RACE AND RACISM IN CARIBBEAN LITERATURE: A STUDY OF Samuel Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners, Ian McDonald’s The H umming Bird Tree, and Edgar Mitteholzer’s A Morning At the office

Gegeri, Dike-Gegeri

General Studies Division

College of Education, Agbor, Delta State

Email: gegeridike@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

The Coloureds, most especially the Blacks in the West-Indies, do not fully comprehend the reasons that trigger the incessant discrimination against them, by the Whites. But all they know is that they should simply adhere to the status quo of being black men or coloureds, which of course is expected of them by the “assuming” White men. These issues of race and racism, as practiced in the Caribbean islands, are the major thematic pre-occupations of this paper, as vividly explored in Samuel Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners; Ian McDonald’s The Humming Bird Tree, and Edgar Mittelholzer’s A Morning at the Office.