Relaciones internacionales.indb - HOMINES

WOMEN OF COLOUR: RECONTEXTUALISING ‘OTHERNESS’
But the idea of slave and slave women’s passive acceptance of this lot is
erroneously perpetuated. As Torres-Saillant argues:
[Mayrse] Condé recalls the thousands of slaves who hurled themselves
into the ocean from the slave ships, or who trained themselves to keep
quiet, or who starved themselves to death, or killed their children, or
poisoned their masters, before accepting their lot. 37
These attempts at resistance to representation, control and slavery
were, however, never considered by the colonising forces. 38 The challenge
then is to resuscitate a three-dimensional being out of the damaged fibres
of history. Historical accounts are arguably the best source, though they
themselves were often constructed around false premises and partial truths.
Notwithstanding such shortcomings, these accounts frequently remain the
official versions until revisionist re-readings and re-writings of history are
read alongside them. The coloniser’s gaze, however, continues to imprison
these women in the one-dimensional world of the negative stereotype. 39
CARIBBEAN FEMALE ALTERITY IN LITERARY
REPRODUCTIONS
The new awareness that has come through current re-readings of colonial
texts has made evident the problematic representation of West Indian
women. With this rereading in mind, scholars who argue from a post-colonial
perspective illustrate how colonial subjects have been ‘Othered’ by
official representations which entered into the public imagination. Each
language group or colonial power within the Caribbean has developed its
own stereotype of the lascivious black woman or mulata sabrosa. 40 The latter
was preferred by many colonial men for her ‘exotic’ look and her ‘almost
whiteness’. She is the doudou in the French Caribbean as Richard Burton
describes her:
Another important mythological representation of the colonial relationship
that came to prominence under the Third Republic revolved around
the figure of La doudou, the smiling, sexually available black or colored
woman (usually the latter) who gives herself heart, mind, and body to
a visiting Frenchman (usually a soldier or colonial official) and is left
37
Torres-Saillant (1997), op. cit., p. 42.
38
See: Said (1994), op. cit., pp. xi-xii.
39
See: The West Indian Royal (Moyen) Commission as late as 1938 confirmed
and by so doing reinforced beliefs in black female alterity; Bush (1990); Bush
(1996).
40
This would be the equivalent of a saucy, sexually charged and exuberant woman
of colour.
302
Vol. XX, Núm. x - xxxxx de 2005 • HOMINES •