1 At the very beginning of the section, Delphine asked Cecile about the name the Black Panthers call her and the three girls find out that the name she is called is Nzilla, which is her poet name. After talking to Cecile about her name, Delphine thought about her own name, until a TV show about dolphins came on television. People started making fun of Delphine and how her name relates to dolphin, so she beat up the kid who was making fun of her the most. The next day Delphine saw that the Black Panthers were alright and that they were very nice to white people, but then she heard Crazy Kelvin talk behind their back, and she realized what she thought wasn’t true. Afterwards Vonetta and her friend argued with Fern, and Vonetta’s friend drew all over Miss Patty Cake, and they started fighting, but Cecile broke it up, however, she didn’t comfort Fern, or hug her, or call her …show more content…
by her name. The next at the center, instead of going out and playing Delphine and Fern counted newspapers for Sister Mukumbu and Delphine got more and more curious about the news, and used all of her money to buy a newspaper. That night instead of buying food takeout Delphine bought supplies to cook food herself, and Cecile let her, even though she really didn’t want to allow her to come into the kitchen, but Delphine did not do anything that could make Cecile angry. The next day Delphine had an argument with Eunice and Hirohito while getting water for Sister Mukumbu. Next Vonetta and Fern realize that if Delphine got what she wanted, cooking in the kitchen, then maybe they could get a TV from Cecile. After explaining their points, Cecile got them and old secondhand radio. The next day the Center, Crazy Kelvin went through the lesson trying to get everyone to call the police pigs, and he verbally attacked Hirohito and tried to get him to call the police pigs. Afterwards, Delphine tried to imagine what it must've felt like for Hirohito, watching his father get taken away, but Delphine realized she didn’t need to. She remembered a police caught her father sleeping on the side of the road and Delphine remembered that she was scared that her father would speak back and get in trouble. The next day Sister Mukumbu said that everyone would participate in a rally and Delphine disagreed, but then Sister Mukumbu said that they had been requested to make a special presentation, and Vonetta and Fern wanted to do it more than anything, but Delphine said that no matter what she wasn’t going to let them go to the rally. 2 One thing referenced in the book that was from the 60s is the COINTELPRO. The COINTELPRO stands for COunter INTELigence PROgram, and was created by the FBI in 1959 and its sole purpose was to infiltrate, or disrupt American political organizations. In the 1960s it started to also target parties like the Black Panthers. By 1968 the main focus of COINTELPRO became the Black Panthers. However often times COINTELPRO projects were illegal, and all COINTELPRO operations were ended in 1971. COINTELPRO was exposed by 3 activists who used a crowbar and broke into One Veterans Square, Media, Pennsylvania and found one of the United States darkest secrets. They stole confidential documents that bore the words COINTELPRO and details about FBI abuses and the secret counter-intelligence program to infiltrate, monitor and disrupt social and political movements. They were then stopped by Congress and the American citizens for abridging first amendment rights and also for other reasons. 3 You can tell that the story is told from a young girl's point of view because of many reasons.
Delphine speaks maturely and acts very mature for her age, however, glints of her being a child is shown. One reason is because you can tell that she has childish thoughts. For example, she started to like Hirohito and started to ask him questions and got embarrassed. Another reason is that she says things an adult wouldn’t say, like the time when Fern didn’t go to sleep, she said, that if Fern couldn’t sleep she couldn’t and too bad for her. Another reason is that when Delphine got in an argument about Hirohito, they started a childish fight with rhymes. Another example is how on the bus she says to her sisters that if anyone asks, she is eleven. She says that because she needs to ride the bus free, so, therefore lied to the bus driver. Lying is considered both childish, and wrong, but is only seen a tiny bit in Delphine. She also hides things from her family. She didn’t tell Big Ma that Cecile was mean, or that she took all of her money. That is wrong because family should tell each other
everything. 4 Race plays into the story by changing the way people act toward each other. For example, Crazy Kelvin calls the police pigs, and the police are fighting against the Black Panthers, If it weren’t for the incorporation of race there wouldn’t be a Center for the Black Panthers, and the three girls need it because they Cecile won’t buy or cook them food. If it weren’t for race there would be no classes about the Black Panthers, and there would be no problems that the Black Panthers would have to fight. In the 1960’s there was a lot of tension between races, which made it difficult to live by because it caused a lot of violence. The Black Panthers fought against that and taught others the same thing.And because there are people against race, police take people of other races, like Hirohito’s father to prison. That is a worry to Delphine, because her father would have gotten taken away if he spoke back to the police.
