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African american culture essay
Gender stereotypes ib
Gender stereotypes ib
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This reflective essay is the story of an African American male and what his life is like when he goes out in public. The premise of the essay is that the author feels that because he is judged by society due to his race, he has to go out of his way to make others feel comfortable around him. He talks about how he will walk past buildings if someone is going into them and seems uncomfortable around him, or how he will whistle classical music to try to ease their nerves. The author even speaks on how he is treated differently by authoritarian figures such as the police, bouncers at clubs, and security guards, because of his race. Like the people he is surrounded by they act with extreme caution and will watch him more than they do his white …show more content…
counterparts. He does acknowledge that although he is not a danger to the woman that fear him, they do have something to fear because African Americans are “drastically overrepresented” in violence against women, especially at night. Although the author’s viewpoints on his life are completely valid, he doesn’t really consider the possibility that not all cases of the woman’s fear are due to his race.
Women are constantly told from childhood to avoid people, especially men at night. Society has deemed women as delicate things that are incapable of protecting themselves against the impending violence around them, so they ingrain in them a sense of fear and caution to avoid men at night. For example, he speaks on how one women physically runs from him while he is walking at night, but if it is dark she may not even be able to see his skin color. She only knows that a man who, in his own words describe himself as “a broad six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair” is walking behind her at night. This being said, because of his personal experiences, it is not hard to imagine why he doesn’t consider his gender to be the issue. When he talks about how people will lock their car doors when he walks by, and how police will be more wary of him and may even treat him like a criminal before he does anything, this is easy to see. His whole life his race has been society’s problem with him, so he just assumes that this is the problem in every situation he is in. Not only that but it men often don’t receive the talk that women do about the dangers in the night, so he may not even
realize that this is a possibility to begin with. Some of these people probably do fear him because of his race. Today’s media is full of stories of gang violence, robberies, and women being raped, with many of the suspects being black. With these messages from the media, we have an overall sense of fear towards African Americans, and in many ways this comes out as forms of racism. It may not even be the blatant racism that we think about when we bring up racism, but instead a subliminal racism that comes through in these small action of fear, or thoughts that we have when we first see and African American at night. This fear is part of the problem that is keeping our society from being equal. Even with all of this going on however we all still have an overall feeling that racism today is nonexistent and that we have achieved the dream the Martian Luther King Jr. proposed. If something is not right in our face we often ignore or completely forget that it is a problem at all. The author of the story can see the racism in today’s society because it is directed at him. He has to deal with it everyday, when many of us won’t have to deal with it at all. This article is useful because it can help show us that we can’t just keep ignoring the racism in today's society because it won’t fix anything. Articles like this bring these problems to the forefront of our mind and make us realize that there is still a problems in regards to race. This article makes us feel sympathy for the things that the author has to go through, and because of this it will make us want to try to change it. To somehow make others realize that we can’t use these flash judgments that are society is so well known for. The author speaks about how “virtually everybody seems to sense that a mugger wouldn’t be warbling bright, sunny selections from Vivaldi's Four Seasons.” He has to reverse the preconceived notions that people have of him because of his race. He wouldn’t have to do this if we could just stop judging people enough to see them for who they really are. There is a way to avoid being hurt by people on the street, and not judging them before they even do anything. We can stay vigilant and on guard while still treating everyone with the common respect and decency they deserve.
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,”
Ghettos, low-riders, hip-hop, rap, drugs and crime, it has got to be a Black man right? Saggy pants, unintelligible language, lazy, and the lists continue to both stereotype and describe Blacks. Do Black Americans perpetuate their own discrimination? Are Black Americans creating their own low status in society? Black people around the world have been hypnotized into believing all their failures in life are due to discrimination, but are they correct? Blacks are often their own worst enemies, often the cause of their own disasters, and many don’t see that until it’s too late, if ever. Discrimination and prejudice are imposed upon Blacks, often because the culture they live in is not “acceptable” to the dominant society. On the other hand, an understandable reason for Blacks actions is often due to unattainable opportunities towards the American Dream.
The article “In the Combat Zone” was written by Leslie Marmon Silko. In her article she makes many valid examples of how women are treated like easy prey. Women are afraid to go out at night alone, because that is when numerous rapes and kidnappings take place. Although most rapes, kidnappings, and robberies happen at night, there are still cases that have occurred during the daylight. Silko gave several examples of these daylight occurrences. She also states that a woman’s mindset of being in a combat zone differs by how the woman was raised. If a woman was raised to depend on others, then that woman would be a higher target. If a woman was raised to defend herself and be dependent, then that woman would be less of a target because they would not show fear.
The introduction to this article begins with a personal narrative about his own experiences as an African American teenage
Staples successfully begins by not only admitting the possible faults in his practiced race but also by understanding the perspective of the one who fear them. Black males being opened to more violence because of the environment they're raised in are labeled to be more likely to cause harm or committing crime towards women but Staples asks why that issue changes the outlook of everyday face to face contact and questions the simple actions of a black man? Staples admits, "women are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence," (Staples 384) however...
In his essay, “On Being Black and Middle Class” (1988), writer and middle-class black American, Shelby Steele adopts a concerned tone in order to argue that because of the social conflicts that arise pertaining to black heritage and middle class wealth, individuals that fit under both of these statuses are ostracized. Steele proposes that the solution to this ostracization is for people to individualize themselves, and to ‘“move beyond the victim-focused black identity” (611). Steele supports his assertion by using evidence from his own life and incorporating social patterns to his text. To reach his intended audience of middle-class, black people, Steele’s utilizes casual yet, imperative diction.
