A Study On Cultural Identity Of Jesse Owens In Race

Far from the passionate land of Africa,black people of African descent,forced to set foot on the North American continent,have been tirelessly searching for their own culture and identity.Despite the abolition of slavery in the United States as early as1865,a number of cases in the last two years have been directed at blacks.In the meanwhile,with the rise of racism in America and the influence of white supremacy in the social environment,it is urgent for African-Americans to position their identity and culture.Directed by Stephen Hopkins,the movie Race tells the story of Jesse Owens,a black athlete who,under the tutelage of white coach Larry Snyder,overcame obstacles to win four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin,Germany,yet his identity was never recognized by the U.S.government.Based on the analysis of the character Jesse Owens and the plot of the movie,this paper uses Stuart Hall’s theory about cultural identity to analyze Jesse Owens’ journey of cultural identity construction from three perspectives: difference,hybridity,and pluralism,and to illustrate Owens’ unfair treatment under a colonial culture full of racial discrimination as well as inferiority complex of the colonized based on traditional black identity.Finally,Owens’ resistance to racial discrimination and gradual integration into mainstream American society is exposed through an analysis of his personal identity journey in preparation for the Olympics.Obviously,Owens’ cultural identity construction embodies director Stephen Hopkins’ opposition and rejection of racial discrimination and his hope and concern for the establishment of a harmonious society of equality and justice.This thesis focuses on Jesse Owens’ cognitive process and the way he constructs self-culture and identity in three chapters.The first chapter focuses on cultural identity under the construct of difference.African Americans have long been constructed as the excluded “other” because of racial differences,and in a society that is not “black” or “white”,which is accompanied by a deep-seated inferiority complex that led to Owens’ failure to integrate into the white community during his school years.The second chapter analyzes from the perspective of the construction of hybrid cultural identities.Even though Owens represented Team USA in the Olympics,he was caught in a passive cultural identity dilemma due to the color and race issues remaining from the slave trade;In the meanwhile,influenced by the U.S.policy of segregation,even Olympic champions were not allowed to walk through the front door at their own celebrations,but instead had to use the waiter’s aisle.But in his time with white coaches Owens embraced his ethnic culture and proactively dealt with racial discrimination.The final chapter illustrates the construction of cultural identity in a multicultural context.Internationally,Adolf Hitler pursued a policy of racial discrimination and mass expulsion of Jews and blacks,whereas due to mixed identities and multiculturalism,traditional boundaries between blacks and whites were broken,and Owens’ cultural identity was reconstructed and integrated into the white community.