"We's the Leftovers": Whiteness as Economic Power and Exploitation in August Wilson's Twentieth-Century Cycle of Plays.

WILSON, August, 1945-2005; AFRICAN Americans; DRAMATISTS; ARTS

In this essay the author address the first and foremost part of this equation: Wilson's emphasis on how property or capital bestows power on whites in American society so that they can make decisions which determine the course of other people's lives and, in so doing, often disrupt and destroy those lives for their own economic survival. The widespread critical attention August Wilson work has enjoyed has helped establish his stature as the African American playwright of the late twentieth century.In particular, scholars have focused almost exclusively on Wilson's black portraits, concurring with the dramatist who, both in his plays and in his interviews, accentuates the struggles of his black characters.