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Sociology symbolic interactionism application
Sociology symbolic interactionism application
Concepts of stereotypes
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In the novel, Citizen, author Claudia Rankine shows her concerns with the subtle “everyday racism” African Americans experience on a daily basis and the profound effects this has on their self-image, and uses the secondary pronoun “you” to allow the reader to feel as if they were dealing with these microaggressions. Rankine intervenes in current debates about racism due to her approach on everyday racism. In a time where macroaggressions such as police brutalities have reached the news and is taking up a lot of the racial discussion in the United States, Rankine tries to show the reader the root of the problem/where these macroaggressions stemmed from. decides to take out a magnifier to look at where the disease starts.
The novel tracks both
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Racism in itself is not difficult to recognize in its extreme forms. However, everyday racism is much more subtle and requires attention. It requires the recipient to be aware of the situation as to what is being said and how it is being said. One of these seemingly subtle incidents of everyday racism, Rankine uses the pronoun “you” by stating, “[b]ecause of your elite status from a year’s worth of travel, you have already settled into your window seat on United Airlines, when the girl and her mother arrive at your row. The girl, looking over at you, tells her mother, these are our seats, but this is not what I expected. The mother’s response is barely audible—I see, she says. I’ll sit in the middle,” (p.12). Here, Rankine uses the pronoun “you,” in hopes to put her reader in the shoes of the victim of this microaggression. If the reader is white, and is able to replace the victim with themselves, they would be able to see the incident as entirely unjust because they have never experienced being stereotyped. She doesn’t mention race but the minute a white reader recognizes that the victim is a black person (Rankine …show more content…
Rankine inserts an image of Hennessy Youngman, who is a youtube personality discussing how to be a successful black man. Youngman sarcastically gives a tutorial where he argues that you have to succumb to the black stereotype in order to succeed stating, “be angry, have this angry n*gga exterior,” and be, “approachable,” and, “white people want to consume the exotic other [...] they don’t really want to understand you, because if they understood you, you’d be just like them, and white people don’t want the n*gga artist to be just like them [...] keep them entertained [...] keep them white f*ckers away from the man behind the curtain [...] that you have a savings account or have a savings account or that you recycle [...],” (Hennesy Youngman, Art Thoughtz). You have to be what the white man wants you to be. As a white person reading this novel and watching Youngman’s video, you can see The issue with this is that as an African American, it’s almost as if you have to fit the racial imaginary in order to be successful, but it’s also the racial imaginary that is what gets so many African American’s in trouble. Successful black artists such as Hennessy Youngman, and any famous black rapper, are only able to fit into the racial imaginary because
In Claudia Rankine’s 2014 book, Citizen: An American Lyric, she promotes the idea of a “post-race” society, captivating the reader into a position of self-reflection. The lyricism of her prose explores the definition of the titular ‘citizen’, thereby encouraging and promoting change. Her incentive is not to change the minds of readers, only broaden scope of the world they already have, honing on the undeniable reality of the world. She invites her reader to emotions of grief and outrage, which leads the reader toward self-awareness. Citizen seeks to inspire her audience through the presentation of identity politics in the modern-day. It is a work premised on self-awareness to unconscious thoughts and actions. Her use of the second person,
Claude M. Steele is the author of “ Whistling Vivaldi”, which mainly represents that the meaning of identity contingencies and stereotype threat, and how can these effect people’s ideas and behaviors. By writing this article, Steele tries to make people know exist of identity contingencies. Gina Crosley-Corcoran, who is a white woman suffered the poverty in her childhood. Through describing her miserable experiences in parallel construction to motivate readers sympathize her, moreover approving that she can as a powerful evidence for affirming the impact of identity contingencies. Crosley-Corcoran admits the white privilege really exist in some way in her article “ Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person”, and white privilege
Next, he discusses the break with traditional African-American culture. According to Frazier, the black middle class has abandoned the folk culture of “the black masses” in favor of shell of the middle class white world that rejected them. Therefore, the black bourgeoisie lives in what Frazier calls a cultural vacuum, disdainful of the culture of most African-Americans, dismissed by the white middle class culture.
However, it is impossible to capture something so complex within books or essays. Therefore, in Omi and Winant’s Racial Formation, they do not show how crime is linked to racial projects, and in Fanon’s “The Fact of Blackness”, he claims that “the burden of representation” is fixed, but he does not take into account how history can alter stereotypes as well. When Malcolm X explains that he wanted to become a lawyer, his teacher’s response shows the audience that Malcolm X was living in a time where jobs were racially categorized as well. Since people of color could not get the high paying jobs, white people often see them as inferior criminals. Additionally, Malcolm X’s experience in the college shows that stereotypes are not fixed because he was able to speak in front of group of white students that were open minded. Instead of forbidding him from actively criticizing white people, they give him a certain level of respect that enables Malcolm X to speak on behalf of his entire race. This shows that people of color were slowly being recognized as humans rather than inferior objects as time passes and it is not “fixed” as Fanon claimed before. Race is co complex that no one can fully explain what it is; therefore, it is important to note that race is not something biological or a mere illusion, but rather race is something that is never constant that plays a large role on how society is formed
Citizen is a biographical excerpt of events that occurred in Claudia Rankine’s life. Claudia, a woman of color living in America, endured racism of different magnitudes while trying to attain the American dream; a decent education, respectable career and an exceptional home. The compilation of her experiences illustrates how during encounters with friends, colleagues, strangers and members of her own family, race can take a center stage. During the course of the many encounters, Claudia does not defend herself. She coped with the situation the best she could at the time; by not saying anything at all. Towards the end however, she was able to gain her voice and cried out against the injustice of it all. In her writing, Claudia displayed how deep-rooted her pain was. Claudia uses metaphors to illustrate the affliction she endured and how baffled she felt at the apparent racism and the blatant disrespect for her humanity.
