Effects Of Postcolonialism

I. Introduction

The colonialism that occurred in the previous past decades left great impacts to both the colonized and the colonizing countries. Even though the era of colonialism is over, the impacts of colonialism have not diminished among the society. It continues to affect the people psychologically and ignite their inclination to discriminate the inferior races, thus creating conflicts and divisions among the society.

According to Edward Said (1978), as stated in his book Orientalism, in the worldwide scope, there are three postcolonial effects. The first effect is the structured perception of racial division. Often the colonizing or the superior races would form the us - other mentality, stating that they are better in many ways. This

In many cases, the conflicts that happened between two races were not presented and reported by the media as the ones that actually happened in reality. The media might have twisted the conflicts or modify them in a way to make the public blame the side that was supposed to be the victim, while defending the side that started the issues.

These prominent effects happen in the United States of America, where the once enslaved African-American people become the victims of this racial integration. The same conflict was depicted in a biographical sport movie 42. The movie that was directed by Brian Helgeland tells the story of the first African-American baseball player named Jack “Jackie” Roosevelt Robinson. Set in the middle of twentieth century, the movie depicts the struggle of Robinson’s career in baseball as he stood against the strong waves of racial hatred and discrimination.

This paper aims to analyze the three effects of colonialism (us-other mentality, dehumanization, and distorted worldview) in any forms that was presented in this sport biographical movie. There are three hypotheses that will be further discussed and proved through the analysis:

1. In the 1940s American society, the racism against the African-Americans was very strong that it is possible to find the postcolonial effects in every aspect of the American citizens daily lives, even in

According to the narrator of the story, Wendell Smith, an African-American sport journalist, in the following year of 1946, there were 16 Major League baseball teams in a total of 400 players who are all white people. However, in 1947, the number dropped into 399 and one man stood apart. That man is Jack Robinson, the first African-American baseball player in American history. The fact that this movie is narrated by an African-American journalist sets and centers the point-of-view of this movie on the African-Americans. Wendell Smith was a minor character as his character plays as an observer and reporter of Jack Robinson’s life and career in