Audre Lorde's Dual Inheritance Theory

A READING IN THE POETRY OF THE AFRO-GERMAN MAY AYIM FROM DUAL INHERITANCE THEORY PERSPECTIVE: THE IMPACT OF AUDRE LORDE ON MAY AYIM

Yasser K. R. Aman, Minia University, Egypt

Abstract

Dual Inheritance Theory (DIT) asserts that both genetic and environmental factors have a formative impact on the physical as well as psychological upbringing of people. Audre Lorde, a famous Afro-American poet and a model (according to DIT) has influenced Afro-German women writers. For the forging of a collective Black German consciousness of identity, Audre Lorde’s connections with Black Germans were pivotal and marked the beginning of a cross-cultural movement that was seminal for the building of various organizations like the Initiative of Black Germans (ISD),

“Genetic and cultural evolution interact and impact one another” (Stone and Lurquin 129). Three theoretical bases support this point. First, according to “Dual Inheritance Theory”, the storage and transmission capacity in the human mind is caused by an evolved psychological mechanism. Consequently, by governing the formation of the human brain and its structure and through psychological predisposition, genes influence the human capacity for cultural learning (qtd. in Aman 23). For example, the psychological atmosphere surrounding Afro-American households develop a tendency in young children towards embracing jazz and blues. This tendency had been transmitted by Afro-American biological fathers and cultural models. Jazz played a cultural role and was an instrumental mode of expression, “the debate about jazz, whether in the United States or Germany was a debate about inclusion, democracy, freedom, and race” (Lusane 196). The Nazi leaders banned jazz dance, particularly from 1939 to 1940, and categorized as “black and Jewish” (Lusane 202). Although Nazi leaders opposed jazz, it remained popular and Lindy Hop was the most favorite dance by German jazzers. In fact “dancing was a functional means of cultural identity and release from the growing deprivations and consequences of the war” (Lusane 204). Second, culture evolution and transmission is different from genes’, and therefore, the former’s effects are different yet helpful

The developing gonad, with its affected protoplasm, develops into a new individual of the F2 generation (i.e., offspring), carrying changed soma. New metabolic substances in the F1 organism are passed on to the organism of the newly developing individual, which consequently shows the same variation as the parent, albeit removed from the inducing environment in question. These substances might be of such a nature as to stimulate the formation of antibodies, thus causing a reaction in a later generation. (Schönpflug, “Theory and Research in Cultural Transmission: A Short