I Am Not Sidney Poitier
Uploaded by brianalu on Feb 01, 2016
The book, I Am Not Sidney Poitier features a crude kind of satire, keen on establishing underlying inconsistencies in some black people perception about themselves. This idea is based on the assumption derived from the twisted phrase ‘Guess Who’s Coming For Dinner?’ which features in I am Not Sidney Portiere. The setting where this phrase arises in the book is placed out of context since both parties in this case, are all black and hence, the reader is left to deduce the underlying thoughts of the writer.
In the normal setting, the phrase was construed to emerge when a white female brought a black male to their parents’ home. This phrase was related to themes such as race and social class which then set apart the two groups in that scenario. Hence, Everett’s determination in his book to insinuate the phrase shows a certain cynicism in a different context. In this case, the setting placed when using that phrase happens when the Not Sidney who is a protagonist Meet a light skinned black girl who invites him to dinner and the girl’s family were captivated with a kind of sickly enthusiasm how black his skin was. This situation indicated a kind of identity crisis amongst the some of the black people in the country.
Everett’s use of satire thus is construed to signify the divergence amongst the blacks and hence dispelling the issue with the use comical cynicism which becomes the best approach in united the race. Everett’s portrayal of inequality could be placed in the context of 1960,s when black people were oppressed by whites and hence ‘Guess Who’s Coming For Dinner?’ the phrase, in this case, indicates a deep rooted problem which had to be tackled. And from the beginning of the book, ‘I Am Not Sidney Poitier’ the emergence theme was racial division.
The identification of Sidney Poitier who received acclaimed applause from white movie goes at a time of racial division in the united stated signified a black people who were created to fit the white perception of an acceptable black person (Shapiro 277). This by itself created the situation where black is racist against the other. The black on black racism as observed from I Am Not Sidney Poitier clearly illustrated by Everett’s revealed that even amongst the blacks, colour in this context forms the basis of one group having a distorted believe they are...