Institutionalized racism has been a major factor in how the United States operate huge corporations today. This type of racism is found in many places which include schools, court of laws, job places and governmental organizations. Institutionalized racism affects many factors in the lives of African Americans, including the way they may interact with white individuals. In the book “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere Stories” ZZ Packer uses her short stories to emphasize the how institutionalized racism plays in the lives of the characters in her stories. Almost all her characters experience the effects of institutionalized racism, and therefore change how they view their lives to adapt. Because institutionalized racism is a factor that affects how
The entire film is covered in stereotypes focused on African Americans that vary from stealing to soul food to skin tone. These stereotypes are so raw, they are very easy to pick up and it makes the film so much more powerful and understandable. For example, African Americans are subconsciously linked to soul food. Although soul food is popular in the African-American culture, we tend to skip over the thought of the food and what it actually is and jump to thinking about fried chicken and collard greens. Its sad that by seeing an image of food, race comes to mind. Another stereotype used a lot is ‘light-skinned is more attractive’ or ‘white is more attractive”. T...
The United States is a very diverse nation with people from all over the world. Our nation consists of Caucasian, African American, Chinese, Mexican, and many distinctive ethnicities. However, many people struggle with discrimination and judgment from other people on behalf of their race. For example, researcher Kate Kenski highlights the multiple events of her seven year old daughter when she was harassed by children in her school. They would exclude her from activities in view of color of her skin, and her peers would torment her for her physical appearance. In Kate Kenski's article "Racism is not Isolated," she effectively utilizes her daughter's experience in school to prove that racist events are not isolated occurrences and opportunities
He characterized African Americans based on plantations, watermelon patch Alabama porch monkeys. In the studio he stereotyped all rappers as those who all smoke and drink. Showing the interaction with everyone in the studio doing nothing but speaking on blacks and their difference between whites. He only showed the negative effects of rappers in the studio, showing nothing positive about what they are doing.
"Deadly Unna" is the story of Garry Blacks realization of racism and discrimination in the port where he lives. When everyone else seems do nothing to prevent the discrimination Blacky a young boy steps up to the plate and has the guts to say no against racism towards the local Aborigines. Blacky is beginning to realize that the people he looks up to as role models might not be such good examples as most of them including his father his footy coach and even the pub custodian all accept racism as a normal way of life and Blacky begins to realize this and tries to make them aware.
At the time when humans were learning to use spears constructed out of sticks and stones and the
I was late for school, and my father had to walk me in to class so that my teacher would know the reason for my tardiness. My dad opened the door to my classroom, and there was a hush of silence. Everyone's eyes were fixed on my father and me. He told the teacher why I was late, gave me a kiss goodbye and left for work. As I sat down at my seat, all of my so-called friends called me names and teased me. The students teased me not because I was late, but because my father was black. They were too young to understand. All of this time, they thought that I was white, because I had fare skin like them, therefore I had to be white. Growing up having a white mother and a black father was tough. To some people, being black and white is a contradiction in itself. People thought that I had to be one or the other, but not both. I thought that I was fine the way I was. But like myself, Shelby Steele was stuck in between two opposite forces of his double bind. He was black and middle class, both having significant roles in his life. "Race, he insisted, blurred class distinctions among blacks. If you were black, you were just black and that was that" (Steele 211).
Despite the end of slavery in the United States in the 1860’s, blatant racism still existed for many decades afterwards and even exists still today. This has prevented African-Americans from enjoying even the most basic rights of every citizen, such as voting, access to quality education, as well as equal and just treatment by other humans. Even young black children recognize that parts of society consider them to be “different” or “inferior”. Du Bois refers to this recognition as “the veil”, a metaphor for the deep difference in the worldviews and opportunities between white people and people of color. Because of this deep divide, people of color constantly find themselves stuck between two parts of themselves: their culture/heritage and the societies they live in. Rather than sacrifice one part for the other, it is the goal of most people “to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face” (page 39).
The sympathetic humanist might bristle at first, but would eventually concur. For it's hard to argue with poverty. At the time the novel was published (1912), America held very few opportunities for the Negro population. Some of the more successful black men, men with money and street savvy, were often porters for the railroads. In other words the best a young black man might hope for was a position serving whites on trains. Our protagonist--while not adverse to hard work, as evidenced by his cigar rolling apprenticeship in Jacksonville--is an artist and a scholar. His ambitions are immense considering the situation. And thanks to his fair skinned complexion, he is able to realize many, if not all, of them.
One argument she has is that master narratives are written by “voices of white male intellectuals” and are therefore, not accurate in comparison to a theory that can be written by a black theorist of real black experiences. She describes the act of reading postmodernists’ theories about postmodern blackness as, “outside looking in”. Even essays and articles written by black folks are reacting towards high modernism, in which black women seemingly do not have a role in the black cultural production. Overall, she argues that without direct contact and experiences of the “other” we move in a direction that supports radical liberation struggles by allowing white theorists to write about their experiences for them. This results in readers believing what these “voices of white male intellectuals” pick and choose to publish as their conceptions of “Otherness”. An example she provides in the article is rap; hooks uses rap as an example of where young black folks highlight their voices. She encourages this beyond rap, beyond critiquing postmodernism