The source I have chosen to compare to Beloved is the famous anti-lynching song Strange Fruit, written by Abel Meeropol and first performed by Billie Holiday. Both deal with an extension of slavery in a time where technically slavery didn’t exist by law so much as it did by social order.
Beloved is set after the end of the Civil War, when black slaves become freedmen and women. However, their civil rights were limited, such as voting, working, etc. During the entire book, every black character had to work to remain unseen by slave catchers and racist whites who could attack them and/or sell them back into slavery. Each character was deeply afraid of any of those possibilities coming true. This is reflective of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 - any escaped slave must be returned to their masters. Although this was made null by the 1862 Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves, this was not totally enforced, and did not take full effect until June 20th, 1864. Even then, the legality of freedmen and women did not change how white people felt about them at all. In fact, it made lynchings more prevalent, as it became one of the few but very effective ways to reinforce white supremacy.
Strange Fruit has no setting, but generally refers to the 1930’s and the 20th century, when lynchings were extremely common. Here, black men and women had gained a few more rights than previous generations, but were still looked down upon by racist white people. Just like in Beloved, every black person in America was deeply afraid of being lynched and so had to work carefully so that they might survive. Although lynchings were legal, they weren’t legal in cases where due process of law was abandoned. Of course, this was conveniently overlooked in nearly all cases. When Billie Holiday first began performing the song, she had many issues with it, from clubs and bars banning the song entirely to record companies refusing to record the song and radios completely banning it from airplay.
Both Beloved and Strange Fruit touch upon a fixture of institutionalized racism - a systematic reinforcement of white supremacy through social order. Peter Daniels of World Socialist Web Site also comments on this - more specifically, on Strange Fruit, the film. In his article, “Strange Fruit”: the story of the song, he talks about the general history of the song, and how it became the subject of a film of the same name. More specifically, he takes some issue with a comment in the film that racism is “a white problem, not a black problem.” and that “Until the last racist is dead, ‘Strange Fruit’ is still relevant.” He does not go into detail how he takes issue with the first comment, but he explains that racists are not born as racists and that ‘there can be no such thing as the death of “the last racist” without attacking the economic, social and political conditions that continue to breed various forms of racism and ethnic hatred all over the world.’ While I agree with how he addresses the second comment, I have to disagree with his lack of comment on how racism is a white problem and not a black problem. It absolutely is a white problem - it’s also absolutely a black problem. However, it’s ultimately white people’s responsibility to dismantle racism, or at least play a bigger role in doing so. There’s no way that a group of people who set up the current system of racism should have no responsibility in dismantling it, especially since all white people, anti-racist or otherwise, still benefit from racism as it stands now.
While neither Beloved nor Strange Fruit directly comment upon systematic racism, they most certainly infer that the system is flawed and needs to be dismantled. Both works serve as a sort of call to this dismantling, and remain highly relevant in this day and age.
