Deconstructing The Butler: Subservience to the Master Narrative Lee Daniels’ 2013 film, The Butler, tells the fictionalized story of an African American butler whose domestic skills ultimately lead him to a job at the White House. The film follows Cecil Gaines throughout his career as a White House butler, serving 8 U.S. Presidents throughout the mid to late 20th century and during arguably the most turbulent time for the civil rights and Black power movements. Many aspects of The Butler attempt to correct what many historical recounts of this time period have diluted through the Master Narrative. At the same time, this film takes on the nearly impossible challenge of effectively depicting the entirety of the civil rights and Black power eras in a …show more content…
Since the Master Narrative embraces binary ideas regarding racism and segregation, it deems de jure segregation as the only type deserving of recognition and requiring resistance. Hence why Louis’ activism in the South through Freedom Rides and sit-ins is seen as heroic. The film ensures that the violence African American activists in the South faced are heavily depicted to further justify their resistance. Upholding the idea that Black resistance is only justified in the face of overt racial violence, or that it requires white approval at all. The overarching focus on the validity of nonviolent resistance is further perpetuated by the inclusion of Dr. King, the most well known proponent of nonviolent protest. Furthermore, sustaining the Master Narrative’s King-centric ideals and ignorance of Black oppression and resistance outside of the Jim Crow South, as it is not as overt and violent nor de jure. Lastly, the film embraces the notion of “good” and “bad” activism in a sense with its portrayal of the Black Panthers and activism common in the North. The Black Panthers resisted less tangible forms of
Recently you have received a letter from Martin Luther King Jr. entitled “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” In Dr. King’s letter he illustrates the motives and reasoning for the extremist action of the Civil Rights movement throughout the 1960’s. In the course of Dr. King’s letter to you, he uses rhetorical questioning and logistical reasoning, imagery and metaphors, and many other rhetorical devices to broaden your perspectives. I am writing this analysis in hopes you might reconsider the current stance you have taken up regarding the issues at hand.
Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi and Eyes on the Prize characterize life for African-Americans during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s as full of tension, fear, and violence. Eyes on the Prize is a documentary series that details major figures and events of the movement, while Anne Moody gives a deeply personal autobiographical account of her own experiences as an African American growing up in deeply segregated and racist Mississippi and as a civil rights activist during and after college. These two accounts are very different in their style yet contain countless connections in their events and reflect many ongoing struggles of the movement. These sources provide an excellent basis for discussion of nonviolence versus violence
The first social issue portrayed through the film is racial inequality. The audience witnesses the inequality in the film when justice is not properly served to the police officer who executed Oscar Grant. As shown through the film, the ind...
The author, Dr. Martian Luther King Jr., makes a statement “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.” He uses this concept to convey the point of the Negros hard work to negotiate the issue has failed, but now they must confront it. The March on Good Friday, 1963, 53 blacks, led by Reverend Martian Luther King, Jr., was his first physical protest to segregation laws that had taken place after several efforts to simply negotiate. The author uses several phrases that describe his nonviolent efforts and his devotion to the issue of segregation that makes the reader believe his how seriously King takes this issue. “Conversely, one has the moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” Dr. Martian Luther King, Jr. explains with this that an “unjust law is no law at all.” King does not feel like he has broken any laws in his protest against segregation. In his eyes, laws are made to protect the people, not degrade and punish. “The Negro has many pent up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him March.” As far as King is concerned, the Negros will continue to do whatever is necessary, preferably non-violently, to obtain the moral and legal right that is theirs. If they are not allowe...
Everyone that has been through the American school system within the past 20 years knows exactly who Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is, and exactly what he did to help shape the United States to what it is today. In the beginning of the book, Martin Luther King Jr. Apostle of Militant Nonviolence, by James A. Colaiaco, he states that “this book is not a biography of King, [but] a study of King’s contribution to the black freedom struggle through an analysis and assessment of his nonviolent protest campaigns” (2). Colaiaco discusses the successful protests, rallies, and marches that King put together. . Many students generally only learn of Dr. King’s success, and rarely ever of his failures, but Colaiaco shows of the failures of Dr. King once he started moving farther North.
