He yearns for his black audience to see that change is feasible no matter how big or small that change may be. Even though these transformations reveal difficulties due to racial justices, Malcolm espouses hope and sets them on the right path in order to rejuvenate their lives. Barrett John Mandel argues that, “Malcolm’s creative rendering of the facts is that he wished to have a
Essay #4 Rough Draft: Booker T. Washington & WEB Du Bois Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois are considered as the two most influential black leaders of all the black American movement history. However, they followed different ideologies concerning how black people should achieve civil rights. Booker T. Washington encouraged the need for African Americans to be able to compete skillfully on an economic basis with the white Southerners, while Du Bois wanted more than that, and exactly focused on encouraging the black Americans to fight for their civil rights rather than just acting passively, as Washington’s philosophy suggested. If a man feels oppressed, and thinks his rights are being held from him, then he should fight by all means possible to win them back, as the following analysis would debate it.
Words, Words, Words "Don't judge a book by its cover" is a turn of phrase which cautions one to truly know and understand a person before passing judgment upon them. In literature, this is the duty of the author: to introduce his or her readers to the characters; to let the readers get inside the heads of the characters and see the world from their perspective. In the realtivism of the literary universe, only through empathy can character be judged. Some authors hold the reader's hand and tell them exactly what to think about a character; they spell out exactly what that character's motivations are and whether these are congruous with the morals of the world the author has crafted. Other authors, such as William Faulker, leave the challenge up to the reader.
Daniel Bridgers English 1102 27 October 2014 Alford Reflective Response In the essay, “Black Men and Public Space,” Staples expresses the difficulties African Americans may face in today’s society. Through detailed description, Staples explains how he had been negatively stereotyped throughout is life. It taught him to take precaution in the places he would visit and the people he would encounter.. The wording used is very powerful. It vividly depicts how society views race.
Written by Mark Twain this story depicts the relations between blacks and whites during a time of slavery. This book should be read because it was written at the time when the slavery issue was coming to a head politically, it is leading up to the civil war, and people should want to know more about their own history and the language used in that time. Huckleberry Finn’s main thematic point against slavery is the statement of Jim that then grows into love. Huck learns to treat Jim as an equal and it depicts how the character development of Jim nurtures into a real human individual, much more than a slave. I believe high school students should read this to understand what exactly it was like to be an African American slave during that pastime.
In Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Hughes Not Without Laughter, and passages in Souls Looking Back, the struggles of African Americans are realistically portrayed in characters that go through traumatizing events while growing up in a place where blacks are seen as inferior to whites. These texts illustrate some of the major points in Peter’s essay: Constant exposure to racism leads to extreme environmental stress, blacks require more education than whites to be deemed successful, and whites can negatively influence individuals and make them want to change the way they live so they are not “associated” with the black population. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, there are many ways black lives are marginalized just because of the color of their skin. In Langston Hughes’s Not Without Laughter, the main character witnesses first hand how whites views of blacks are personal but society makes those views “normal”. The Souls Looking Back narrative explains how race is a social identity, and how blacks are inferior just because of color.
Some African-Americans have been fed the lies of our past being non-existent so many times that they begin to convince themselves that what they’ve been told is a lie as well. Baruti states that there is naturally no such thing as an African American, he believes that one cannot be both “Afrikan” and “European”, due to the fact that the afrikan and European ways are irreconcilably incompatible. The chapter outlines what the author believes to be a universal truth. This states that a person must know their origins and practice their traditions in order to be themselves. If not, they lose themselves in another’s vision of reality.
Society's Effect on Bigger Thomas Bigger is a “native son”, a product of America’s society, culture and the racism that is America’s lifeblood. Richard Wright, in his book Native Son, uses his main character-Bigger Thomas- as a foil for exposing the racial inequality, bigotry, and conflict between whites and African Americans. Bigger Thomas is not a traditional hero by any means; instead, Thomas fulfills all the racial stereotypes expected of blacks by whites. While Native Son takes place after slavery ended in America, the tensions of violence, white power, and segregation still linger in this society. Bigger Thomas struggles to cope with the inequalities and injustices of a 1930s Chicago’s society in which whites dominate blacks.
In To Kill a Mockingbird, characters responses towards racial prejudice differ across the community. Atticus Finch the white protagonist of the text, is one who fights for race unity, similarly in Higher Learning, Phipps the Negro professor is also one who takes a stand to establish justice. Through Harper Lee’s use of anaphora, an emphasis is put on Atticus’ quote: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." This quote is referring to seeing things from someone else’s perspective, usually needed when disputes are present. This putting yourself in someone else’s shoes allows you to be more understanding of the person’s actions, and allows you to compromise, exactly what justice is deficient of.
It is the legacy of the United States. Unfortunately we have been socialized to believe that imprisonment is inevitable for black men; black and white people alike share this mindset. Now is not the time for justice to become blind. Justice needs to become just, so every arrest and sentencing of a black man should be scrutinized. References University of Houston.