Comparison/Contrast of Cut and The Fourth of July

1392 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Audre lorde fourth of july analysis

Wilkinson 1
Comparison/Contrast of “Cut” and “The Fourth of July”
In the two essays “Cut,” by Bob Greene and “The Fourth of July,” by Audre Lorde they both discuss how disappointments as a child affected their lives. Greene’s essay gives five examples about how five boys were cut from a sports team and how they used that disappointment to become successful as adults. Lorde’s essay differed in that it told one story of how her and her family were on their vacation in Washington D.C. and they were not served at a restaurant because they were black. Both authors discuss feelings of being left out, being discriminated against, and how disappointments affected their lives. However, there are more differences than similarities in the essays. I can relate more to Greene’s essay because I am an athlete; however, I have never been in position of worrying about being cut.
Greene and Lorde were similar in that they both faced a form of discrimination on their childhood that helped better them in the future. In “Cut” the boys all went to try out for a high school sports team and all of them were cut from the teams. “For the time in my life, I was told wasn’t good enough” (Greene 56). These boys were discriminated against for not having the ability or talent to be good enough to play on the team. On of the people in the essay, Bob Graham stated, “I know for a fact that it altered my perception of myself. My view of myself was knocked down; my self was lowered” (Greene 57). No one should ever be put into a situation where they face being told they are not good enough. In the other essay, “The Fourth of July,” a different type of discrimination was discussed, racism. Lorde’s family, which is African American, was faced with discrimination on a vacation to Washington D.C. They took the trip because
Wilkinson 2
Lorde’s sister Phyllis could not go on her senior class to Washington. “The nuns had given her back her deposit in private, explaining to her that the class, all of whom were white, except Phyllis, would be staying in a hotel where Phyllis ‘would not be happy,’ Daddy explained to her, also in private, that they did not rent rooms to Negroes” (Lorde 202). While in Washington Lorde and her family went out for ice cream to a Breyer’s ice cream shop. They sat down and a waitress, who was white, walked over and...

... middle of paper ...

...t of the season. Not being a starter gave me the determination to work harder and in the end it all paid off. This experience has made me realize that I can do anything as long as I work hard.

Wilkinson 5
In conclusion, both Greene and Lorde discuss how disappointments as child have had positive affects on his/her lives as adults. Greene’s essay applied to me more than Lorde’s because I have never been judged by my appearance. I can’t relate to the fact of being cut from a team, but I can relate to the fact being successful with hard work.

Wilkinson 6
Works Cited
Greene, Bob. “Cut.” The Prentice Hall Reader. 6th ed. Ed. George Miller. Trenton, N.J.:
Prentice Hall, 2001. 55-60.
Lorde, Audre. “The Fourth of July.” Models for Writers. 7th ed. Ed. Alfred Rosa and
Paul Eschholz. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001. 201-204.

Comparison/Contrast of “Cut” and “The Fourth of July”

by
Shane Wilkinson

English 110, Section 03
Mrs. Bailey
30 April 2002

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Melba Patillo Beals 'Warriors Don' T Cry

    486 Words  | 1 Pages

    During the 1950s, African Americans struggled against racial segregation, trying to break down the race barrier. Fifteen year old Melba Patillo Beals was an ordinary girl, until she’s chosen with eight other students to integrate Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas. They are named the Little Rock and fight through the school year, while students and segregationists are threatening and harassing them. Warriors Don’t Cry—a memoir of Beals’ personal experience—should be taught in schools because it teaches students to treat each other equally and to be brave, while it also shows the struggle of being an African-American in the 1950s. Another lesson taught in the retelling is that everyone can make a change.

    Read More

  • Melba Pattillo Beals', Warriors Don't Cry

    2530 Words  | 6 Pages

    In the book Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals, the author describes what her reactions and feelings are to the racial hatred and discrimination she and eight other African-American teenagers received in Little Rock, Arkansas during the desegregation period in 1957. She tells the story of the nine students from the time she turned sixteen years old and began keeping a diary until her final days at Central High School in Little Rock. The story begins by Melba talking about the anger, hatred, and sadness that is brought up upon her first return to Central High for a reunion with her eight other classmates. As she walks through the halls and rooms of the old school, she recalls the horrible acts of violence that were committed by the white students against her and her friends.

    Read More

  • Racism In Warriors Don T Cry By Melba Pattillo Beals

    797 Words  | 2 Pages

    Racism is an attribute that has often plagued all of American society’s existence. Whether it be the earliest examples of slavery that occurred in America, or the cases of racism that happens today, it has always been a problem. However, this does not mean that people’s overall opinions on racial topics have always stayed the same as prior years. This is especially notable in the 1994 memoir Warriors Don’t Cry. The memoir occurred in 1957 Little Rock, Arkansas and discusses the Melba Pattillo Beals attempt to integrate after the Brown vs. Board of Education court case. Finally, in Warriors Don’t Cry, Melba Pattillo Beals discusses the idea that freedom is achievable through conflicts involving her family, school life, and friends.

    Read More

  • Comparison of “Just Walk on By” by Brent Staples and “Complexion” by Richard Rodriguez

    1007 Words  | 3 Pages

    Brent Staples and Richard Rodriguez’s autobiographical essays both start out with a problem, but they deal with it in different ways. Brent Staples’ “Just Walk on By” deals with the issue of racism and social judgment he faces because he is African-American, while Rodriguez’s essay “Complexion,” details the self-hatred and shame he felt in his childhood because of his skin color. Both of these essays deal with race, appearance, and self-acceptance, but the authors write about them in different ways. When looking at the similarities and differences together, the points of these essays have a much stronger message about how to deal with discrimination.