It imposes a consciousness that timidity is not a characteristic that men should have. In order to prove themselves, men usually attempt unhealthy and destructive acts to perform their courages and fearless, but these actions prone to suicidal and various other types of out of control or untouchable behaviors. Michael Kimmel states that, “ Men ages nineteen to twenty-nine are three times less likely to wear seat belts than women the same age”(Kimmel 468). Mr.Kimmel quoted a data to claim that young men assume safe driving as emasculation. As long as men are driving a car, using a seat bell means that they are afraid of injure or death. Beside those, it also represents this man cannot completely control his car; on the other hand, he is not masculine. Moreover, men have proclivity to violence. In “From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos” by Joan Morgan, she specifically argus machismo behaviors among Africa Americans. She wrote that “When brothers can talk so cavalierly about killing each other and then reveal that they have no expectation to see their twenty-first birthday, that is straight-up depression masquerading as machismo”(Morgan 456). As a consequence of overflowing reckless and brutal actions, black men are more easily motivated to perform their machismo by murdering each other. It obviously states a situation that due to the suggestion and guidance from man box, the concept of intrepidity and brave has been distorted. Masculinity in these men’s mind represents a willing to die as long as they have manifested no
We live in a society where men are perceived as the strong initiators and women are the receivers. Brandon was not afraid to approach women; in the film we are shown Brandon taking the initiative and pursuing romance with women as men are expected in our culture. He had more than one sexual encounter with women. In our society men are expected to adopt the macho persona; men are expected to be courageous and must take up any challenge. Brandon portrays his manliness by participating in dangerous activities. In one scene Brandon shows his chivalry by defending his female friend; This leads him to a bar fight with another man twice his size. In the film he gets in a street race and tries to outrun the police. At one point, Brandon also gets involved in a very dangerous activity involving holding on to a car with piece of rope. He falls and hurts himself more than once but continues to get up and participate in order to impress his new friends because that is what is expected from a
Racism still exists today in this day and age. African American men are particularly stereotyped to be drug dealers, criminals, and gangsters. People have there on opinion about black men, if someone is sitting in their car, and a black man walks by they’re going to lock their door, because they’re scared there going to get robed. The stereotypes about African American men are not true. There are educated African American men just like any other race. Two articles “Black Men in Public Space” and “Right Place, Wrong Face” deal with the issue of two educated African American men that get treated differently, because of the color of their skin. The articles are focused on times when both
In fact, her father has extremely traditional stereotypes of "male" and "female." He believes that the male should be the defender—strong, powerful, and dominant...
From the very beginning of the movie, we witness a man (Rick) and a women (Jean) walking down the street. When threatened by two men, Jean immediately turns to her husband for protection regardless of the fact that he is no better equipped to deal with the threat. This scene highlights traditional gender roles found in society. Men are typically casted as protectors who are superior to women whereas women are weak and in need of protection. Another example of male’s superiority is when Officer Ryan pulls over Cameron and Christine and utilizes his position as a man with authority to sexually assault
In his article “Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space”, which first appeared in the women’s magazine Ms. Magazine and later Harpers, Brent Staples explores the discrimination he faced as a black man living in Chicago and New York. In writing this piece, Brent Staples hoped to use a combination of pathos and ethos to demonstrate to the women that read Ms. Harper’s that Staples is actually the victim when the women treat him the way they do and to get these women to view him, and other black men, differently and to make them realize that they are people too. Staples use of his ethos and pathos serve well to support his position and convince others to take a new perspective. Staples uses ethos in multiple ways
In the short essay, “Black Men in Public Space” written by Brent Staples, discusses his own experiences on how he is stereotyped because he is an African American and looks intimidated in “public places” (Staples 225). Staples, an intelligent man that is a graduate student at University of Chicago. Due to his skin complexity, he is not treated fairly and always being discriminated against. On one of his usual nightly walks he encountered a white woman. She took a couple glances at him and soon began to walk faster and avoided him that night. He decided to change his appearance so others would not be frightened by his skin color. He changed the way he looked and walked. Staples dressed sophisticated to look more professional so no one would expect him to be a mugger. Whistling classical music was referred to the “cowbell that hikers wear when they know they are in bear country”(Staples 226). The cowbell is used to protect hikers from bears. But in Staples case, it was to not be stereotyped and show that he is harmless. The general purpose of Staples essay was to inform the readers that stereotypes could affect African Americans and any other races.
Brent Staples focuses on his own experiences, which center around his perspective of racism and inequality. This perspective uniquely encapsulates the life of a black man with an outer image that directly affects how others perceive him as a person. Many readers, including myself, have never experienced the fear that Staples encounters so frequently. The severity of his experiences was highlighted for me when he wrote, “It also made it clear that I was indistinguishable from the muggers who occasionally seeped into the area from the surrounding ghetto.” (135) Having to accept that fact as a reality is something that many people will never understand. It is monumentally important that Staples was able to share this perspective of the world so others could begin to comprehend society from a viewpoint different from their
The occurrences of modern Black social phenomena’s reflect Black people’s history in America; they are byproducts of a social system that has neglected their equality, liberty, justice, and needs. Most Black social phenomena are ironically misunderstood by the very system that help creates them. Along with being misunderstood, Black social phenomena’s are also blamed for many of society’s ills. The present welfare system was not created by black people but they receive the blame for its inefficiency. A vicious cycle has been created. Black social phenomena’s occur with little control by black people, but the negative effects and consequences are blamed on Black people.