According to Du Bois the prejudices of white people elicit “self-questioning, self-criticism, and lowering of ideals” among black people. The internalization of anti-black sentiment from the outside world thus begins to shape the black American experience. Through the concept double consciousness DuBois becomes better able to explore the social problems he studied in his earlier work “The Philadelphia Negro”. Double consciousness also creates an element of conflict within the black American, as they struggle (often unsuccessfully) to reconcile their identity as a black person and as an American citizen. Dubois cites the example of the black artisan in “The Souls of Black Folk”.
Appearances and Reality Throughout the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, there are a multitude of examples of prejudice. These examples of prejudice are mainly directed towards the black citizens, simply based on the fact that there skin is a different color than that of the white citizens. This would not occur if the people where shown what they were doing, and someone explained to them what it was causing. The main theme represented by this novel is “appearances do not reflect realities and therefore quick judgments and stereotypes can be misleading.” Of course, these people don’t realize their mistakes, and therefore are unable to realize the wrong, and injustice it causes. At one point in the story, it seems as though other people besides the Finch family are seeing that judging people based on their looks is wrong.
The main concern and issue in TKAM is the concept of prejudice. In the text, prejudice is represented mainly through the racial inequality in the town of Maycomb . In the text, we see Atticus' belief in treating and respecting everyone as an individual contrasted with a number of other wold views. The aspect of racism is shown when the people of Maycomb accept the testimony of an obviously corrupt white man. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”.
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
How It Feels to Be Colored Me Race is a sensitive and emotional subject that most people shrink away from, especially in the case of African Americans. The injustice that was brought upon them in this country was unspeakable and still has a lingering effect on society today. Albeit rightly so, many African Americans harbor deep bitterness towards the way their ancestors were enslaved, but not Zora Hurston. In her essay, How It Feels to Be Colored Me, she explores the discovery of her identity and self-pride. Hurston employs colorful diction and figurative language to set the determined and proud tone of this piece.
The art piece that inspires me for my personal production task is from a little known artist by the name of Alice Pasquini. Pasquini builds a cultural identity for independent women through her colourful and objective street art pieces. She achieves this through her depictions of individuals, usually female or children, with explicit facial expressions commonly painted upon old unwanted walls. The facial expressions of these characters speak their story and identity aided by the refined and unusual painting style and the varying colours used to produce them. She inspires me from her bold, bright and profound artworks that are so characteristically distinguishable as being her style that they are hard to be mistaken as someone else’s work, this sense of identity through style is incredibly intriguing as a way of expressing ones individuality.
Through this kind of intimate and close to home story, Staples makes it clear that he himself came to the awful realization of “ the ability to alter public space in ugly ways” ( Staples, 19). He gives the reader that same sense of alienation that he felt at that moment; because of his skin color people automatically treated him different. Through this personal way of speaking he reached not only the white women, but black men, and American society as a whole. Staples makes the entire situation feel as though it were happening to you at that very moment; and that, no matter how hard you try, there is no changing the American way of discrimination. Staples also touched on situations that pertain to every audience mentioned above.
In contrast, Black Americans perceive that racism is a constant reality in their lives, White individuals continue to respond toward them. Micro-assaults are probably most similar that what has been called “old fashion racism because of their expression is deliberate, conscious, and explicit as seen in many countries around the globe. Racial micro-aggressions are use today towards blacks and Hispanics world-wide. Micro-aggressions reflect an unconscious worldview of White supremacy that directly assails the racial reality of non-White people. Racial micro-aggressions have an accumulative and harmful impact on people of color invalidating them as racial/cultural beings, undermining their spiritual and mental capacity, imposing a false reality on them.
In one confrontation involving Ras, Clifton, and the narrator, the Exhorter has many places where either his grammar is off or the words are spelled wrong for emphasis, “Come in with us, mahn. We build a glorious movement of black people/Taking their money is shit, mahn. Money without dignity- That’s bahd shit!” (371). The unnecessary presence of h’s in specific words only adds to the vision that Ellison makes. By including Ras in this fashion, he creates a stereotype view of the Black Race.
In Harper Lee’s compellingly poignant novel, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ we witness various forms of racism and injustice. As the protagonist, Scout exposes the bigotry present in Maycomb County and what the characters endured because of it, particularly the African Americans. We also observe the discrimination that certain characters, such as Atticus Finch and Mr. Dolphus endure because of the racial stereotypes who couldn’t comprehend their belief for justice for all. Racism in Maycomb was the norm. Most of the people of Maycomb were unjust and ignorant when it came to the most basic rights of the African Americans.