas Jadine assimilates herself to white ideology and is completely engrossed in consumer capitalism as a result of her white-centered education supported by her patron Valerian, Son rejects the values of consumer capitalism and puts an emphasis on the importance of African American history and female tradition. Jadine is eager to make her own independent life and a social success, ignoring her responsibility for her family and culture, but Son wants to keep on touching with black folks and authentic black culture. At last Jadine and Son break up since they cannot reconcile their different views. The novel ends with Son's determination to join the legendary black blind horsemen. Thus Morrison stresses the urgent need to resuscitate the African diasporic consciousness and maintain the resistance and the liberatory potential of the African diaspora as a way of getting over the conflicts of contemporary African American community.