Cloud 9 Race Quotes

This is the first thing Joshua says in this play, and it basically encapsulates everything he claims to believe. Now whether he actually thinks this is a matter of debate. Sure, Joshua rats out his own fellow villagers and then whips them himself. But on the other hand, he shows frustration at numerous points in the play… and aims a gun at Clive at the end of Act 1.

Another big part of Joshua's so-called whiteness is his claim that he hates his African tribe. For those who are curious, a huge part of British colonialism in Africa was the effort to make Africans accept the superiority of white knowledge and white culture. In this sense, Joshua is talking here like a stereotype of a black African who has accepted these ideas.

At the end of his opening speech, Joshua says that all he wants to be in life is what white men want him to be. His line actually echoes Betty's earlier statement, "what men want is what I want to be " (1.1.21). This parallel draws a direct connection between the kind of power that white men hold over women and the kind they held over black people during British colonization.