Debra Shaw Professor Magarine English II 21 February 2012 My Brother’s Keeper James Baldwin was an artist who transcended above the voice and ideas of critics who did not think he would be successful in his endeavors. He lived during an era of time when segregation was rampant and blacks did not have a vote. Although, Baldwin was black, poor and gay he made a great impact on society with his creative writing style. “Sonny Blues,” depicts a true historical event of the racial tension and difficulties that African American Families faced in the 1950’s. Living in the ghetto is a time of darkness and despair for most black families and for a majority of the people it is a way of life and death.
The state of the African-American community has been deplorable since this country’s birth. The history of being treated like second-class citizens, from slavery to Jim Crow laws, has led to the sad condition of this minority. The various issues plaguing the African-American community have become topics of discussion in various poems, novels, and short stories by blacks. One such story is “Sonny’s Blues.” In James Baldwin’s short story, the narrator uses the grim environment of Harlem to illustrate the despair and strength requires in being an African American. The narrator’s environment reveals the despair in being an African American.
Racism in “Native Son” “Native Son”, by Richard Wright, is a heart-rending representation of the racial oppression that invaded Chicago as well as the rest of America during the 1930s. Through the experiences of his black character Bigger Thomas, Wright provides helpful understandings about the origins of racial segregation and the tragic ways in which it affected American society. Throughout the story, Wright insists that Bigger was not born a violent criminal. He is a “native son”. A native son is a product of the violence and racism that suffused the devastating social conditions in which he was raised.
The one of the focuses of the film is to convey to its audience that living in the ghetto, like south central los angeles, is an unbelievably tough, but some people don't know what its like to live there. Killings, robberies, rapes and other acts of violence go undetected as certain cities tear america apart. This being said, writer and director John Singleton, wanted to expose the hostility of the Urban areas to society and shed some light on what black people were going through at that time period. Another focus was the absence of strong fatherly role models. Tre's father, portrayed by Lawrence Fishburn, is really the only father depicted in the neighborhood.
The modern day novel and movie The Help shows many similarities that were portrayed in the classical novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Both The Help and To Kill a Mockingbird go into depth about the struggle humanity has been threw over the years. Although they both contain the same themes the way the authors create the situations and display the harsh reality of society’s make these two stories very different. During the depression prejudice was at its peak, with the Jim Crow laws and no rights for blacks it made it near impossible for the African American community to live a normal life. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird the rape trail of Tom Robinson vs Mayella Ewell, an African American man accused of raping a white teenage girl was held in a bias court room of Maycomb County.
In the South however, the blacks were disfranchised, since the state governments introduced literacy tests, tests on the knowledge of constitution and Poll taxes, which African Americans had trouble with, because of poor education and financial problems. Both created through discrimination and racism. Racial hatred groups such as the Ku Klux Klan still existed. They advertised violent treatment of African Americans, and often engaged in violent activities themselves. Blacks were often beaten or killed by members of such hate groups.
During the early 20th century, Jim Crow South had a significant impact on people. Jim Crow laws were rulings that enforced racial segregation in the south from 1877-1954 forcing blacks to live separate from whites; usually in a poor quality society. Jim Crow laws managed and dictated which privileges blacks enjoyed. By law, blacks could not use the same facilities, could not attend the same schools, or could not drink out of the same water fountains as whites. The laws were basically just a list of “could-nots”.
To understand the racism in this novel, we must first understand this novel illustrates the mistreatment, hatred and injustice towards African Americans in 1930’s. I will use examples from the novel to demonstrate these situations and examine culture in which they were acceptable. The beginning of black racism started when white people went to Africa and took captives and sold them in the southern U.S. Africa American started as possessions like animals—slaves. In the next 200-300 years, they suffered a life which a mankind can not bear anymore. They were forced to work without any payment.
To conclude, black people all over the world, wherever they live were for a long time victim of racism for their skin color. People treated them badly only because they had a darker skin color, forgetting that that we are all humans and the color of our skins an where we come from doesn’t indicate our personalities and beliefs. Black in America suffered a lot for reason of racism and went through the hard ships and difficulties
Although each of them had their own perspectives, their main objective was the same. Reparations in this society can be defined by stating that the U.S. government needs to make a formal apology to blacks for the damage caused by the transatlantic slave trade due to social and economic consequences in the United States. Advocates also feel the U.S. government owes the black people. Blacks remain behind due to many things, the most important being slavery. The Constitution, until recently, did not apply to blacks; blacks feel they deserve payments from 310 years of slavery, destruction to their minds and culture.