During the 1960s, many Black Americans drew attention to the inequalities among races in society. Protest groups formed and demonstrations highlighting discrimination towards dark people were a common practice for civil rights activists. Some activists believed non-violence was the only way to overcome, and others, such as Anne Moody and the Black Panthers, had a more aggressive attitude towards gaining freedom. In her autobiography, The Coming of Age in Mississippi, Anne Moody describes the hardships of growing up in the heavily racist South, and displays the “price you pay daily for being Black.” (p.361) She grows tired of seeing her Black companions beaten, raped, murdered, and denied their opportunity to prosper in the land of plenty: America. The Black Panthers’ assertive mindset was aimed to exemplify the injustices of a prejudiced society that denied Blacks the power to determine their own destiny. At a young age, Anne realizes that there is something that gives Whites privilege over Blacks. She thinks that there is a secret to why Blacks always have to watch a movie from the balcony while Whites watch from the floor. Both Anne Moody and the Black Panthers discover this secret, and use an assertive approach in their civil rights activism for social and political reform that would finally give Blacks the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that are granted to all Americans. The secret was racial discrimination.
To stifle the spread of the ‘contagion,’ the article, “Four Students Spark Spreading Drive,”sites how the “good performance of the Southern police” is what “prevented chaos.” [v] By using a favorable term to describe the white institutions, the article works to label police as an admirable unit who selflessly suppressed anarchy. This is contrasted with the ‘chaos’ utilized to describe the sit-in protestors. In making this comment, the article implies that the protests harm society rather than help it. Moreover, words like “contagion” and “chaos” are also utilized to condemn the black’s entitlement to protests; once again, the media plays on white fears that whites might stand to lose their sense of entitlements if they allow minorities to have the same rights as they do. The diction used by the Chicago Defender’s article parallels the word choice of Harold L. Keith’s article, “Are White Supremacists Killing Labor?”, which is about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Triggered by the arrest of Rosa Parks, the NAACP organized the Boycott to change segregation laws regarding bus seats and driver courtesy toward people of color. Emerging Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. was primarily responsible for coordinating the Bus boycott movement.[vii]. Keith’s article
The Montgomery Bus Boycott can be viewed as a symbol of the Civil Rights Movement as a whole, as neither one’s success was due solely to the work of the political system; a transformation in the consciousness of America was the most impactful success of both. Passionate racism ran in the veins of 1950s America, primarily in the south, and no integration law would influence the widespread belief that African Americans were the same level of human as Caucasians. The abolition of racism as a political norm had to start with a unanimous belief among blacks that they had power as American citizens; once they believed that to be true, there was no limit to the successes they could see.
The readings for the week of April 12th were The Black Panther Party’s Ten Point Program a primary source and and Robyn Spencer’s Merely One Link in the Worldwide Revolution. The Black Panther Party’s Ten Point Program is a list of demands that ways of operations for the party. The second reading links the Black Freedom Struggle to international events such as the decolonization of African countries and the Cold War. Throughout the texts and our in-class discussion we see the themes of communism, internationalism, racial capitalism and the human rights, civil rights struggle and their relationship with the Black Freedom Movement.
“Selma” is an interesting documentary film that conveys the unforgettable, real story of the 1960s’ Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The 2014 film captures the riotous three-month protest in 1965 when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spearheaded a daring clamor for equal suffrage rights in an environment accompanied by violent opposition from agents of the status quo. The heroic protest from Selma to Alabama’s capital, Montgomery, prompted President Lyndon Johnson’s assent to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Act is believed to be among the most imperative gains for the agents of civil rights and freedoms in the 20th century America. Director Ava DuVernay ensured that "Selma" chronicles how Dr. King Jr, his family and supporters under the egis of the Civil Rights Movement brought about social change that has since then improved the American society by granting previously discriminated communities a political voice.
