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The difference between race and ethnicity essay
The difference between race and ethnicity essay
The difference between race and ethnicity essay
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In the short story “Blackness” by Jamaica Kincaid, the narrator’s consciousness develops through a process of realization that she does not have to fully embrace the ideology imposed on her by the colonizers nor fully deny her authentic heritage. First, the narrator utilizes the metaphor, “blackness,” representing the colonization of her country that simultaneously envelops her own being. Her consciousness then is unaware of her own nature; she is in isolation and “all purpose… as if [she] were the single survivor of [her] species” (472). This annihilation of her ancient culture shows how “blackness” replaced her own culture with the ideology of the colonizers. Then, the narrator’s understanding shifts along with the influence of the colonizers …show more content…
Accepting the colonizers cultural domination is symbolized by the child or the narrator’s rebirth. The child becomes a monster against her own heritage as she is “pitiless, her mouth twist[ing] open in a cruel smile,” (473) to her past. She embraces this new culture of ideology and progress and completely rejects her own heritage. At this point, the narrator believes this is necessary to fully assimilate into colonizer’s new paradigm. Kincaid then uses the hunchback boy as a symbol of her old culture acquiescing to a new master. Therefore, the narrator clings onto the hunchback boy as she “builds a dwelling hut [for him] on the edge of a steep cliff so that she may watch him” (473). She still longs for the old ways that are having a hard time coexisting with the new. Additionally, the narrator’s consciousness is continually evolving as she describes her past and present as one being or “the thing untouched by lore [,] the thing that is not cultivated [, and] the thing built up,” (473) to bring two cultures together. The narrator struggles between finding a balance of both the culture of her people and the new culture that has been imposed on her. She stands boldly “one foot in the dark [and] the other in the light,” (473) as she forms a bridge between
This week’s articles carry a couple related, if not common, themes of imagined, if not artificial, constructs of race and identity. Martha Hodes’ article, “The mercurial Nature and Abiding Power of Race: A Transnational Family Story,” offers a narrative based examination of the malleable terms on which race was defined. To accomplish this she examines the story of Eunice Connolly and her family and social life as a window into understanding the changing dimensions of race in nineteenth-century America and the Caribbean, specifically New England and Grand Cayman. While Hodes’ article examines the construction of race in the Americas, Ali A. Mazrui’s piece, “The Re-Invention of Africa: Edward Sai, V. Y. Mudimbe, and Beyond,” looks at the construction of African identity. Although different in geographic loci, the two articles similarly examine the shaping influences of race and identity and the power held in ‘the Other’ to those ends.
Laurence Hill’s novel, The Book of Negroes, uses first-person narrator to depict the whole life ofAminata Diallo, beginning with Bayo, a small village in West Africa, abducting from her family at eleven years old. She witnessed the death of her parents with her own eyes when she was stolen. She was then sent to America and began her slave life. She went through a lot: she lost her children and was informed that her husband was dead. At last she gained freedom again and became an abolitionist against the slave trade. This book uses slave narrative as its genre to present a powerful woman’s life.She was a slave, yes, but she was also an abolitionist. She always held hope in the heart, she resist her dehumanization.
In the novel “Black Boy” by Richard Wright, Richard’s different character traits are revealed through multiple different instances of indirect characterization. Indirect characterization is a literary element commonly used in the novel. It is when the author reveals information about a character through that character's thoughts, words, actions, and how other characters respond to that character; such as what they think and say about him. Richard is put into many circumstances where the way he acts, the things he says and thinks, and the way others respond to him clearly show his character. Richard shows his pride when he refuses to fight Harrison for white men’s entertainment, principles when he doesn’t take advantage of Bess even though he has the opportunity, and ignorance when he sells KKK papers.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus in his quest to validate his claim that the world was round and that it should belong to his Spanish patrons, the king and queen of Spain, set sail on his ship Santa Maria. He soon discovered the “New World”, which was new to him, but not to the Antiguans who lived there. Cultural imperialism was one of the most prominent means Western countries like Spain and Britain used to colonize other parts of the world at the beginning of the fifteenth century. The Cambridge dictionary defines cultural imperialism as one “culture of a large and powerful country, organization, etc. having a great influence on other less powerful country.”
It is impossible for anyone to survive a horrible event in their life without a relationship to have to keep them alive. The connection and emotional bond between the person suffering and the other is sometimes all they need to survive. On the other hand, not having anyone to believe in can make death appear easier than life allowing the person to give up instead of fighting for survival. In The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, Aminata Diallo survives her course through slavery by remembering her family and the friends that she makes. Aminata is taught by her mother, Sira to deliver babies in the villages of her homeland. This skill proves to be very valuable to Aminata as it helps her deliver her friends babies and create a source of income. Aminata’s father taught Aminata to write small words in the dirt when she was small. Throughout the rest of the novel, Aminata carries this love for learning new things to the places that she travels and it inspires her to accept the opportunities given to her to learn how to write, read maps, and perform accounting duties. Early in the novel Aminata meets Chekura and they establish a strong relationship. Eventually they get married but they are separated numerous times after. Aminata continuously remembers and holds onto her times with Chekura amidst all of her troubles. CHILDREN. The only reason why Aminata Diallo does not die during her journey into and out of slavery is because she believes strongly in her parents, husband and children; therefore proving that people survive hardships only when they have relationships in which to believe.
