Analysis Of The Warmth Of Other Suns

915 Words2 Pages

In “The Warmth of Other Suns” by Isabel Wilkerson, the three main characters that the story follows face a great deal of inequality and racial prejudice in both the Jim Crow south that they left and the north that they fled to. Through their stories, as well as the excerpts from Wilkerson that serve to dispel some of the common myths and to explain some of the inequalities that others faced, one is able to make many connections between the problems that Ida Mae, George Starling, and Richard Foster, among many others, faced in their time and the obstacles to equality that our society still to this day struggles to overcome. A large reason as to why these obstacles still exist is that many have preconceived ideas about African Americans and African American Communities. However, numerous obstacles still survive to this day as a result of certain racist ideas. One of the main reasons that some obstacles that Ida Mae, Starling, and Foster faced still exist is that many people are predisposed to certain ideas about African Americans, some of which, came about during …show more content…

As the narrator addresses in heavy detail in the book, the notion that African Americans reduce property values is completely false. Oftentimes, the neighborhoods are on the brink of decline before an African American family moved in, and it was instead the whites mass panic to sell their homes after they moved in that resulted in the steep decline of property values in the area. This was shown with Ida Mae’s story, as after years of saving up money to buy their own home, they moved into a white part of town, however, as soon as they moved all the white neighbors immediately fled, and with the surplus of of housing, the pricing dropped substantially. Despite this whole notion being false, it persists through today and causes white flight from certain

Show More
Related

  • Althea Gibson And Barbara C. Jord An Analysis

    997 Words  | 2 Pages

    Even though the obstacles might not be the same exact thing, everyone has at least dealt with obstacles once in their lifetime, or are currently trying to deal with it. Althea Gibson and Barbara Jordan both had a similar obstacle, and a different ones, the similar one was a huge part back then. Rights of black women back then were very slim, but even then, Gibson and Jordan had continued to go on and reach their dream. An example would be in the article Althea Gibson written by Frank Lafe, where Gibson was not allowed to go to certain parts of tennis since at the time the sport was dominated by white people and they had segregated the sport, but Gibson still went on to become a professional player. Similar to Gibson, Jordan had been able to attend segregated schools, but she had continued to go to high school, and then a black lawyer there had inspired her, and she went on to going to a segregated college, but even then she had joined a debate team and had tied with Harvard's team. She went on to Boston University's law school (Barbara Jordan Frank Lafe) and graduate, even when her education was limited, she had continued to be successful with her

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Martha Sandweiss's 'Passing Strange'

    568 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Emancipation of the once enslaved African American was the first stepping stone to the America that we know of today. Emancipation did not, however automatically equate to equality, as many will read from the awe-inspiring novel Passing Strange written by the talented Martha Sandweiss. The book gives us, at first glance, a seemingly tall tale of love, deception, and social importance that color played into the lives of all Americans post-emancipation. The ambiguity that King, the protagonist, so elegantly played into his daily life is unraveled, allowing a backstage view of the very paradox that was Charles King’s life.

    Read More

  • Having Our Say: The Delany's Sisters First 100 Years

    1036 Words  | 3 Pages

    Students were assigned this essay as an inside look at oppression and racism from the last one hundred years, told by two elderly ladies in the book, Having Our Say. 100 Years of Degradation There are several books that have to be read in English 095. Having Our Say is one of them. My advice is to read this book while you are still in 090 or 094, just to get the advantage. These are some things that you will discover in this extraordinary biography. This book is tough to take as humorous, because it’s heart-wrenching to look at racism in America, but Having Our Say, manages to pull off the feat. Having Our Say really makes you think and tries to somehow reflect on the past as if you were actually there. As a white male, I am amazed at how these two African American sisters were able to live through over one hundred years of racism and discrimination, and then be able to write about their experience in a humorous, yet very interesting way. Having Our Say chronicles the lives of Sadie and Bessie Delany, two elderly colored sisters (they prefer the term colored to African-American, black, and negro), who are finally having their say. Now that everyone who ever kept them down is long dead, Sadie and Bessie tell the stories of their intriguing lives, from their Southern Methodist school upbringing to their involvement in the civil rights movement in New York City. Sadie is the older, 103 years old, and sweeter of the sisters. The first colored high school teacher in the New York Public School System, Sadie considers herself to be the Booker T. Washington of the sisters, always shying away from conflict and looking at both sides of the issue. Bessie is the younger sister, 101 years old, and is much more aggressive. A self-made dentist who was the only colored female at Columbia University when she attended dentistry school there, Bessie is the W.E.B. Dubois of the sisters, never backing down from any type of confrontation. As the sisters tell the stories of their ancestors and then of themselves, and how they have endured over 150 years of racism in America, they tend to focus mainly on the struggles that they encountered as colored women. Bessie brings laughter to the book with her honest, frank, and sometimes, confrontational take on life.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Dr. Pascal Mubenga's The Struggle Of African American Students

