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Social influences on cognitive development
Summary of an essay on effects of cognitive development
The thesis of cultural differences
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Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and Hurston’s “How It Feels to Be Colored Me”, both share the same concept where individuals worlds of theirs are not the way they used to think. Plato and Hurston have different perspectives to elaborate this concept. However, both telling us to have more self confidence and just be ourselves. The society we live isn't always leading to the right path, what we need is to distinguish that is right and wrong. Hurston mentions in “How It Feel to Be Colored Me”, the town she used to live as a “negro” town, which reflects to the cave. Cave is the place where people blocked the outside world from themselves. Not only the encourage walking out of it, but also the challenge of accepting the new world require enormous faith. Therefore, there are plenty of different voices once you accept the new world. We often lose ourselves by believing in the others. It is what Hurston has been telling the readers : Believe in yourself and be more acceptable to the world. …show more content…
People were blindsided by the life they are used to. Meeting different group of people isn't really a big kind of challenge for Hurston, so did the old prisoners meet the world outside of the cave. When those prisoners came back to the cave, it was the real challenge. To what they should believe in, they couldn’t tell what is right. Nevertheless, both stand a solid point of view that we need to believe in what we believe. What everyone else is doing except for yourself isn't always the
Zora Neale Hurston grew up in Eatonville, Florida also known as “Negro Town” (Hurston, 1960, p.1). Not because of the town was full of blacks, but because the town charter, mayor, and council. Her home town was not the first Negro community, but the first to be incorporated. Around Zora becoming she experienced many hangings and riots. Not only did Zora experience t...
However, there is something to say about promoting pride within one’s community. There has been a trend in education to promote celebration and awareness instead of tolerance to combat racism. This aligns with what Hurston tries to argue. The traditional “color-blindness” model has proven not to work. At the same time, it can be argued that this is a redundant “fight fire with fire” tactic. Hurston conveniently ignores the many ways that blacks are treated less than whites within the united states at the time. Would blacks be better off if they were left to themselves in a constant situation of minority? This might have been a situation where pride was successfully sacrificed to promote give equal opportunity to all
Throughout history many great ideas have come from those who defy the boundaries set out by others. In order to achieve personal desires individuals had to think outside obvious standards. No longer do people cower in fear of their sexuality, no longer is planetary exploration impossible, this generation “marches out of step”(pg 73) defying past standards set out by previous generations. Boundaries have always been laid out by others, describing what is right and wrong, what is impossible and unrealistic. Individuals with the ability to elude conformity are able to set new standards and ditch the term impossible. In Ken Kesey’s novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” characters were subjected into conformity, however those that evade submission are able to realize their personal desires and as a result set a precedent for those that come after.
Ethnic group is a settled mannerism for many people during their lives. Both Zora Neale Hurston, author of “How It Feels to Be Colored Me; and Brent Staples, author of “Just Walk On By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space,” realize that their life will be influenced when they are black; however, they take it in pace and don’t reside on it. They grew up in different places which make their form differently; however, in the end, It does not matter to them as they both find ways to match the different sexes and still have productivity in their lives.. Hurston was raised in Eatonville, Florida, a quiet black town with only white passer-by from time-to-time, while Staples grew up in Chester, Pennsylvania, surrounded by gang activity from the beginning. Both Hurston and Staples share similar and contrasting views about the effect of the color of their
It is a great pity that with writers with an attitude towards race such as Hurston there is still such a negative attitude towards racial and cultural differences all over the
Hurston exploits the society in which Janie Crawford lives in. Hers is a society in which she is not allowed to live freely and express herself freely. She is suppressed in her society because she is a woman and because she is African-American. Hurston understands this oppression and she uncovers the truth on the status of black females at this time. There were no powerful roles available to them in their American culture or in their African-American culture. Women were looked down on and they were not seen as potentially strong spiritual and sexual
W.E.B. DuBois in the Souls of Black Folk, published in 1903, is one of the most classic pieces of literature in American history. This book describes the “veil” between whites and blacks within society. He constructs the idea of a dual personality, where an African American has two identities as two unconnected individuals, in order to show the fallacy of these opinions. It was derived of four different essays. First, the readers see what is it like to live in the skin of a black person. Second essay speaks on the topic of color line. These both cement the rest of his essays. In the third essay, he describes Booker T. Washington’s ride in the United States. His fourth essay, “The Meaning of Progress,” he describes what it was like to be a teacher
Hurston adopts a hopeful attitude toward slavery and believes that all her ancestors’ suffering are the price for civilization. She will not feel ashamed of having ancestors as slaves because she believes slavery brings civilization. And also because of this, she treats slavery as a chance for glory because it is able to brings success and civilization. Moreover, she also thinks that she shall get twice as much praise as a result based upon to all the sacrifices and