King says, “But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds.” (King, page 2) The African American leader goes on to describe, “...conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.” (King, page 2) His message from these quotes are amplified with imagery and metaphors, illustrating the African American’s position with deft strokes of the 5 senses, such as the phrases “warm threshold” and “high plane;” also, it compares justice to a palace. The imagery aids peace into looking like the much, much more better option because the diction and metaphors used to describe this situation makes equality seem like a fairy tale and “dignity and discipline” seem like kings and queen, miles above their royal subjects. It also helps the audience have a better understanding of the importance of using peace and why violence mustn't be an option. This is again illustrated with imagery and a metaphor, “...not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” (King, page 2) In the speech, King wanted inequality evaporated, with no reminisce of it behind and without hate. When he he uses imagery and metaphors in this main idea, it assists his
Nearly all of the problems the Black Panther Party attacked are the direct descendants of the system which enslaved Blacks for hundreds of years. Although they were given freedom roughly one hundred years before the arrival of the Party, Blacks remain victims of White racism in much the same way. They are still the target of White violence, regulated to indecent housing, remain highly uneducated and hold the lowest position of the economic ladder. The continuance of these problems has had a nearly catastrophic effect on Blacks and Black families. Brown remembers that she “had heard of Black men-men who were loving fathers and caring husbands and strong protectors.. but had not known any” until she was grown (105). The problems which disproportionatly affect Blacks were combatted by the Party in ways the White system had not. The Party “organized rallies around police brutality against Blacks, made speeches and circulated leaflets about every social and political issue affecting Black and poor people, locally, nationally, and internationally, organized support among Whites, opened a free clinic, started a busing-to prisons program which provided transport and expenses to Black families” (181). The Party’s goals were to strengthen Black communities through organization and education.
This brings us to one of the implicit arguments of the film, that the blacks who lived during this time were strong and would not back down. They were equal to white people and were strong enough to show it. Many of the people in the film talked about how their ancestors would not back down from fighting for their rights. For example, Kimberly Wilson talked about how her ancestor Jon Mitchell Jr. was targeted after he wrote about the horrors of lynching in his newspaper. Instead of running away to the north to escape the death threats he was getting, he stayed in town.
Struggles come in all shapes and sizes; it identifies the strength of a person. Josh Ellis stated “Lamar seemed to [imply] that some of the responsibility for preventing killings…lay with black people themselves” as he speaks from personal experience after being in a gang (Eells 44). The white supremacy has struggled to keep restrictions on African Americans since the Jim Crow laws; they suppress by keeping them weak minded and killing them off. This may be considered a weak tactic, but it is no different than the “mistakes” of African American killing each other. But it does not take that experience to know that African Americans contribute to their own crisis. They are responsible for their own actions, which mostly result in revenge; not realizing that this do not make them equal, it just adds to the sad news of America. This country is based on wrong doings and consequences leaving the minority leaders to try and make a difference for generations to come. “But… I’m no mortal man, maybe I’m just another nigga” entering into the society where only judgement prevail to the cycle of life (Poem 1 22). Its takes knowledge in order to have courage to step outside the box and lead a movement toward change. “… I learned/…respect/ If I respect you, we unify and stop the enemy from killing us” (Poem 1 17 and
Throughout history, race has played a major role in how nations are founded and how they evolve as time progresses. In The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B Du Bois, America is under the gun for its racial problems within the end of the 19th, and beginning of the 20th century. W.E.B. DuBois makes it clear that he believes the problem of the twentieth century is the relation of the darker races to the lighter, or more simplistically, the ‘color-line.” To the disdain of African-Americans, DuBois assumption proved to be true throughout the entirety of the twentieth century; and while in race may not be as prevalent of an issue in the modern world, the ‘color-line’ certainly has potential to make a comeback in being a problem, if not the problem of