    Read More

  • Audre Lorde The Fourth Of July Analysis

    1304 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Audre Lorde’s bildungsroman essay “The Fourth of July” (1997), she recalls her family’s trip to the nation’s capital that represented the end of her childhood ignorance by being exposed to the harsh reality of racialization in the mid 1900s. Lorde explains that her parents are to blame for shaping her skewed perception of America by shamefully dismissing frequent acts of racism. Utilizing copious examples of her family being negatively affected by racism, Lorde expresses her anger towards her parents’ refusal to address the blatant, humiliating acts of discrimination in order to emphasize her confusion as to why objecting to racism is a taboo. Lorde’s use of a transformational tone of excitement to anger, and dramatic irony allows those

    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

  • Racism In Claudia Rankine's 'Citizens: An American Lyric'

    760 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “Citizens: An American Lyric” by Claudia Rankine the audience is placed in a world where racism strongly affects the daily American cultural and social life. In this world we are put as the eyewitnesses and victims, the bystanders and the participants of racial encounters that happen in our daily lives and in the media, yet we have managed to ignore them for the mere fact that we are accustomed to them. Some of these encounters may be accidental slips, things that we didn’t intend to say and that we didn’t mean yet they’ve managed to make it to the surface. On the other hand we have the encounters that are intentionally offensive, things said that are

    Read More

  • Why Did Anne Moody Contribute To The Civil Rights Movement Essay

    882 Words  | 2 Pages

    As a child, Moody played, and made friends with, white children. She saw no difference between them but the fact that they nicer things than she did. While living with the Johnsons, this difference was first pointed out to her. One day as her mother took them to see a movie, she and her siblings ran into the white children who lived near them. Without second thought she and her siblings followed them into the whites only lobby. When their mother realized where they had gone she dragged them out, going home without seeing the movie. As she dragged them home she saying “we couldn’t sit downstairs, we couldn’t do this or that with white children.” (pg.33) After this the white children stopped playing in front of their house for a few weeks, but then they started playing again. Moody and her sibling began to

    Read More

  • The Impact of Sports in Native American Boarding Schools

    1670 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...tudents, American slaves, and 1890’s immigrant children, in similar ways. Sport is often vital to the autonomy, freedom, and pride of its participants especially in regards to the Native American students at boarding schools. Even though individuals may have thought that the schools were exploiting the talents of the Native American students, which they may have been, no one considered how the students actually viewed sport at the time. There often needs to be less preoccupation with political correctness and more focus on how certain actions actually affect the ones involved. Even if the schools were exploiting the students by sport, sports should never even been taken away from the Native American students of boarding skills due to the fact that it was sport that often was allowing them to develop; not only as a Native American, but as an individual as well.

    Read More

  • Being Biracial-Personal Narrative

    891 Words  | 2 Pages

    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).

    Read More

  • In The Park Analysis

    936 Words  | 2 Pages

    These final words sum up her feeling of helplessness and emptiness. Her identity is destroyed in a way due to having children. We assume change is always positive and for the greater good but Harwood’s poem challenges that embedding change is negative as the woman has gained something but lost so much in return.

    Read More

  • Prejudice And Discrimination In Toni Morrison's 'Recitatif'

    1144 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Civil Rights Movement marked a crucial moment in United States history. African Americans fought for their right to be treated equally and to put an end to discrimination and segregation. Toni Morrison’s short story “Recitatif” features two girls of the opposite race and how their friendship was affected during this time period. The United States has come a long way since the days of slavery, but African Americans’ rights were still not being fully recognized. As a result of this the Civil Rights Movement developed to peacefully protest for equality. Toni Morrison’s short story, “Recitatif”, takes place during the Civil Rights era of the United States to show the reader how stereotyping, discrimination, and segregation affected two girls,

    Read More

  • The Problems of Segregation in Any Environment

    861 Words  | 2 Pages

    The segregation and discrimination of any person or race is unfair and should not be permitted or accepted. Both of these stories talk about the problems that segregation causes, and are written to prove that it is a horrible thing to segregate against someone, and that discrimination causes more problems than it helps anything. Both of these stories attempt to change society’s views of discrimination to that of their Author’s own. Both of these books hopefully made a positive effect on society, as they were meant to, and helped people realize that it is never okay to treat people differently because society wants them to.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Freedom's Children

    1169 Words  | 3 Pages

    For example Ben Chaney was nine years old at the time and played with the white kids. But as soon as he turned ten the parents came straight out to Ben and told him he was not allowed to play with their kids to his face. This was solely based on the complexion of his skin. Another example was Gwendolyn Patton. She grew up in Detroit but spent summers in Montgomery. She used to ride the bus on sundays after church. She would only ride the bus once a week. She got off the bus to get a treat and went to the stad. She bought a cone of water and she sat down to drink. The lady at the stand said she could not sit there (the women did not say why but it was because she was black but it was heavily implied) so Gwen proceeded to pour her water on the counter of the stand and walk

    Read More

  • The Fourth Of July By Audre Lorde Analysis

    1066 Words  | 3 Pages

    Therefore, it shows that Lorde has to stand up for herself in order to go to the dining car. The essay reflects on when Lorde and her family visit a store, they were told to leave the store which made them feel excluded from the crowd. The author writes, “My mother and father believed that they could best protect their children from the realities of race in America and the fact of the American racism by never giving them name, much less discussing their nature. We were told we must never trust white people, but why was never explained, nor the nature of their ill will” (Lorde, 240). The quote explains that Lorde’s parents thought they can protect their child in United States from the racism, however, they had to go through it and face racism in their daily life. This shows that her parents were aware of racism, which they might have to stand up for their rights, but they did not take the stand for themselves as well as their child. Therefore, her parents guided them to stay away from white people. This tells readers that Lorde has to fight for the independence that she deserves along with going against her

    Read More

More about Comparison/Contrast of Cut and The Fourth of July

Open Document