The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference

by Richard Wright, Amritjit Singh, Gunnar Myrdal

This indispensable work urging removal of the color barrier remains one of the key commentaries on the question of race in the modern era. First published in 1956, it arose from Richard Wright's participation in a global conference held in Bandung, Indonesia, in April 1955. With this report of what occurred at Bandung Wright takes a central spot on the international stage and serves as a harbinger of worldwide social and political change. He exhorts Western nations, largely responsible for the poverty and ignorance in their former colonies, to destroy racial impediments and to work with the leadership of the new nations in moving toward modernization and industrialization under a free democratic system rather than under Communist totalitarianism. With this book, Wright became a precursor to the era of multiculturalism and an advocate for global transformation.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, 20th Century, Africa, Race

245 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of powerful, sometimes controversial novels, short stories and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerned racial themes. His work helped redefine discussions of race relations in America in the mid-20th century.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I almost skipped this book from my 1956 reading list. Fortunately I tracked it down in a Harper Perennial Modern Classics reprint that also includes Black Power (1954) and White Man Listen (1957). The Color Curtain records a probably little known or remembered event in 20th century world history, while it predicts much about our early 21st century globalized society.

At a time when the Iron Curtain dominated the news, a conference was held in Bandung, Indonesia, where delegates from twenty-nine free and independent nations of Asia and Africa met and discussed "racialism and colonialism." Richard Wright, then living in Paris and pursuing a life of intellectual journalism, heard about the conference and decided to attend. He recognized the startling importance of an event that would begin a conversation between the colored peoples of the world, who had just then freed themselves of Western colonialism and imperialism.

Wright's method was to interview people of many of these nations and to attend all the events of the conference. Through the interviews he "found that many Asians hated the West with an absoluteness that no American Negro could ever muster." A Pakistani man told Wright, "The Asian-African Conference will be a great thing. In the past, the West always took the lead; now it is time for Asia and Africa to lead mankind. We have been objects; now we can be subjects."

The Color Curtain examines the left and right politics of the day; the exotic blend of race and religion among Asian and African peoples; and the presence and role of communism as represented by China. He then makes predictions about the futures of Asia, Africa, and the West that are chillingly accurate.

So I learned that my growing perception of the 1950s as a pivotal decade in the history of the modern world was correct. Underneath the seeming banality and boredom of American life in that decade, the seeds had been sown and in fact were germinating towards a whole new world. I can't imagine a course in world history that would not include this book, yet I doubt that any of today's high school or college students have heard of it. (If you have, let me know!)

[Anneke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m ashamed to say that this is the first I’ve heard of the Bandung Conference of 1955. Described as the first conference of the Asian and African nations, an historic and exclusive meeting of formerly colonized peoples, the Bandung Conference is a significant marker of 20th c post colonial political development. From Wright’s point of view, race and religion are some of the key battlegrounds and identity markers within Asia at this time. Communism perhaps comes in at a close third, even if it is often painted in the mainstream media as the central political issue. Asia is incredibly diverse in terms of race and religion, and yet the history of colonization casts a long, uniting shadow across the minds and hearts of its inhabitants.

Richard Wright’s background as a novelist shines through in his journalistic interpretation of the conference in The Color Curtain. You see this in the way he describes the emotional and physical landscape as it passes by him on the Madrid-bound train, as well as his colorful and often effusive racialized descriptions of the people he encounters and interviews. I am going to keep thinking about that half Indian and half Irish woman’s interview responses for awhile…Do we really not need a universal humanism? Why does she claim it was beneficial for Japanese colonists to behead people and put their heads on stakes? Richard Wright seems interested in the idea that people like her, caught between East and West, are manifestations of the political moment of the mid 20th century. Of course, we are all in one way or another being affected by the constructed dichotomy of Orient and Occident. As for the “Eurasian,” Wright views this category of individual to be symbolic of colonial legacy and its residual unrest. I honestly don’t love his interpretation and disdain for “the Eurasian,” I guess identifying as one myself. Perhaps his analysis made more sense then, but it just feels a little hostile. We see the ambivalence of ‘Eurasianness’ in the varied and occasionally contradictory psychologies of the select people he encounters, and more so perhaps in the way Wright imposes his Black American perspective on rather neutral or surface level interactions with Asians who call Asia their home. This kind of artistic liberty certainly does make this book more entertaining, but I also think that it dates the piece and imbues it with a level of subjectivity that either distorts or enhances the truth (I am not sure which…and if, for that matter, it should be completely avoided)

