Religion: Shaping Race and Racism in "On Being Brought from Africa to America" and A Mercy Anonymous College

Religion shapes and reshapes social relations as well as patterns of racial interaction in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy and Phillis Wheatley’s poem, On Being Brought from Africa to America. As becomes evident from examination of specific quotes of interest from these works, whiteness employs the promise of religious reward to mask destructive human agency, thus fostering racial dominance.

Subjugation is often undercut by euphemism. Wheatley highlights the genesis of flawed race relations when she notes “‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land/Taught my benighted soul to understand” (1-2). “Mercy” functions as a personification, taking on human traits in the actions of bringing and teaching. It also refers to the human quality of compassion and generous concern for the misfortunes of others. This euphemism owes to Wheatley’s white audience. In other words, “mercy” is ironical in referencing to white people’s forceful capturing, kidnapping and enslaving black people from Africa. To be “benighted” is to be in a state of pitiful intellectual and moral ignorance owing to lack of opportunity. In its allusion to Africans, “benighted” shows that whites assumed Africans were in dire need of intervention to save them from a state of...