Racism In Queer Literature

Color and Class in Queer Literature When studying queer literature, homophobia and discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community isn’t the only type of oppression there is. Rather, most of the time the authors of these works will have gone through discrimination for their race, class, gender, or sexual orientation. Racism is known as prejudice or discrimination against someone of a different race because of the belief some inhabit that their own race is superior to another. Likewise, Classism is the discriminatory attitude against someone of a different class because of their belief that their class is superior to others (Dictionary). James Baldwin was born a black, homosexual, and impoverished man who would become an iconic writer for the 20th
In his 1963 novel The Fire Next Time, James attempted to explain to the privileged Americans what it’s like to grow up black, his words struck the American people like they should today, “Color is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality” (Baldwin). Up until his death, Baldwin continued to stand up for his beliefs about racial inequality and advocated for universal love, he often gave advice we could benefit from as a nation, “If we...do not falter in our duty now, we may be able...to end the racial nightmare”
Dalloway addressed social “issues of feminism, mental illness and homosexuality in post-World War I England” (Biography). Woolf began to speak publicly to challenge the issues of social norms, ideologies, and gender divisions but not those of the lower or working class. Her purpose was always to educate women but only certain women, as well as to speak on the inequities between men and women but what about the inequities simply between women? As a white, educated, middle-class woman, Virginia couldn’t speak on the disadvantages of being a woman of color or a woman who had to do rigorous labor work in order to provide for her family. She had several women who helped run her home yet she was openly disdainful of working class women especially in her novel, Memories of a Working Women's Guild, speaking on their labor reform, she states, “If every reform they demand was granted this very instant it would not touch one hair of my comfortable capitalistic head. hence my interest is merely altruistic” (Pg 148, Woolf). Her ignorance was understandable due to her background and family since she was never discriminated for being of a lower class, however, Woolf continues to be one of the most influential modernists and feminists of the 21st