All this being said, I think Wright is a brilliant writer and thinker. I find his attachment to the Bandung Conference very intriguing. I also appreciate reading a piece from 1955 which so staunchly addresses the need to combat continued colonial presence of France and Spain in Africa, as well as the injustices of the Nakba in Palestine. These issues very evidently weigh on speakers at the Bandung Conference, many of whom directly address the injustices of these modern colonial projects which become passed off far more benevolently than their existence warrants, often under the guise of a ‘national parent’ stepping in for ‘developing’ nations. Wright, his interviewees, and the countless speakers at the conference (e.g. Nehru, Chou en Lai, Nkrumah, Sukarno) are all dialed in to the historical significance of this conference as a step toward a post colonial future. Wright himself makes very horrifyingly accurate predictions abt the future, offering analyses that feel incredibly radical even today, over half a century later (makes me think honestly about how much American conservatism has crystallized and become more mainstream since this period). I wonder what a similarly large-scale post colonial conference might look like in today’s political milieu.

[Andrew Noselli · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this nonfiction book, Richard Wright discards his position as a novelist and takes up that of the sociologist. He did so because he became aware of a major Afro-Asian conference to be composed of so-called third-world countries that took place in Indonesia and he felt he could make some acute observations based on his experiences with the people who attended the conference to which, notably, the United States was not invited. He starts by looking at the class and race-based features of the attendees, and looks to see if they presented any distinct set of political prejudices as to just how they would construct the world based on the characterological paradigm they present to the world. Perhaps unsurprisingly, his initial analysis found that they were similar in that their personal adherence to sociological characteristics was frequently based on the particular stratum of society they belonged to, noting that the people who were most closely aligned within the bourgeoisie - with Wright's rejoinder that this distinction connoted not so much as the 'real' bourgeois but considered so through the prevalence of European schooling, etc. - were most inclined to support Western values and cultural dominance and, much to his chagrin, considered themselves to be "colored", a term which strikes the modern ear as being an example of the book's being 'dated' as well as being an example of the author saw as the self-hatred contained in the Asian personality, In my view this fundamentally psychological mindset still is in effect still today, as there are numerous scholarly and sociological perspectives which argue that the presence of internalized racism or "self-hatred" within some Asian individuals and communities is a psychological outcome and attestation to the prevalence of white supremacy and moral dominance in Western societies. This phenomenon is often described as the internalization of the dominant (white) culture's negative messages and stereotypes about one's own racial group

In the second part of Wright's volume, he relates how Indonesia's President Sukharno called this conference in Bandung the first international conference of colored people in the history of mankind. History tells us that Sukharto would later fall into disfavor with U.S. authorities; he did this by his decision to concentrate power, with some sources calling his later rule a populist semi-dictatorship. After he declared himself president for life in 1963, he disbanded all political parties that opposed him, eventually developing a personality cult around himself so that he made decisions with little oversight, leading to economic decline and hyperinflation. Sukarno was eventually maneuvered out of power by General Suharto following an alleged communist coup attempt in 1965. Suharto, established a widely recognized and more brutal military dictatorship that lasted over 30 years. While some observers at the time debated the nature of his rule, many historical analyses classify Sukarno as a nationalist dictator during the "Guided Democracy" period, albeit one with immense charisma who successfully unified a diverse nation and led it to independence.

