Racial Ideology, American Politics, and the Peculiar Role of the Social Sciences”; where he explains his research on the intersection of poverty, crime and race. Bobo contends the United States is faced with a sophisticated, elusive and enduring race problem. His use of two separate focus groups one being all white and the other being all black uncovered evidence to support just how complex the race problem in America is. Bobo contends the just saying that the race problem still endures is not to say that it remains fundamentally the same and essentially the same. Bobo asks how we can have milestone decisions like Brown V. Board, pass a civil rights act, a voting act, fair housing acts, and numerous acts of enforcement and amendments, including the pursuit of affirmative action policies and still continue to face a significant racial divide in America.
This story portrays stereotypes, racism, and struggles, which relate to the previous books Malcolm X and Birth of a nation. The struggles that blacks went through definitely makes me appreciate how far people have evolved and the era that I live in. A Worn Path would be read from a third-person’s viewpoint. As you read the tale it allows you to picture it from a distance and let the readers interpret the reading in their own perspective. “unimaginable in any hands but hers” (Fitzgerald 494).
Racism Nowadays, many people are talking about racism whether it still exist in the society. Racism is a term that represents the race of discrimination, unequal treatment, or violence. In fact, a country cannot totally avoid these natural phenomenons, but it can be controlled by the public of the country. In Harlon L. Dalton’s essay “Horatio Alger” in rereading America by Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle and Barack Obama’s essay “Origins” in Dreams from my father prove that racism is a part of my life when I was living in a foreign country. These two essays from Harlon L. Dalton and Barack Obama both are about the racism between people.
Black Like Me As I begin reading the story John Griffin introduces himself to the readers. He began with a speculation; if he became an African American he could help understand the difficulties between races as a white man and African American in the south and with this knowledge develop a means to bridge the gap. His desire to know if Southern whites were racists against African Americans population of the Deep South or if they really judged people based on the individual’s personality as they said they prompted him to cross the color line and write Black Like Me. The author’s purpose for writing this book is simply factual. He speaks of letting it be known about how African Americans in the South are treated due to the color of their skin, and what it felt like for a white man to be an African American in the South.
Black Like Me In Black Like Me by John Griffin, the reader immediately learns the premise for this book and that the author is also going to be the main character in this book. Griffin starts off with a theory that if he were to become a black American, he himself could help others understand the difficulties surrounding race relations, especially those between a white American and a black American in the Deep South. The end result would be, knowing his findings he could help cultivate a means to understanding between the two cultures. His desire to know if Southern whites were racists against their black counterparts or if they would even consider judging him based on the content of his character, which is the main purpose of the experience expressed in Black Like Me. Griffin wrote this book to exam facts of the dilemma of the racial tensions.
| Comparison Essay | Brandon Simmons | October 10, 2012 | The purpose of this essay is to compare “The Library Card” written by Richard Wright and “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self” written by Alice Walker. These essays were written by two African American authors. Wright was born in 1908 and Walker was born in 1944. They grew up in the south during the times when America was segregated and African Americans were not free to do whatever they wanted to. Many of their stories were written about the struggles of blacks.
In “Of Our Spiritual Striving,” sociologist William Edward Burghardt Du Bois writes about the “double-consciousness” that African Americans are afflicted with in the American society. He uses an even and reasoned tone throughout the entire selection as he explains how African Americans are born with a handicap because of their dark skin tone and are pitied by the white American. Du Bois asks a rhetorical question and tries to explain how it feels to be a “problem.” He explores this question by giving specific examples relating to his experiences. The strategy of repetition is used to address and emphasize the concept of “double-consciousness” and “vast veil.” Du Bois reminisces about his childhood where a girl refused to exchange greeting cards with him because of the darker color of his skin. It was then that he realized he was different from the others, thus coining the term of having a “vast veil.” He noticed that having a darker skin color is considered a problem for the African Americans because of the “double-consciousness” that comes along with being in the American society.
In “The Fourth of July” by Audre Lorde, she explores the difficulties of racism during the 1940s. She explains how complex it was for not only young African Americans, but African Americans in general. Therefore the readers would get a better perspective of what she was saying. Lorde used creativity in “The Fourth of July” by composing it with different elements of literature such as structure, tone/attitude, and implicating her and her family in it. The structure of this text revolves around the theme racism.
In “ The Arc of the Moral Universe is Long, but it Bends towards Justice,” written by Maya Angelou, and “America as a College,” written by Ryzard Kapuscinski; address common themes such as racism and overcoming a defeat. In Angelou’s article, it states that blacks are no longer invisible in the US, through hard work and achievement. “ Whites now see blacks, but only as a threat to their safety or their jobs.” In America as a Collage, it talks about how minorities overcome discrimination, and “all races will merge into one race.” Both articles address different issues on prejudice and an attempt to overcome racism. The two articles carry the theme of racism in different ways. Angelou’s article, states that African Americans have come along ways since the civil rights movement.
There is a great deal of academic discussion and analysis regarding racial discourse and one of the fundamental authorities on this subject is B. Harro. His commentary on the Cycles of Socialization and Liberation provide a solid basis from which to analyze images of racial discourse and their impact on the population. The basis of these cycles is the idea of social identity, “we are each born into a specific set of social identities, related to the categories of difference mentioned above, and these social identities predispose us to unequal roles in the dynamic system of oppression” (Harro, 2000, p. 45). By identifying with a certain social group, a person is going to drift toward the stereotypes portrayed for that social group. In this case, social identity contributes heavily to how a person of a particular race lives his or her life, “We get systematic training in ‘how to be’ each of our social identities throughout our lives” (Harro, 2000, p. 45).