    1105 Words  | 3 Pages

    The New York Times Editorial Board, in their article How Segregation Destroys Black Wealth (2015), argues that African Americans have been — and still are — discriminated against when buying property, resulting in the sprawl of poverty stricken, predominantly black neighborhoods. The Editorial Board supports this argument by providing historical evidence and analysis of the issue. They specify that “The Federal Housing Administration, created during the New Deal to promote homeownership, openly supported these racist measures; it forbade lending to black people even as it subsidized white families that moved from the cities to the suburbs. Cut off from

    Read More

  • Gregory Mantsios Class In America Analysis

    795 Words  | 2 Pages

    In this book, Gottesdiener writes about four different families and their challenges. These families deal with having their homes forcefully foreclosed by banks. Apart from that, African Americans were discriminated when purchasing homes, making it difficult for them to find a place. As Walt Whitman said, "a man is not a whole and complete man unless he owns a house and the ground it stands on" (35). This quote said by Whitman can be interpreted that homeownership is a way to show power and wealth. Due to the discrimination, the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act was created, which allowed loans to minorities to receive equal loans of the surrounding communities. This was specifically focused in the lower and moderate neighborhoods, but it failed due to redlining. Redlining was the act of categorizing specific areas of a neighborhood by racial conduct. For example, when a white is looking for a home, the relator shows them a map that avoids the low income area, which is typically of African

    Read More

  • The Marrow of Tradition

    1474 Words  | 3 Pages

    As the United States developed and grew, upward mobility was central to the American dream. It was the unstated promise that no matter where you started, you had the chance to grow and proceed beyond your initial starting point. In the years following the Civil War, the promise began to fade. People of all races strived to gain the representation, acknowledgement and place in this society. To their great devastation, this hope quickly dwindled. Social rules were set out by the white folk, and nobody could rise above their social standing unless they were seen fit to be part of the white race. The social group to be impacted the most by this “social rule” was the African Americans. Black folk and those who were sympathetic to the idea of equal rights to blacks were targeted by the Ku Klux Klan. (Burton, 1998) The turning point in North Carolina politics was the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898. It was a very bold and outrageous statement from the white supremacists to the black folk. The Democratic white supremacists illegally seized power from the local government and destroyed the neighborhood by driving out the African Americans and turning it from a black-majority to a white-majority city. (Class Discussion 10/3/13) This event developed the idea that even though an African American could climb a ladder to becoming somebody in his or her city, he or she will never become completely autonomous in this nation. Charles W. Chesnutt discusses the issue of social mobility in his novel The Marrow of Tradition. Olivia Carteret, the wife of a white supremacist is also a half-sister to a Creole woman, Janet Miller. As the plot develops, we are able to see how the social standing of each woman impacts her everyday life, and how each woman is ...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of They Say Ida B Wells And The Reconstruction Of Race

    1330 Words  | 3 Pages

    After the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, many African Americans saw the opportunity for freedom and equality. However, that was quickly taken away after the constant racism and oppression that took place after the civil war. In “They Say: Ida B. Wells and the Reconstruction of Race”, James West Davidson tells us about Ida B. Wells and other people of color that tried redefining what it meant to be African American. They wanted to show a different side of themselves, instead of what racist, white journalists and hate groups did. Nevertheless, they still dealt with daily struggles, such as few opportunities in politics, poverty, lack of respect, segregation, and hate crimes.

    Read More

  • Gender Inequality In The Soul Of Black Folk And The Yellow Wallpaper?

    1130 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the twentieth century, people of color and women, suffered from various inequalities. W.E.B. Du Bois’ and Charlotte Perkins Gilman (formerly known as Charlotte Perkins Stetson), mention some of the concepts that illustrate the gender and racial divide during this time. In their books, The Soul of Black Folk and The Yellow Wallpaper, Du Bois’ and Gilman illustrate and explain issues of oppression, dismissal, and duality that are relevant to issues of race and gender.

    Read More

  • The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson

    1207 Words  | 3 Pages

    During 1910 and 1970, over six million blacks departed the oppression of the South and relocated to western and northern cities in the United States, an event identified as the Great Migration. The Warmth of Other Suns is a powerful non-fiction book that illustrates this movement and introduces the world to one of the most prominent events in African American history. Wilkerson conveys a sense of authenticity as she not only articulates the accounts of Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, George Swanson Starling, and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, but also intertwines the tales of some 1,200 travelers who made a single decision that would later change the world. Wilkerson utilizes a variety of disciplines including sociology, psychology, and economics in order to document and praise the separate struggles but shared courage of three individuals and their families during the Great Migration.