Du Bois’ concept of “double consciousness,” Fanon asserts that the Black people’s psyches are deformed by Whites’ anti-Black racism. The defamation of blackness, as it is set forth in the colonial structure, constitutes a cumulative trauma that severely affects the self. It is a “projective” racial identity that ascribes all negative and inferior aspects onto the Black skin. In order to escape the zone of nonbeing, into which Black people are forced by White projections, Black people often try to escape that lot by acting White, aspiring to live up to standards that are impossible to achieve, turning the internalized self-hatred against themselves and other people of color. This alienation from self and one’s heritage needs to be reversed. The process of disalienation is long and painful; it is a constant struggle. While Fanon’s assessment of the situation in Black Skin, White Masks left entailed the hope that reconciliation and healing between Blacks and Whites was achievable, he later changed his outlook in so far that he realized that the colonizers’ psychological warfare would forever impede it, and along with it, the natives’ chance to reclaim their
As we see through both passages, they characters do not only face their situation, but also they inspire every single person to overcome their problems and the best way of doing that it is accepting that there is one. However, if we let the society judge us and determine what we should be things are going to get worse than they really are. The purpose that Mair and Hurston have on writing these selections is to show the changes people can go through because of their social
Eatonville was an all-black town run by an all-black government. Because of its racial makeup, prejudice was virtually nonexistent. Hurston’s father opened a carpentry shop and became a Baptist minister, while her mother worked as a seamstress and taught Sunday school. To Hurston, Eatonville was a community filled with sunshine and limitless opportunities. Hurston’s mother played a significant role in her upbringing. She assisted her children in their education and believed skin color should neither define one’s accomplishments nor serve as an excuse for failure (Marsico,19). Her father on the other hand, was less than encouraged by his daughter’s enthusiasm for literature. As a strict disciplinarian, her father had little patience for her daydreaming and tall tales. (Marsico, 20). Hurston didn’t let the lack of support from her father dampen her ambition or passion for mythology. She dove headfast into the world of folklores, fairy tales, and myths spun by the Romans ad Greeks at an early age. At the age of 13, she experienced loss and heartbreak for the first time. With her mother’s passing from an illness, she was thrust into adulthood with no prior warning. Her mother’s death only brought more violence and discontent to the Hurston household. Soon, her father sent her off to live with her older siblings Bob and Sarah at Florida Baptist Academy in Jacksonville, Florida (Marsico,
One can vividly sense the transparency and vulnerability in the narrator’s approach towards her race when placed amongst white people. Hurston refers to herself as the dark rock in comparison to her surrounding who precisely are of a different pigmentation than her in terms of skin color; however, she seems to rather be concerned with the maintenance of internal peace with herself as she continues to defy the circumstances that surround her. She seems to show resilience as her journey of discovery grows deeper. Hurston’s quote suggests that she was repeatedly reminded of her race even indirectly due to her surroundings. Although she seems to be confused at times and dwells on her past to remind herself that she belongs to no race.
In conclusion, Hurston was a modernist writer who dealt with societal themes of racism, and social and racial identity. She steps away from the folk-oriented style of writing other African American authors, such as Langston Hughes, and she addresses modern topics and issues that relate to her people. She embraces pride in her color and who she is. She does not hate the label of “colored” that has been placed upon her. She embraces who she is and by example, she teaches others to love themselves and the color of their skin. She is very modern. She is everybody’s Zora.
He shows an example of how humans are shaped by those around them. John is relatable to people today because of the way that he differs from every other citizen living in the World State. He has flaws which are fundamentally similar to those of people today. Regardless, he is similar to people living under the World State by being heavily affected by his surroundings, contrary to the image of him as a champion of freedom. In a similar way, humans today are like John, because they are affected by their surroundings in a way that makes their choice simply a consequence of how they interpret their world. Ultimately, by presenting different points-of-view through the flawed characters and the state of society in Brave New World, Aldous Huxley shows the importance of perspective when analysing complex situations, such as questions of free will and
By being a primary source document examining social-racial relations in the 20th Century it positions the text as an historically accurate examinations of the “ plight of the Negro” while simultaneously providing an personal insight to the historical disenfranchisement of the African American within society. However it 's not only an historical source but also an sociological analysis of the “color line”. Du Boisi intentional dose this so the reader can fully comprehend the obstacles the African American populations faced during this time period. Another textual advantages Of the Dawn of Freedom offers to the reader is the historical personal accounts of lingering social question that were present during the time period. An example of this was Du Bois personally discusses the question that most people within society did not want to ask the African american populations: what it felt like to be a “ problem” a “Negro”? De Bois realized that being an african american living in the 19th and 20th Centuries that he was seen to have a low position within society. While he fully comprehended how white society saw him and how they felt about him. However he notes that because of his education he was “not entirely a problem" (Du Bois, p.g. 24) . This dialogue is an example of Du Bois