Craved on slavery and freedom: The African American identity

Trauma is undeniably part of the quotidian life of modern as well as contemporary African American characters. This trauma is multifaceted and multigenerational. It is prevalent so much so, that some critics associate for better or for worse, the loss of identity to the African American characters. Drawing links with slavery on the one hand, many critics hold the view that what characterizes the identity of modern as well as contemporary African American characters is hyper vigilance, schizophrenia, ambivalence, a foreshortened sense of the future etc., which echo the biases, stereotypes and clichés people of African descent have always been subject to worldwide. The African roots of the African American characters is also used to question the American identity of the African American characters in exile in the U.S., which creates the rationale for this research paper. In this paper, I provide an answer to the issue of the identity as experienced by African American characters. To do so, I pose questions like, can a people without losing his own culture and identity, truly embrace a new culture under the hot irons and the whips of slavery, the mockeries of racism as well as the oppression of discrimination in a foreign land? Going deeper into the subconscious of the African American character in exile in a foreign land, and scrutinizing the unconscious behaviors of African American characters may help answer the question pertaining to the identity of modern as well as contemporary African American characters. Through the lenses of psychotherapist Joy DeGruy’s Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome theory (PTSS), I probe into the life of John Grimes, the hero of James Baldwin’s semi-autobiography Go Tell It on the Mountain (1954) in order to unravel the unconscious trauma which serves to build his American identity. At first, I deal with the theoretical framework, which is Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome (PTSS), and then the historical background of African American characters before addressing the identity of John Grimes in Go Tell It on the Mountain.