    Read More

  • On Being Young-A Woman-And Colored By Marita Bonner Summary

    1137 Words  | 3 Pages

    On Being Young-A Woman-and Colored an essay by Marita Bonner addresses what it means to be black women in a world of white privilege. Bonner reflects about a time when she was younger, how simple her life was, but as she grows older she is forced to work hard to live a life better than those around her. Ultimately, she is a woman living with the roles that women of all colors have been constrained to. Critics, within the last 20 years, believe that Marita Bonners’ essay primarily focuses on the double consciousness ; while others believe that she is focusing on gender , class , “economic hardships, and discrimination” . I argue that Bonner is writing her essay about the historical context of oppression forcing women into intersectional oppression by explaining the naturality of racial discrimination between black and white, how time and money equate to the American Dream, and lastly how gender discrimination silences women, specifically black women.

    Read More

  • Racial Discrimination in The Help by Kathryn Stockett

    1125 Words  | 3 Pages

    Today, blacks are respected very differently in society than they used to be. In “The Help”, we see a shift in focus between what life is like now for the average African American compared to what it was like for them to live in the 1960’s.“The Help” teaches readers the importance of understanding and learning from our history. The novel is a snapshot of the cultural, racial and economic distinctions between blacks and whites in a particularly tumultuous time in American history. “The Help” encourages readers to examine personal prejudices and to strive to foster global equality.

    Read More

  • The Causes Of The Great Migration

    1139 Words  | 3 Pages

    Warmth of Other suns was wonderful, with great stories of Americans history with spans of long migration of African Americans who take off from the south to northern and western cities. Black citizens was in hunt of a more comfortable and healthier lifestyle from the south were African Americans was being treated awful. From 1916 to 1970, the Great Migration transformed America with millions of African Americans moving locations across the United States with a huge influence on public life, economic, political and social challenges. Also a new African American culture that would be in decades of the next generation to come.

    Read More

  • Rape In Janie Crawford's Their Eyes Were Watching God

    1025 Words  | 3 Pages

    Janie Crawford, the novel’s main character, is an African American woman who eventually married three times throughout her lifetime. Her mother was raped by her schoolteacher and eventually gave birth to Janie, leaving her behind for Janie’s grandmother to raise her. A research article focused on Their Eyes Were Watching God concluded that “The devastating impact of the white discourse on black people which has targeted their identity is an integral part of this paper” (J Nov. Appl Sci. 1). It is evident in the novel that Janie (along with several other African Americans) are mistreated because of their skin color. This novel was set in the early 1900s, when although slavery was abolished, African Americans were not treated equally; the whites still held an unwritten superiority towards them. Although an imbalance of equality between whites and blacks is present, this novel should not be banned from the classroom because it teaches the cruel but true history of our nation. Our country’s history cannot be ignored like this, because it is a part of a valuable piece of literature and it makes society appreciate our new customs of equality that currently

    Read More

  • Anne Moody's Coming Of Age In Mississippi

    1592 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Anne Moody’s autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, she describes what it was like to grow up during the Jim Crow era of the Deep South in poverty in a household of five and constantly growing. As Moody developed into a woman she dealt with many hardships. She overcame the adversities of being a girl of color during this time. Moody’s education helped her understand the full effects of everything happening around her.

    Read More

  • Summary Of White Like Me By Tim Wise

    1272 Words  | 3 Pages

    The article includes the tale of a small town near Chicago, North Lawndale. North Lawndale was a Jewish community up to the mid 1960’s when it began to integrate black people into the community. The Jewish people there were happy to see the neighborhood integrate but many others were not. Those that were not happy to see the neighborhood integrate started buying properties up and selling tem to black families at a substantial upcharge. Not only was the price of the home much higher than the value of the home, the way in which the black families were forced to buy their homes was by something called on contract. On contract was a “predatory agreement that combined all the responsibilities of homeownership with all the disadvantages of renting—while offering the benefits of neither” (The Case for Reparations, So That’s Just One of My Losses”) and left many families unable to pay the mortgages. The end results of this discrimination were debilitating to the community of North Lawndale, which is now a majority black neighborhood and a ghetto. This story may not initially sound like one of white privilege but it is when you consider the fact that white people have not historically had to face situations like this one in North Lawndale and therefore their neighborhoods have not met the same type

    Read More

More about Analysis Of The Warmth Of Other Suns

Open Document