In the act of writing about it, however, Fawzï Pasha responded inge- niously to this indignity. With his customary habit of ventriloquism, Fawzï affirmed his cultural identity with greater subtlety; his assertion of himself as an Egyptian of high rank comes from the mouths of the Sudanese. In Fawzï’s frame of reference, black skin is closely associated with slavery. By making the black Sudanese paint him as foreign, linked with the white Europeans, he preserved his natural rank as master, for him and his readers.

Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Coloni…, loc. 626