ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author seek to put Shakespeare into conversation with both contemporary events and issues surrounding the violation of Black people, and with the various works, writers, and artists who address the long history of violence against Blacks. It urges readers to see in the brutalized bodies of Black individuals their own role and their own selves. It is difficult, then, not to wince when the people see that even in literary studies, some continue to argue that the violence on Othello's body is not intrinsically connected to race. It is in Cobb's keen attention to the shades of racism that so often centralize whiteness and ignore, if not silence, those dark of skin, that the author see him carry Shakespeare into a meaningful realm in the people present moment. It is the privilege of whiteness and her high social standing that allow Desdemona to imagine she shared something with Barbary in the asymmetrical relationship.
