Word: delanoe
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...turns out that Babu is Cereno's master, that he led the blacks in killing their masters and most of the ship's crew. He is using Cereno in order to capture Delano and force him to pilot the slaves back to Africa...
Before this is revealed, however, Delano refuses to abandon his prejudices (about dutiful servants and degenerate Spaniards) which make it impossible for him to comprehend rightly the situation, even with the mounting evidence that something is wrong and even when his own life depends on correct perception. He insists on the exactly wrong assessment--believing that Cereno's eccentric behavior signifies that the Spaniard intends to harm...
When the blacks openly indicate their power Delano still can't see them as anything but a threat to his life and a danger to his comfortable preconceptions. He presides while his sailors obliterate them with superior firepower. Babu, the last surviver, petitions Delano for mercy: "Yankee master, understand me. The future is with us." Over the protests of Cereno and Perkins ("We want to save someone") and while the lights dim to blackness, Delano empties his pistol into the black's body...
...power of this final tabloid is more to the credit of Lowell than the TCB. The violence itself is difficult to mis-stage, but it makes sense only if the production's narrow reading of the script is expanded. While racism is essential to Delano's behavior, the TCB fails to suggest that the Yankee would defend his (national) values against any threat--racial or not--not by reason or mercy, but by force. Benito Cereno is less a tragedy of malice or vengefulness--suggested by the Theater Company--than of American blindness...
...farmworkers distributed wordy mimeographed leaflets explaining the connection between grapes on the shelves in Lawrence and exploitation of farm labor in Delano, California. But the shoppers seemed unimpressed. Most of theim ignored the leaflets or grabbed at them perfunctorily to avoid an eye to eye confrontation with the picketers. Those who did stop were generally confused. They weren't going to buy grapes anyway, so why shouldn't they shop there? Wasn't this a secondary boycott, and wasn't that illegal? When the store closed at ten o'clock, the picketers tallied the two, three, or five shoppers they...