Response 19: "Of Mimicry And Man"

There is an expectation of the mimicry man to perform almost opposing roles, but practically this doesn’t play out well.

 Mimicry is found in the expectations when “The comprador class within colonialism is…made up of indigenous peoples who have been trained to not only run local colonial administrative  affairs but who are also expected to replicate the national and ethnic attitudes and values of the colonizers” (540). This process of going against your native community, people that you share a common history and culture with in favor of an alien authority is a curious notion. While the mimicry man is expected to see his native communities through the viewpoint of the colonizers, he will never be fully accepted by them, try as me might. He will be “Almost the same but not white” (544).

So while there is an expectation for him to fulfill this role and adopt a view of his native community as inferior, there is also an unspoken expectation for the mimicry man to understand that he will never fully be accepted by the colonizers. In addition, he may also be seen as inferior by the native population for choosing to side with those that imposed their power to take away native resources.

And again, if we are looking at the power structures, the weaker structures (the mimicry man, the native populations) must exist so that the colonizing powers can appear as “superior” to them. Without the weaker structures existing/in place, the superior position (economically, socially, politically) of the colonizers would not be recognized, and it fact may not even exist.