At times I felt a little lost when trying to get a true understanding of this book, as the present racial understanding of the world-picture has changed much since the times in which Wright wrote this book. Personally, it is my hope that the people of the world are considered racially diverse, not 'colored', and that in a multicultural world, people no longer feel obliged to apologize for not being white. It is also my hope that, perhaps, the white world no longer makes this demand of them? It seems to me that the cauterizing influence of Western colonialism has been vanquished to a large measure; however I, as an outsider, can only speculate, I don't really know the truth regarding these matters, as the material crux of the problem has been hidden from me by the life I have chosen to lead. Still, as Wright observes, when Jack London coined the phrase 'Yellow Peril', he did not do so at the behest of racial ideologies so much as by the admission of economic pedagogies which, in my opinion, suggests the solution to the problem of conflicting racial differences is not be found by shifting the focus from merely identifying and critiquing existing ideas about race but by actively using educational methods to challenge and transform oppressive systems. Essentially, Richard Wright's The Color Line argues that true progress toward racial justice is achieved not just by talking about racism, but by fundamentally transforming how knowledge is produced, shared, and used as a tool for social and institutional change. Three stars.

[Aslihan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is the memoir of an African-American journalist who attended the Bandung conference in Indonesia in 1955. The conference is unique as it is the first of its kind bringing together representatives of decolonized African and Asian countries towards cooperation independent of western or socialist domination. Wright provides a vivid account of the setting which led to the conference, including interviews with colonial subjects, and those from colonizing countries, Indonesian intellectuals and international journalists. However, he provides a rather selective account of the conference, mainly focusing on issues of race and religion and the decolonization process, only briefly touching upon the clashes of interest between some of these countries, different perspectives of predominant leaders, and especially the economic underpinnings off the conference proceedings. While the book serves to be an appropriate beginning to inquire about colonialism, independence or Third World internationalism, it only gives a glimpse of the bigger picture of Cold War dynamics or political economy of decolonization.

[Leonardo]

Para un interesante relato personal sobre la Conferencia de Bandung y su importancia.

Imperio Pág.189

[Faris Rahmadian · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The despised, the insulted, the hurt, the dispossessed—in short, the underdogs of the human race were meeting... It was the kind of meeting that no anthropologist, no sociologist, no political scientist would ever have dreamed of staging; it was too simple, too elementary, cutting through the outer layers of disparate social and political and cultural facts down to the bare brute residues of human existence: races and religions and continents." (p.9-10)

I've been exploring materials on the Bandung Conference for a while now, and I can assure you this 'novel-like' writing style by Wright truly stands out. It provides a unique, personal, and reflective perspective on the event. From the very beginning, I particularly like the way he repeatedly 'humanizes' the event, stating that this was the first time colonized and oppressed peoples gathered together—symbolically representing "the human race speaking".

But: this book is only not an attempt by Wright to share his personal views and experiences, but also an analysis of the event. He mentions how the Bandung Conference can serve not only as a melting pot of identities but also as a space that transcends the traditional "Left" and "Right" dichotomy. Wright's perspective as an African American also provides an interesting lens, he observes that the Western world often fails to grasp the conference's underlying logic, misinterpreting it as purely anti-Western. He even observed how China’s Premier/Diplomat Zhou Enlai, which supposedly the 'representative' of the communist bloc, approached the conference so carefully and avoided the promotion of ideology. But, Wright didn't deny that "communism" in a pragmatic sense—particularly in terms of anti-imperialist rhetoric and collective struggle—is one of the driving 'ideological' influences and/or become the spirit of the conference.

