Robinson Crusoe Racism Quotes

Robinson Crusoe, the first capitalist hero, is a self-made man who accepts objective reality and then fashions it to his needs through the work ethic, common sense, resilience, technology, and, if need be, racism and imperialism.

Robinson Crusoe, the first capitalist hero, is a self-made man who accepts objective reality and then fashions it to his needs through the work ethic, common sense, resilience, technology, and, if need be, racism and imperialism. Don Quixote is the polar opposite of Robinson. . . . Robinson and Quixote are the antithetical symbols of the Anglo-Saxon and Hispanic worlds.

We are the only white faces and I feel that we aren’t entirely welcome even though no one asks us to leave. We’re not to be trusted. Why would we be? We’ll leave in kayaks tomorrow and almost everyone else will never leave at all. For now, all I understand is that I’m afraid of the poverty and distrustful eyes that don’t hate me but seem to resent the world I come from. This is the first, blistering moment of waking up to an ugly truth. I’ll have this same feeling many more times all over the world, every face with a different story. Each with the same story. It’s not a white man’s tragic interpretation. It’s a white man’s footprint, which seems to be on someone’s head. I think of Robinson Crusoe, where Daniel Defoe wrote, “Thus we never see the true state of our condition till it is illustrated to us by its contraries, nor know how to value what we enjoy, but by the want of it.” It’s interesting that a book born of racism could miss the potency of its own words. I feel some sort of timeless guilt for which I’m not responsible but am part of nonetheless. We leave the following day with fresh supplies, and I’m ashamed of my relief. That is my ugly gift and I hate how grateful I am.