Diet Racism in Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice"

I haven't made a blog post in a while, and as I recall I promised to post essays I wrote for class. Unfortunately (from a blog reader's perspective) I am in writing-intensive classes, which fortunately (from my perspective) means that I get to re-write papers! As of yet I have not finished re-writing the essay I wanted to post, so instead of a proper essay, here is the contents of a forum post I made about Merchant of Venice for my Queer Readings class, contemplating historical difference:

In this short essay, I address a surprise I encountered in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice and the questions, concerns, and parallels to modern culture I drew from it. The main surprise I encountered while reading Merchant of Venice was the casual racism of Portia. I knew before starting to read Merchant that it has rampant antisemitism, but I was not expecting additional racist remarks towards black folk. There is, of course, rampant racism in our own time and so the presence of it was not a true surprise, but rather the insidious way it was taken for granted was what startled me. 

After the Prince of Morocco chooses the wrong casket, Portia’s line upon his departure is “Let all of his complexion choose me so.” (II.vii.79) In the notes of my copy of the text (The Norton Shakespeare, 3rd Edition), there is a performance comment that notes how many directors cut this line in order that Portia appear as a more sympathetic character. This censure raises the question of how this is replicated in our contemporary culture.

The erasure of unsavory comments in not unlike what I have heard called “diet racism” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdyin6uipy4). That is to say, the person in question presents themselves as being accepting and encouraging of equality, but in actuality still holds racist beliefs and makes racist comments when not in the earshot of the person they are insulting,

Throughout scene seven, Portia makes no outward criticism about the Prince of Morocco, but as soon as he leaves she makes the disparaging comment about his complexion.   Five centuries after Shakespeare, we are still held subject to this casual racism, and so examining this lack of cultural difference by closely looking at Portia's language can help us understand the way in which we have constructed the casual racism that can be found in our own time and place.


Our own historical and cultural moment is different in that this casual racism is often secluded when present in media, unless the character in question is the villain of the piece. In contrast, Portia is one of the protagonists in Merchant and the audience is meant to sympathize with her.