Reaching the Limits of Empathy by Understanding Institutionalized Racism
The implications and issues that arise from a history of institutionalized racism are not comprehensible to every member of our society. More specifically, the experience of an African American person living in the United States differs vastly from the experience of a white person living in the United States due to institutionalized racism and appropriation of African American culture. In her essay “Respectability Will Not Save Us,” Carol Anderson discusses the term “respectability politics,” its relation to African American history, and how and why it has not worked in our society. Anderson claims that “respectability politics were always too flawed to be fully viable”
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(Anderson). In an extension of Anderson’s argument, Kendrick Lamar examines truths pertinent to himself as an African American man in his video “DNA” and reclaims and empowers his identity in its association to his race. Lamar raps, “the reason my power’s here on earth…I got loyalty, got royalty inside my DNA” (2:35-2:57). Both authors maintain a distinct point and provide their audiences with details and descriptions relevant to their audiences’ understanding of their works. Additionally, the concept of “guilt” plays a central role within Anderson and Lamar’s works; it is exclusively associated with white people in the context of our country’s history of racism, and it is crucial in order to stimulate a white audience’s acknowledgment of its racial privilege, which is an important concept for a white audience to be aware of. Through both Anderson’s and Lamar’s arguments, a white audience member is able to assess his or her own feeling of “guilt” in relation to African American history and culture and to reach the limits of understanding leading up to empathy, as ultimately, there is no way for a white person to genuinely empathize with the experience of a person of color. Anderson and Lamar structure their main arguments based on the idea of audiences engaging with their works and reacting in some way, whether that be positively or negatively.
Both authors do their best to not exclude their work from a prospective white audience, as the inclusiveness of their messages opens the accessibility of their respective points. By hooking their white audiences, Anderson and Lamar have an opportunity to speak implicitly to their white audiences, which are arguably difficult for Anderson and Lamar to reach due to the aforementioned sense of guilt held by a typical white audience member. Anderson discusses the death of Trayvon Martin in depth, provides multiple hyperlinks focused specifically on this event, and states, “The traumatized teen became the scapegoat for the way that her inability to model respectability had failed the black community and, with it, any real chance at justice for Trayvon Martin’s death” (Anderson). In regards to Anderson’s purpose, her essay contains many examples of police brutality toward people of color from the past hundred years in order to bring attention to the corruption and violence within our legal systems. Likewise, Lamar provides an important soundbite from an outside source who counters his argument in “DNA:” “This is why I say that hip hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism in recent years” (Lamar 2:57-3:03). The soundbite was taken from Fox News reporter Geraldo Rivera’s comments about …show more content…
Lamar and it provides more context regarding Lamar’s argument. The purpose of Lamar’s video is arguably to reclaim his blackness and his identity as well as to show his audience the message he is trying to convey through the imagery in his video as well as through his lyrics. The potential shared audience that Anderson and Lamar direct their arguments toward contains a large amount of white people who are unable to relate to the experiences that both the authors discuss. Thus, in order to not lose the engagement of their respective audiences, either author does not directly attempt to ostracize the white members of their audience; rather, they appeal to a broad audience with specific arguments that essentially have an ‘it is what it is’ structure to them. Neither Anderson nor Lamar seems to explicitly target white people, even though their arguments are actually derived from the results of actions of white people. Though some blame or feeling of guilt definitely exists in the themes of Anderson and Lamar’s arguments, by not excluding their white audience entirely, both authors allow for more groups to interact with and consider their arguments and ideas. Because of this limit to directly assigned guilt, Anderson and Lamar’s arguments are not closed off to white people, which is efficient as white people are to some extent compelled to simply listen to and understand what Anderson and Lamar are trying to say on behalf of African American experiences. Carol Anderson structures her argument around the term “respectability politics,” which enables a potential audience to understand the association of her many examples of how and why respectability politics does not work in our society.