He also seems to argue that there are two cornerstones that shaped the event: race and religion. Western colonial powers had weaponized these elements to create division, enforce hierarchy, and incite violence, which in turn created shared experiences of exploitation across many Asian and African countries. In Chapter 4, for example, Wright dives into a 'psychological analysis' of racial shame as an outcome of colonialism. He argues on how colonialism systematically dehumanized Asian and African people, infusing them with an internalized sense of inferiority that continuously shaped their identities and self-perception. This approach immediately reminded me of Frantz Fanon, but that year Fanon had only published 'Black Skin, White Masks' (three years before Wright published this book. which may have influenced Wright’s thinking when he wrote this book, but I'm not sure). Further, Wright also sees race and religion serve both as sources of 'collective identity' and as catalysts for resistance against the West. He even views the conference as a kind of arena for healing from the traumas and dehumanizing processes of colonialism. It marks a moment where everyone can finally be themselves and reclaim their identities, free from imposed hierarchies and violences:

"They could now feel that their white enemy was far, far away... Day after day dun-colored Trotskyites consorted with dark Moslems, yellow Indo-Chinese hobnobbed with brown Indonesians, black Africans mingled with swarthy Arabs, tan Burmese associated with dark brown Hindus, dusky Nationalists palled around with yellow Communists, and Socialists talked to Buddhists.

(28/10/2022)

[Pramukti Adhi Bhakti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saya membaca buku ini dalam kegiatan tadarus buku di Asian-African Reading Club (AARC) setiap hari Rabu pada tahun 2016. Awalnya saya mengira bahwa buku ini ditulis dengan gaya kepenulisan berita, yang biasa dilakukan oleh wartawan-wartawan. Ternyata tidak. Buku ini ditulis dengan mengalir sejak halaman awal sampai dengan halaman terakhir.

Melalui buku ini, saya bisa membayangkan dan berimajinasi bagaimana kondisi Indonesia, khususnya Bandung sebagai kota kelahiran saya, dulu di tahun 1955. Dan saya juga dapat membayangkan bagaimana perjalanan Richard Wright menuju ke Indonesia dan menyaksikan salah satu momen bersejarah: Konperensi Asia-Afrika (KAA) 1955. Perhelatan ini merupakan konferensi bangsa-bangsa kulit berwarna pertama di dunia.

Di bagian awal buku, Wright menceritakan perjalanannya dari Paris sampai ke Bandung, menemui banyak orang dan mewawancarai mereka, serta menjabarkan hasil wawancara itu dengan apik dilengkapi dengan interpretasi dari sudut pandangnya sendiri. Dua mantan perdana menteri Indonesia, Sutan Sjahrir dan Mohammad Natsir, menjadi pelengkap yang luar biasa untuk melihat bagaimana itu Asia, Indonesia, dan KAA yang akan segera terselenggara. Di bagian-bagian berikutnya, Wright menjabarkan faktor-faktor dan kekuatan-kekuatan yang menurut pandangannya berpengaruh besar dalam proses terjadinya dan jalannya KAA 1955. Di antara faktor-faktor itu adalah ras, agama, komunisme, dan dunia Barat. Semuanya dipaparkan dengan gamblang dan memang mengambil sudut pandang yang berbeda dibandingkan dengan cara pandang bangsa Indonesia.

Oleh karena itu, penting bagi bangsa Indonesia membaca buku ini untuk sejenak melihat masa lalu, membandingkannya dengan perubahan yang terjadi di masa kini, demi menjalani masa depan yang akan datang. Teman-teman yang ingin membaca terjemahan buku ini dalam bahasa Indonesia, bisa didapatkan di sini bit.ly/thecolorcurtain

[Ilana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, so why don't more folks know about the Bandung Conference.

Also this book is brilliant and daring and wonderful as a piece of nonfiction/reportage/opinion.

[shannon madden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for a college international studies course, and just reread it. Eight or nine years later, and after having spent some time in southeast Asia, I appreciated the book again and probably different than I did upon the first read. Hope to update the review later when I look back at my few margin notes and underlined sections. This is a pretty quick read, and well worth it for such an honest, open perspective on racial, cultural, and religious relations in the 1950s at an international level.