Negative Stereotypes Within African-American Communities

Negative stereotypes within African-American communities

Journal Reaction: "A Soldier's Play" by Charles Fuller and negative stereotypes within the African-American community

They still hate you." These are the first words of this military drama set during World War II, America, in a segregated army camp in Louisiana 1944 called Fort Neal. However, the hate referred to by the African-American commander Vernon Waters, who is shot down dead shortly after uttering this phrase is not simply the hate between the races, but also the hate so often expressed by Blacks against other Blacks. Although the play begins with the far more obvious and openly acknowledged conflicts between Southern Whites and Blacks with the army and within larger American society as a whole, eventually the Black investigator, Captain Davenport, of the murder discovers that according to witnesses, the murder was likely committed young black soldier whom Sergeant Waters had bullied into near insanity because of his belief that the young, callow man was not upholding the integrity of the African-American race. Waters projected negative stereotypes, learned from Whites, upon this young man, and psychologically, the young man felt he had no other recourse than to react with violence.

Along the progress of the investigation, the "Soldier's Play" becomes as much about the hatred in Waters' last words as well as the murder of Waters himself. The fact that the African-American unit was segregated, the play suggests, created a kind of hothouse environment, where Blacks were turned against one another. Ironically, by demanding perfection of one another, any sense of unity within 'the Race' was destroyed by Waters' style of leadership. It becomes clear as Fuller's drama progresses that the Black officers of the play are less concerned with finding the ultimate solution to the murder, or even to the meaning of Waters' last words and why the murder occurred. Rather, they are more concerned with surviving in terms of their self-esteem in a society that either denies them their manhood, or within the community, makes unreasonable demands upon their bodies and souls to thwart White expectations.