This renders a negative connotation that counters previous validity of the implementation of respectability politics. Likewise, Lamar sets up an abstract definition for his main term, “DNA,” aiding audience comprehension of his argument. In doing this, both authors distinguish their interpretation of the term or idea that drives the entirety of their respective arguments, which overlap to convey that white audiences have a responsibility to recognize their racial privilege. Throughout her essay, Carol Anderson uses the term respectability politics to define attempts by the marginalized African American community to essentially advance their social standings by ‘proving’ to the white community that they are equal through social presentation. Anderson’s essay demonstrates to her audience how racism still exists, even though it may not be as obvious as it was a few decades ago; thus, respectability politics continues to be defective in our society. For example, Anderson begins her discussion of the implications of respectability politics, writing, “African Americans had long been well aware of the U.S.’s “mocking paradoxes” …it was blacks’ vulnerability to legal and extralegal domestic terrorism that defined how tenuous their existence actually
was” (Anderson). In comparison, Lamar furthers his argument by addressing a potential audience through his lyrics in “DNA” which I contend is the white portion of his audience. Lamar speaks out to his white audience or “imitators,” rapping, “My DNA not for imitation/Your DNA an abomination” (Lamar 3:16-3:18). Lamar’s identification of his DNA signifies his opposing stance on appropriation of African American culture, which is arguably a form of racism. Anderson begins with a brief background of the politics of respectability, later moving into recounting examples that support her main point from particular dates such as the 1950s and the 1960s, such as the “…1955 kidnapping, torture, and murder of 14-year-old Emmet Till” (Anderson). Finally, Anderson proceeds with a structured argument of how and why respectability politics does not and will never positively affect race relations because of our country’s transparent history of racism. Similarly, Lamar defines his “DNA,” or the components that make up who he is, as well as tie to what the entire African American community has been through, by repetitively rapping “[…] is in my DNA” (Lamar). Anderson pinpoints the definition of respectability politics to being a movement that was supposed to “bring an end to the denigration of black lives” (Anderson). Correspondingly, Lamar associates a range of definitions to his DNA, rapping, “…and I wish I was fed forgiveness/ yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, soldier’s DNA” (Lamar 2:09-2:12). Through the existence of some sort of definition for the main term circulating the argument of both Anderson and Lamar, the authors are able to hook their respective audiences and effectively get their messages across. Throughout “Respectability Will Not Save Us,” Anderson discusses several historical events, some of which are controversial, and in taking a stance in her discussion of these historical events, Anderson uses a logical fallacy known as ad hominem. For example, Anderson discusses the shooting of Trayvon Martin in 2012. Anderson writes, “Trayvon Martin…lay on the ground with a bullet in his heart…His killer, George Zimmerman, stood there with the murder weapon tucked in his waistband” (Anderson). Looking at Anderson’s points and examples from a broader perspective, one can deduce that a direct point of attack in her examples is the United States’ legal system. In this case, Anderson focuses her logical negativity on George Zimmerman, assessing what Zimmerman told the dispatcher and analyzing his thought process herself. The structure of this example demonstrates Anderson’s use of ad hominem, or attacking the character of one’s opponent in an attempt to undermine the argument of the opponent. By using words such as “killer” and “murder weapon” in direct association to George Zimmerman, Anderson makes it clear to her readers that she views Zimmerman as no more than a murderer. Whether Anderson’s attack is warranted or not, her use of an ad hominem logical fallacy better distinguishes her argument and her own opinion on the incident, which she supports with additional information and evidence pertaining to the incident. Ultimately, by means of both Anderson’s and Lamar’s central arguments, a white audience member is able to define his or her position in the context of African American heritage with limited empathy, as there is no true way for a white person to completely understand the effects of racism on a person’s life. The attention that both authors bring to African American heritage isolates the intentions of their particular justifications and demonstrates the immoralities of appropriation of African American culture by white culture. Rhetorically, Anderson asks the audience to address the continual existence of anti-black violence in our society and ask ourselves why we let perpetrators off because of slightly muddled or even corrupt circumstances (for example, the murder of Trayvon Martin). Lamar rhetorically asks his audience to understand that African American culture is “not for imitation” (Lamar 3:16-3:18); essentially, Lamar asks his audience to understand why people cannot just draw whatever they want from African American “DNA” and promote it as their own. As a white woman who has never and will never experience racism in my life, I selected Anderson’s essay and Lamar’s music video to analyze because I thought that I could benefit from learning more about the shared concepts among the two works as an audience member. Works Cited Anderson, Carol. “Respectability Will Not Save Us.” LitHub, 2017, http://lithub.com/respectability-will-not-save-us/. Accessed 1 February 2018. Lamar, Kendrick. “DNA.” YouTube, YouTube, uploaded by KendrickLamarVEVO, 18 April 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLZRYQMLDW4
The hypocrisy and double standard that allowed whites to bring harm to blacks without fear of any repercussions had existed for years before the murder Tyson wrote about occurred in May of 1970 (Tyson 2004, 1). Lynching of black men was common place in the south as Billie Holiday sang her song “Strange Fruit” and the eyes of justice looked the other way. On the other side of the coin, justice was brought swiftly to those blacks who stepped out of line and brought harm to the white race. Take for instance Nate Turner, the slave who led a rebellion against whites. Even the Teel’s brought their own form of justice to Henry Marrow because he “said something” to one of their white wives (1).
In one incident when a white teenager Deryl Dedman ran over his truck over Black guy James Craig Anderson by passing a racial slur, “ I ran that nigger over” (Rankine 94)(10). This shows the white’s extra ordinary powers to oppress the black community and the failure of legal system
Carter is a professor of law at Yale University who has written a number of books and articles which are, for lack of any better terminology, criticisms of American culture. “Just Be Nice” is actually part of a much larger effort by Carter that includes his non-fiction books The Culture of Disbelief, Integrity, and the work for which the article may have been taken from, Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy. Hence, it is obvious that Carter is no stranger to the issues detailed in his article, so much so that his body of work points to someone who is arguably obsessed with issues which are related in the article. However, the article at hand opines for a return of etiquette and civility within the national fabric, and how he frames his argument is by using examples that, as an African American, he...
