According to Alice Walker, “Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender” In other words, these two concepts vary in their significance, history, and definition. Although they both contribute to understanding the experience of being a woman, they are different concepts, and this must be known in order to understand the triple oppression women have faced and continued to face through society today, and explain the connection these concepts have to social justice/socialism. In this essay I will
Black excellence: a term that is possibly defined as the recognition and celebration of the successes of the black community. Lacking from the definition is the idea that the acknowledgement of the excellence for black community is directly correlated to the experience of racism. In order for black excellence to be acknowledged, you must discuss the racism it had to overcome in order to reach said excellence. In the essay entitled “The Meaning of Serena Williams”, author Claudia Rankine discusses
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry is a play about the Younger family, a black family trying to achieve their goals, and help their family financially. Walter’s dream is to open a liquor store, Mama’s dream is to buy a house, and Beneatha’s dream is to become a doctor. While some may argue that Walter’s dream may provide an immediate and steady income, statistics say that 60% of local businesses fail within the first 18 months (Engel n.p.). Some may also argue that Mama’s dream is more important;
In Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon looks at the effects of both racism and the process of colonization on the colonized. Even though Fanon’s work targets a French audience, it holds a universal message which is significant to anyone who is exposed to racism and/or colonialism whether they are the oppressor or the oppressed. While Black Skins, White Masks was written over half a century ago, is Fanon’s work still relevant today? In this short paper I will look at some of the themes of racism
In August 2013, Rolling Stone magazine’s cover had Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s selfie plastered across it. Other media outlets favored using a mugshot of him or a photo of the incident as opposed to a standard photo of the perpetrator. His long curly hair, goatee, expressionless face, and white t-shirt were on newsstands across the nation. This was met with huge backlash especially from the Boston community. Massachusetts State Police sergeant Sean Murphy said that the image was “glamorizing
Black culture is the epitome of what defines America’s understanding of cool. It is difficult to define what it means to be cool without stating the influence or impact of the culture. The idea of cool developed as a social attitude implemented by black men during slavery which they used as a defense mechanism in order to cope with exploitation and injustice. It is now spread by hip hop culture which has integrated itself into mainstream society. As a result, black culture continues to play a vital
Benjamin Franklin once said, “Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants.” In the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the following idea is presented: Money can interfere with making good choices. Some people believe that in pursuing their vision of the American Dream, the Younger Family made a mistake by not taking Linder’s money. This statement is untrue. They have already achieved the American
SUPERMAMA: BLACK MOTHERHOOD, EMOTION, AND STRESS “People will be people good or bad, and if you say you love them then you have to love them through it all”, says Pearl Brewer eighty year old widow and mother of twelve. By looking at Pearl you can see that she has lived a full yet hard life. She is a mother, a wife, and daughter. She has migrated from rural Oklahoma to the Midwestern factory town of Peoria, Illinois where she has experienced a successful career at one of the town’s most booming factories:
“There exists this medical term- John Henryism- for people exposed to stresses stemming from racism. They achieve themselves to death trying to dodge the buildup of erasure.”1 People who live with this constant stress have the sense that they need to work extraordinarily harder for their accomplishments to be recognized, and prevent the erasure of their entire life meaning. In the book Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine describes her personal encounters of racism and inequality, and its