Some African Americans view their race as inferior to the white race. Even though the author may not hold this same opinion, it is still important that he or she understands that part of his or her audience does, especially when writing about racial identity. Zora Neale Hurston understood
Lawrence, L. (2007). Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom. London: Sage Publishers.
To conclude, the criticisms of the book The New Negro are mostly distributed by the experience of the author who did not get exposed enough to understand his own race even though he seems to show his
In the article, “A Letter My Son,” Ta-Nehisi Coates utilizes both ethical and pathetic appeal to address his audience in a personable manner. The purpose of this article is to enlighten the audience, and in particular his son, on what it looks like, feels like, and means to be encompassed in his black body through a series of personal anecdotes and self-reflection on what it means to be black. In comparison, Coates goes a step further and analyzes how a black body moves and is perceived in a world that is centered on whiteness. This is established in the first half of the text when the author states that,“white America’s progress, or rather the progress of those Americans who believe that they are white, was built on looting and violence,”
people of different ethnicities. Such harm is observed in the history of North America when the Europeans were establishing settlements on the North American continent. Because of European expansion on the North American continent, the first nations already established on the continent were forced to leave their homes by the Europeans, violating the rights and freedoms of the first nations and targeting them with discrimination; furthermore, in the history of the United States of America, dark skinned individuals were used as slaves for manual labour and were stripped of their rights and freedoms by the Americans because of the racist attitudes that were present in America. Although racist and prejudice attitudes have weakened over the decades, they persist in modern societies. To examine a modern perspective of prejudice and racism, Wayson Choy’s “I’m a Banana and Proud of it” and Drew Hayden Taylor’s “Pretty Like a White Boy: The Adventures of a Blue-Eye Ojibway” both address the issues of prejudice and racism; however, the authors extend each others thoughts about the issues because of their different definitions, perspectives, experiences and realities.
Cullen’s demonstrates this by noting Africa as only being remembered from a listless book “Africa? A book one thumbs listlessly, till slumber comes. Unremembered are her bats circling through the night, her cats crouching in the river reeds” (Cullen, 1927: p1). The person is unable to experience the origins and traditions of his ancestors as he is forced to conform to the majority culture “One important phase is cultural assimilation (acculturation) —the change of cultural patterns to match those of the host society” (Parrillo, 2014: p104). Once the person begins the assimilation process, He feels at a loss of what is right and wrong, struggling with his identity “Like a soul gone mad with pain I must match its weird refrain; Ever must I twist and squirm, writhing like a baited worm” (Cullen 1927: p1). The Negro in the poem struggles between acting like society expects him to in modern culture and remembering the ways and traditions of his origins “These poems hinge on questions of memory and how effectively memory can be used to define the self” (Nardi, 2014: p 253). If a person is able to successfully assimilate, they then forget their ethnic background and accept the customs and behaviors of the majority society “Once structural assimilation occurs, all other types of assimilation—including the end of an ethnic identity and residual ethnic prejudice—would follow (Parrillo, 2014 p 104). Complete assimilation is accomplished when person rejects the customs of their original origins and accepts the methods, ways, and traditions of the modern culture. They are essentially accepting a new
Jim Crow, a series of laws put into place after slavery by rich white Americans used in order to continue to subordinate African-Americans has existed for many years and continues to exist today in a different form, mass incarceration. Jim Crow laws when initially implemented were a series of anti-black laws that help segregate blacks from whites and kept blacks in a lower social, political, and economic status. In modern day, the term Jim Crow is used as a way to explain the mass incarcerations of blacks since Jim Crow laws were retracted. Through mass incarceration, blacks are continuously disenfranchised and subordinated by factors such as not being able to obtain housing, stoppage of income, and many other factors. Both generations of Jim Crow have been implemented through legal laws or ways that the government which helps to justify the implementation of this unjust treatment of blacks.
Before entering into the main body of his writing, Allen describes to readers the nature of the “semicolony”, domestic colonialism, and neocolonialism ideas to which he refers to throughout the bulk of his book. Priming the reader for his coming argument, Allen introduces these concepts and how they fit into the white imperialist regime, and how the very nature of this system is designed to exploit the native population (in this case, transplanted native population). He also describes the “illusion” of black political influence, and the ineffectiveness (or for the purposes of the white power structure, extreme effectiveness) of a black “elite”, composed of middle and upper class black Americans.
She points out how white tourists think that the establishments and systems left behind from colonization are things that the natives should be thankful for. White tourists think that the natives “are not responsible for what you have; you owe them nothing; in fact, you did them a big favour, and you can provide one hundred examples.” (10) Ironically, while they seem to think that the natives should be thankful for certain remnants of colonization, white tourists refuse to take responsibility for the actions of their ancestors that caused former colonies to be in the state they are in now. In thinking that the “West got rich not from the free …and then undervalued labour” (10), but instead through the “ingenuity of small shopkeepers in Sheffield and Yorkshire and Lancashire, or wherever”, white tourists refuse to acknowledge that it was the oppression of these former colonies that led to the growth of their own race whilst attributing to the decline of these colonies. In believing in their own superiority and refusing to acknowledge this, white tourists continue to willingly take part in a system that oppresses natives of formerly colonized islands because they see no wrong in doing
It is exemplified how the skin of the black colour is perceived by an aristocratic white in the colonial content. Miranda’s derisive attitude to the dark–skinned and her consciousness about the skin colour seem to have given her more self-confidence creating a sense of inferiority in the colonised. Her scathing remarks would have accelerated the