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...
America have a long history of black’s relationship with their fellow white citizens, there’s two authors that dedicated their whole life, fighting for equality for blacks in America. – Audre Lorde and Brent Staples. They both devoted their professional careers outlying their opinions, on how to reduce the hatred towards blacks and other colored. From their contributions they left a huge impression on many academic studies and Americans about the lack of awareness, on race issues that are towards African-American. There’s been countless, of critical evidence that these two prolific writers will always be synonymous to writing great academic papers, after reading and learning about their life experience, from their memoirs.
Black Power, the seemingly omnipresent term that is ever-so-often referenced when one deals with the topic of Black equality in the U.S. While progress, or at least the illusion of progress, has occurred over the past century, many of the issues that continue to plague the Black (as well as other minority) communities have yet to be truly addressed. The dark cloud of rampant individual racism may have passed from a general perspective, but many sociologists, including Stokely Carmichael; the author of “Black Power: the Politics of Liberation in America”, have and continue to argue that the oppressive hand of “institutional racism” still holds down the Black community from making any true progress.
According to Arianna Huffington in the article “Empathy: What We Need Now”, during hardships and instability of society, empathy is needed to find solutions to those issues. Huffington writes about how empathy is needed in our country in order to produce a positive social change. She begins by giving an example of a movement that Martin Luther King created and how empathy was a part of this movement. King as well spoke of how empathy is the sign of living. To become involved in the situations of humanity in order to improve it, displays that empathy is the core of a human’s existence. After reading this article, I do agree with Huffington about how individuals need to fully understand and put themselves within the situation to fully comprehend the issue to solve.
Although an effort is made in connecting with the blacks, the idea behind it is not in understanding the blacks and their culture but rather is an exploitative one. It had an adverse impact on the black community by degrading their esteem and status in the community. For many years, the political process also had been influenced by the same ideas and had ignored the black population in the political process (Belk, 1990). America loves appropriating black culture — even when black people themselves, at times, don’t receive much love from America.
Throughout, the documentary one can come to the conclusion that most of these African- Americans who live in this area are being judged as violent and bad people. However this is not the case, many of them are just normal people who are try...
Following the shooting of Trayvon Martin, I began to understand the effect that systemic racism could have on the lives of Black people, and how it had already been affecting me.
Empathy is imperative to teach kids from a young age in order to help them recognize mental states, such as thoughts and emotions, in themselves and others. Vital lessons, such as walking in another’s shoes or looking at a situation in their perspective, apprehends the significance of the feelings of another. Our point of view must continuously be altered, recognizing the emotions and background of the individual. We must not focus all of our attention on our self-interest. In the excerpt, Empathy, written by Stephen Dunn, we analyze the process of determining the sentiment of someone.
Today there are many controversial subjects discussed throughout the media. One of the most discussed is race and the Black Lives Matter movement. Recently, I came across an article titled “The Truth of ‘Black Lives Matter’”, written by The Editorial Board. The article was published on September 3, 2015, to the New York Times. In the article, The Editorial Board writes about what they believe African Americans are facing as challenges in society today, including the all-too-common police killings of unarmed African-Americans across the country. The Editorial Board is right that some African Americans have been treated unfairly, but all ethnicities have been. Life is a precious thing that comprises all ethnicities. This brings us to ask; why
Part l: In these two lectures, Dr. Jendian talked about prejudice and discrimination that has happened recently and how it continues even today. We were required to watch the documentary “Back to the Hood” and write a discussion online and then we had a discussion in class. Dr. Jendian stated in regard to this documentary that prejudice has became an excuse for others actions just like when the Korean store owner shot and killed fifteen year old Latasha Harlins. Because this Korean women was scared of African Americans robbing their stores she had the perception that all African Americans had this mindset so when Latasha walked in her store holding a bottle of juice this store owner automatically thought she was stealing when Latasha was actually
To prevent these discriminations’ from transpiring again we need to stop people’s prejudices of African Americans. Prejudice can be defined as biologically similar people who hold strong beliefs that cause them to discriminate another object (Pearson). Prejudices start from the home in which the child and raised in and continually grows until that child reaches adulthood, and then the cycle continues and is passed on from generation to generation. To stop the cycle of prejudice and go on toward the goal of equality, we can eliminate the stereotypes that destroy others perceptions of African Americans, by making it known we are all one race- the human race. African Americans should not be defined by their complexion but rather the good they have brought to the world. Letting it be known that we are all equal and should be treated in that respect.
Richardson, Jeanita W., Kim A. Scott. “Rap Music and Its Violent Progeny: America’s Culture of Violence in Context.” The Journal of Negro Education 71.3 (2002): 175 – 192. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. “Media Violence Causes Youth Violence.”