Segregation And Power In 'Every Tongue Shall Confess'

Johnathan Sortino
Dr. Chaple
ENGL 1102-04
July 25, 2014
Segregation and Power
In analysis of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
Throughout life we learn about segregation of blacks in the fifties and sixties, but we never learn about the segregation of any other groups. Segregation supposedly ended with the end of The Civil Rights movement, but people refuse to look at segregation in their every day lives today. Look at the Greek system here at West Georgia, every member is considered Greek but each organization is separated and taught to dislike the others. We are segregated first into one big group separated from the rest of the school and then segregated within that group into each of our organizations. This is one reason how segregation is still
Clareese is segregated from others because of the way she looks, her personality, and her lack of money. She is not very outgoing or pretty and is described as “quiet, nervous, skinny in all the wrong places, and completely cross-eyed” (Packer 37). The way that the speaker describes Clareese makes her a perfect target for Deacon McCredie. He chooses Clareese because she is in a different group that is lower than he is. Due to the segregation within the church Clareese is beneath Deacon McCredie. Her being ugly and beneath him in the church allows him to sexually assault her and not have to worry about her telling anyone. Even though Deacon McCredie is disgusted by Clareese he decides to choose her because he knows that she will not tell anyone because it is not her place due to her level in the church. By their church being segregated between class and social aspects gives the people who have power in the church control over the others in different groups. The leaders of the church have extreme power over the rest of the members. The Brothers have the extreme amounts of power over the sisters and Clareese shows this in the beginning of “Every Tongue Shall Confess” when she thinks “she was having her monthly womanly troubles and all she wanted to do was curse
Segregation is a problem that the world has been facing for a long time and there is no changing that. As long as people feel the need to gain power they will feel the need to segregate others to make it easier to manipulate and control so that they never lose their power. People will always think less of certain groups whether ethnicity, gender, or social class is the reasons, these people will always be segregated. The people will always segregate others to gain the power they need because in reality they are afraid of that group over powering them. They gain their power by separating the people who threaten them. It is done today by in a less noticeable way. Segregation will always be linked to power and always cause oppression and will never go away. ZZ Packer writes about this in her short stories “Brownies” and “Every Tongue Shall Confess” and shows how much power and violence segregation can