“Overzealous officials” grill suspicious foreigners “to the point of near panic” (Khan 559). In worst cases, death has occurred Haitians seeking refuge, a man was not allowed to keep his medication while he was put in Krome (Danticant 569). The profiling does not only happen with officials, but many Americans often profile foreigners. Americans heightened suspicion on not only non-Americans, but on Americans with Middle Eastern traits. Americans know “racial profiling is both morally wrong and ineffective”, but they rather be safe than sorry (Chavez 563).
Had he been caught in Mary's bedroom he knew he would've been fired and perhaps arrested. On page 85 then author says “He wanted to move from the bed, but was afraid he would stumble over something and Mrs. Dalton would hear him, would know that someone besides Mary was in the room.” Bigger was so afraid of being caught in Mary’s room that he wouldn’t even move. Bigger, a Black man, being caught in a young White woman’s bedroom would have caused more commotion than he had bargained for. On page 87 the author says “He had killed a white woman” Not only had Bigger killed someone but he had killed a white person. Society already doesn’t favor Black men so the fact that he had taken the life of a white woman put even more fear into him than any other murder he could have committed.
“’Daddy-O, drop dead,’ he said and was gone” (190). The final line of Richard Wright’s short story “Big Black Good Man” is difficult to interpret, because it could imply one of two things: that Jim, the title character, was just joking with Olaf, the old hotel clerk; or Jim was well aware of Olaf’s secret hatred of him, and was making a double-sided remark as he left the hotel forever. Many critics believe Jim was actually oblivious to Olaf’s racist thoughts and feelings, but throughout the story, there are many examples that suggest otherwise. Firstly, the narration of the story is frequently unreliable, suggesting that Olaf, even though he “took in all comers—blacks, yellows, whites, and browns”, (185) was absolutely incorrect in his actions, and at the same time, presenting Jim as having the moral high ground and making all of his actions seem plausible and normal. The story is for the most part told in the third-person limited point of view, but sometimes steers into an omniscient point of view, usually at the detraction of Olaf’s perception on what is happening in the story.
“He felt as though this man had come here expressly to remind him how puny, how tiny, and how weak and how white he was” (209). Just because of Jim’s size and dark skin color, Olaf felt as if Jim was a mean, blunt person. “Too big, too black, too loud, too direct, and probably too violent to boot” (Wright 209). Olaf even went as far as feeling offended by Jim’s appearance. “There was something about the man’s intense blackness and ungainly bigness that frightened and
There were still many instances in “Righteous Dopefiend” where many of the Edgewater homeless called the blacks no good thieves and scoundrels never to be trusted, even without any reason to do so. As soon as he returned from the hospital, Max, one of the whites at Edgewater, moved to the site at the Dockside Bar & Grill as soon as he saw the blacks in the encampment under the I-beam (Bourgois & Schonberg 2009). This shows how racism kept the people in Edgewater apart, which prevented them from establishing inter-racial relationships. The one exception to this was the relationship between Al and Sonny, which
Jefferson’s attorney was the reason that Jefferson lost his self-respect. Jefferson’s attorney is a symbol of racism. Defending Jefferson as a “hog” because he sees him as one, he assumes he is guilty because of his race, no second thoughts, and even though the lawyer is assigned as an attorney to help him, he doesn’t care about Jefferson either way. Whites saw African Americans as unintelligent, so the attorney defends Jefferson the way the whites see him. An example would be when the lawyer says, “He does not even know the size of his clothes or his shoes”, another example of the attorney seeing Jefferson as unintelligent was when he stated “Ask him to quote one passage from the constitution or Bill of Rights.” When the lawyer says, “What you see here is a thing that acts on command.” Shows that the lawyer doesn’t show any sign of respect he has for Jefferson what so ever.
His first bad choice was entering the bar to have a drink; and drinking becomes the main source of trouble for him. His weak mindedness, allows him to be peer pressured into drinking large quantities of alcohol that allow his dark side to prevail through. The people of Bundanyabba are characterized in a way that does not give them much integrity. “You could sleep with their wives, despoil their daughters, sponge on them, defraud them, do almost anything … But refuse to drink with them and you immediately became a mortal enemy.” This is saying that you could do anything in the world these people and it wouldn’t even compare to rejecting a beer. It creates an overall feel that the Bundanyabba people don’t have self-respect and so arises the theme of alcohol abuse.
The black community has suffered far too long and they should hold themselves on a higher pedestal, but not so high that they in turn start to act in the way the whites treated them not too long ago. Baldwin is invited by Elijah Muhammad to dinner at his house a member of the Islamic group states “The white man sure is a devil” (Baldwin, 65). The word devil is such a mean, evil spirited word. The lowest thing any man would want to be heard called and compared to. Baldwin doesn’t agree the white man is the devil, but “according to Elijah, that [he] failed to realize that the white man was a devil was that [he] had been too long exposed to white teaching and had never received true instruction” (Baldwin, 66).
English 132 Section 06 31 March 2011 Reflective Essay: “Black Men in Public Spaces” and “It’s Hard Enough Being Me” Brent Staples and Anna Lisa Raya both responded in a defensive way. The tone in “Black Men in Public Spaces” was not very friendly and Staples made statements in a defensive mood. He was offended by the reactions of the people’s reactions of him as he freely roamed the city streets. When Staples made the statement, ”I’d come into the ability to alter public space in ugly ways”, he lets the reader know he is offended by this “white woman’s” reaction toward him. In “It’s Hard Enough Being Me”, Raya expressed how she felt out of place in her new environment.
When Richard and Harrison agree to fight themselves for money they end up humiliating themselves. For the two men are unable to fake a fight and are thus forced to actually injure one another due in part to the fear that the white viewers invoke on them. This fight in the end deeply ashamed Richard for it got him to realize that violence infects the black community in general, whether from within or from the white community’s imposed violence. When Richard grows up he moves to Chicago and joins the Communist movement. However he learns quickly that the police beat protesting Communists and Richard is forced to move from one outcast group to another, never truly escaping reality.