Themes: Racial and Sexual Stereotypes

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As the opening stage directions state, Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman is “heaped in modern myth.” The play explores the racial and sexual stereotypes that condition Americans’ behavior and argues that these powerful stereotypes are manipulated by the white establishment to maintain an oppressive social order. The play further suggests that black Americans’ efforts to adjust to the double lives that are forced upon them, rather than allowing them to join together in social action, often make them accomplices in their own cultural, economic, and physical annihilation.

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