Alice Walker's "Everyday Use"/Dee's Afrocentricism

Webster's defines "ethnocentrism" as "an emotional attitude that one's own ethnic group, nation or culture is superior to all others" (481). In her short story "Everyday Use," Alice Walker demonstrates through the character of Dee what it means to be "Afrocentric." On the surface, Dee is the quintessential modern black womanóshe has assumed an African name, African dress, and thrown off everything that smacked of white oppression.
Dee professes to appreciate her roots and her heritage, while simultaneously making it clear that she believes that her mother and sister are incapable of doing so. Through the use of metaphor and language, Walker expertly reveals the shallowness that underlies Dee's ostentatious behavior. In so doing, she reveals an underlying irony in Dee's quest for identity, which is that in seeking her African heritage and proclaiming its superiority, she has neglected her very real heritage as American of African descent.
The story is quite simple. The narrator, Dee's mother, and her sister Maggie are waiting rather anxiously for a visit from Dee. Dee's mother muses about the past and, in doing so, reveals a gre...