【正文】 bol of beauty and nobleness. She says that the genuine black is the blackest person, while the person who is attached to white people and humiliates the patriot is the black person who has contracted albinism. The Color Purple fully demonstrates the ideology of African centralism and its positive influence in black women of seeking liberation and equality of Black Nationalism. African Centralism African centralism, also known as Afrocentrism or Afrocentricity, is a cultural ideology, mostly limited to the United States and is dedicated to the history of black people. It is a response to global Eurocentric racist attitudes about African people and their historical contributions, and revisits their history with an African cultural and ideological focus. African centralism is centered on the belief that one should lives in harmony with nature, and there is an oneness between human and nature. By assimilating the positive elements of African culture, black women have reestablished their identities, enhanced their selfconsciousness and raised race consciousness, all of which are lost in American society. In the novel, the African tradition is available through Nettie’s letters from Africa. Her letters are largely ethnographic reading of African culture. They broaden our views by describing customs of the Olinka that parallel some found in South Africa. When the first time Nettie sees black Africans, she writes: “They are the blackest people I have ever seen… they are so black, Celie, they shine… . I felt like I was seen black for the first time… .. Because the black is so black, the eye is simply dazzled, and then there is the shining that seems to e, really, from moonlight, it is so luminous, but their skin glows in the sun.” (Alice Walker 1982) 147 Chapter 3 Celie’s Selfconsciousness 7 Through Nettie’s letters, women’s relationship with men, which shows universal oppression, is described. In Olinka, women and their husbands will do anything for each other, sharing both gossip and everyday chores. African culture has the effect in the mind of black women. Influence of African Centralism on Celie African centralism is a gleam of light in black women’s dark life. Because of the light, black women begin their pursuing of believes, the shape of the God in their mind. Alice Walker does not ply with Christianity blindly. With the developing of Celie’s character, the author has made her Walkertype graphic solution to Christianity and to God. This subverts the traditional Christian concept that God is a white man, and the concept in black men’s mind that he is the God. In The Color Purple, black woman shouted loudly: God is I! God is a black woman! This liberated belief is one of the most important topics of The Color Purple. Is God a white man? In Celie’s mind, “He big and old and tall and graybearded and white. He wear white robes and gobarefooted. ” (Alice Walker 1982) 201 In short, it is an old white man. However, what white men have done? They hurt Celie’s friends. They kill Netie’s father and brothers, and poison the intrepid black woman Sofia who breaks her ribs and her head, blinds in one eye. In the novel, Shug is the earliest woman who is selfconscious. She says: “when I found out I thought God was white, and a man, I lost interest.” (Alice Walker 1982) 202These words encourage Celie to be selfconsciousness. Is God a black man? Racial segregation and racial discrimination protect black women stand in the black world from the white men, but they can not escape black men. The biggest misery that black women suffer is imposed by black men who said he is the God of black women. Celie is told by Shug: “men make all fall” and “he is trying if you believe that he is everywhere, you just thought he was God. But he is not God.” “You must erase man’s eye from yours eyeball, you can see all things.” (Alice Walker 1982)184. Be told these words, Celie’s independent mind bees more and more powerful. God is a black woman. In The Color Purple, the heroine is shaped by the author in the ability of personalities, talents are relatively weak. Without the positive caring, loving and encouraging of the other women, she is impossible to get rid of slavery and bees selfconscious. Shug encourages Celie to discover herself, to know herself, to face herself, to confirm herself, and to liberate herself. Sofia is a black woman in this novel who has the most rebellious spirit. For Celie, Sofia is freer than God in spirit. Nettie is Celie’s loving caregivers and spiritual mentor. They are the necessary factors in Celie’s selfconsciousness. They shout the strongest sound though their College of Foreign Languages, Hebei United University 8 smiles that are full of their blood, tears, and sweat. They are loved by God—they are God! God is I! The author surmounts race, sex and belief to liberate men, white men, white women, all of human and world. This is the perfect expression of Alice walker’s womanism. Walker39。s religious view of women is closely linked together with four main characteristics of her womanism which include countersex discrimination, counterracial discrimination, African centralism and humanitarianism. At the end of Celie’s selfconsciousness, Celie shouts: god is I! Influence of Other Women in The Color Purple In The Color Purple, the emphasis is placed on the oppressions of black women that they experience in their relationships with black men (fathers, brothers, husbands, lovers), and the struggle of black women. How do black women liberate themselves? They build a wall of camaraderie around themselves. Since they destroy the violence of the patriarchal system with the power of their unity and improve the relationships between men and women, black women finally succeed in liberating themselves, and in recreating themselves.