Living for the city: urban displacement and incarceration in Wright's Native Son and Rajabu's ‘Masudi’

Abstract

One of the neglected areas of globalization studies is the movement of people within countries. In post-colonial African nations and the antebellum United States, migration patterns have often been to urban areas. Two creative works which bear witness to these relocations are Richard Wright's novel Native Son and Marijani Rajabu's popular song ‘Masudi’. Both works confront the alienation and incarceration of young black men who find themselves unable to integrate into the urban geographies of Chicago and Dar es Salaam through different rhetorical strategies orchestrated in order to precipitate realizations in their respective audiences.

Mojawapo ya malengo yasiosisitizwa katika masomo ya utandawazi ni yale yanayohusiana na uhamiaji wa watu ndani ya nchi zao. Kwenye nchi za Afrika baada ya uhuru na nchi ya Marekani baada ya tarikhi ya utumwa uhamiaji wingi ulikuwa ukielekea kwenye miji mikubwa. Kazi mbili za ubunifu ambazo hushuhudia uhamiaji huo ni riwaya ya Native Son ya Richard Wright na wimbo wa “Masudi” uliotungwa na Marijani Rajabu. Kazi hizo zote mbili zinakabiliana na kutengwa na kufungwa jela kwa vijana wawili weusi ambao wanajikuta hawawezi kujijumlisha na majiografia ya miji ya Chicago na Dar es Salaam. Wasanii hawa hutumia mbinu za balagha za tofauti ili kusababisha matekelezo akilini mwa hadhira zao binafsi.

Maneno maalum: mahusiano kati ya nakala; uhamiaji; masomo ya Afrika; kufananisha mbinu za fasihi; masomo ya kustaarabika mjini

Keywords:

• hypertextuality
• migration
• Africana studies
• cross-genre studies
• urbanization

Notes

See Arnesen (2002), Grossman (1991), and Lemann (1991).

‘The collapse of meaning in life – the eclipse of hope and absence of love of self and others, the breakdown of family and neighborhood bonds – leads to the social deracination and cultural denudement of urban dwellers, especially children. We have created rootless, dangling people with little link to the supportive networks – family, friends, school – that sustain some sense of purpose in life’ (West 1993, 5).

See Briggs (1979), Kjekhsus (1977), Mohiddin (1968).

See Stöger-Eising (2000).

See McHenry (1976).

See Schneider (2004).

For a thorough analysis of the extent to which Tanzanian post-colonial anti-urbanization policies demonstrate a strong reliance on colonial British policies of discouraging African urban settlement see Andrew Burton's (2005) book African Underclass.

See Kenneth Kinnamon (1997), James Baldwin (1998), Ralph Ellison (1964).

See Robert Bone (1958) and Frantz Fanon (1971) as well as Allesandro Portelli's (1997) analysis of ‘sound patterns’ in Wright's novel.

See Lawrence Rodgers, Canaan Bound: The African-American Great Migration Novel and Bernard Bell's The Afro-American Novel and its Tradition (1987). Aimé J. Ellis's (2006) work compares Wright's male figures and their urban desperado lifestyle to those presented in rap songs, hence providing a link to my own scholarly endeavour here and the expression of similar problematics of youth integration in urban settings and their expression through song.

See Bonnie Barthold (1981) and Toru Kiuchi (1982).

See Kelly Askew (2002) and Aaron Rosenberg (2011).

See Rose-Marie Beck (1992) and Miguel Suleyman (2006).

See Fahamisha Brown (1999) and Thomas Hale (1990).

See Malaika Adero's collection of primary and secondary materials in Up South (1993).

See Andrew Burton's African Underclass (2005) for a thorough explanation of the British colonial division of Dar es Salaam into zones on the basis of race.

For more information on nguvu kazi see National Archives, ‘The informal sector in Tanzania’.

See Voice of a Native Son by Eugene Miller (1990) and The African Epic Controversy by Mugyabuso Mulokozi (2002).

See Caren Irr (1997).

She notes, for example, ‘the Tanzanian government's appeal to musicians in 1967 to help to spread its new policies of socialism and self-reliance to the people through song’ (1970, 298).