Savage Constructions: The Myth of African Savagery

Savage Constructions composes a critical examination of the popular assumption that violence is an essential quality of certain ethnic or racial populations. Wendy C. Hamblet offers a theory of subjectivity transformed by historical violence. Rethinking how African peoples, once living in simple neighborly communities more democratic and egalitarian than modern states, have come to the condition of abjection, misery, and fierce aggression she argues that Western affluence is built upon slaughter, slavery, and colonial oppression, and suggests that prosperous nations of the West owe a great debt to the societies they trampled en route to their prosperity. Newly independent African nations are primary examples of a much vaster phenomenon Western powers continue to sack poorer, weaker countries through covert intrigue, outright war, crippling debts, and unfair global labor and trade policies. The violences continue because many Westerners still harbor metaphysical assumptions about the supremacy of white Christians over less “civilized,” darker-skinned peoples. These assumptions depress the possibilities of ethnic minorities within the West, continue to influence foreign-policy and frustrate global relations, and ensure that the overwhelming collateral damage of modern wars is color conscious. 'Savage Constructions' will appeal to all levels of scholars and students. WENDY C. HAMBLET is an assistant professor in the Department of University Studies at North Carolina A&T State University.