Ironically, when Baraka relocated Dutchman to a Harlem theater to connect with a black audience, it was swiftly dismissed by viewers who perceived it as inciting animosity towards whites. Does this make the play racist and anti-white?

Clay's response to Lula is maddening because he desperately tries to keep his "mask" of middle-class pretensions intact, despite her increasingly vicious racist taunts. Why doesn't he just ignore her, switch seats, or ask her to leave him alone? What is the significance of his "fatal attraction" to her?

When Clay finally erupts in anger, his outburst is cathartic not only for himself but also for the audience. In his Poetics, Aristotle suggested that the aim of all tragedy is catharsis, where the audience's feelings of pity and fear are purged through the resolution of the tragedy. Over the years, critics have debated Aristotle's meaning of catharsis. Does it mean the audience learns to avoid the tragic hero's mistakes? Does it mean the audience's emotions are balanced by vicariously experiencing the resolution? Or does it imply the tragic hero acts as a scapegoat for emotions too intense for the audience to confront? Which interpretation best fits the cathartic experience of Baraka's emotionally intense play?

In Dutchman, Baraka implies that Clay's attempt to assimilate into American bourgeois culture, symbolized by his intellectual pretensions, leads to self-destruction. Baraka proposes an alternative: developing a distinct black value system and a new black aesthetic. He established theaters and community centers to promote the cultural ideals of the Black Arts Movement. From a contemporary standpoint, in what ways has this cultural and aesthetic movement of the 1960s succeeded? In what ways has it fallen short?