The play focusses on three generations of Women, Nan Dear, Gladys and Dolly and where they felt as though they belonged. Nan Dear knew where she belonged and that was the humpy in the flats with her daughter and granddaughter. Nan Dear knows that she won't be accepted into white society just because she is an Aboriginal and those of a different colour or foreign country weren't accepted. Gladys and Dolly both wanted to be accepted into white society, they wanted to feel as though they belonged there.
In the young life of Essie Mae, she had a rough childhood. She went through beatings from her cousin, George Lee, and was blamed for burning down her house. Finally Essie Mae got the nerve to stand up for herself and her baby sister, Adline as her parents were coming in from their work. Her dad put a stop to the mistreatment by having her and her sister watched by their Uncle Ed. One day while Essie Mae's parents were having an argument, she noticed that her mothers belly was getting bigger and bigger and her mom kept crying more and more. Then her mother had a baby, Junior, while the kids were out with their Uncle Ed. Her uncle took her to meet her other two uncles and she was stunned to learn that they were white. She was confused by this but when she asked her mom, Toosweet, about it her mom would not give her an answer one way or the other. Once her mom had the baby, her father started staying out late more often. Toosweet found out that her dad was seeing a woman named Florence. Not long after this, her mother was left to support her and her siblings when her father left. Her mother ended up having to move in with family until she could obtain a better paying job in the city. As her childhood went on she started school and was very good at her studies. When she was in the fourth grade, her mom started seeing a soldier named Raymond. Not too long after this, her mother got pregnant and had James. Her mother and Raymond had a rocky relationship. When James was born, Raymond's mother came and took the baby to raise because she said that raising four children was too much of a burden for a single parent to handle. Raymond went back to the service for a while but then when he came back he and Toosweet had another baby. Raymond's brothers helped him build a new house for them to live in and they brought James back to live with them. During this time Essie Mae was working for the Claiborne family and she was starting to see a different point of view on a lot of things in life. The Claiborne's treated her almost as an equal and encouraged her to better herself.
The story follows three girls- Jeanette, the oldest in the pack, Claudette, the narrator and middle child, and the youngest, Mirabella- as they go through the various stages of becoming civilized people. Each girl is an example of the different reactions to being placed in an unfamiliar environment and retrained. Jeanette adapts quickly, becoming the first in the pack to assimilate to the new way of life. She accepts her education and rejects her previous life with few relapses. Claudette understands the education being presented to her but resists adapting fully, her hatred turning into apathy as she quietly accepts her fate. Mirabella either does not comprehend her education, or fully ignores it, as she continually breaks the rules and boundaries set around her, eventually resulting in her removal from the school.
Besides physical and emotional abuse Delia had to put up with mental abuse from her husband. At one time, Sykes put a snake into a soap box to scare Delia. Knowing that Delia had an enormous fear of snakes, not to mention anything as small as an earthworm. Other mental and emotional abuse was that Sykes ran another woman in town, making it known to Delia and everyone else in town. He made it no secret when he was going to see Bertha, his mistress. The only thing Delia ever said about his affair was, 'that ole snaggle-toothed black woman you runnin' with ain't comin' heah to pile up on mah sweat and blood.
Towards the middle of the memoir, the theme is shown through the irony of Jeannette’s mother’s situation as well as Jeannette’s feelings towards
Helene was raised by her grandmother because she mother was a prostitute in the New Orleans. When Helene has a family of her own, she refuses to make her background be known. Helene raises Nel with fear because she doesn’t want her to have the lifestyle she grew up in. Helene controls Nel’s life and makes her see the world how it is. Nel and her mother go on a train to New Orleans to attend the funeral for her great grandmother. On the train, Nel witnessed racial situation between her mother and the white conductor. “Pulling Nel by the arm, she pressed herself and her daughter into the foot space in front of a wooden seat… at least no reason that anyone could understand, certainly no reason that Nel understood,” (21). Nel was very uncomfortable throughout the trip and wasn’t able to communicate with her mother because she never learned how to since her mother was not supportive of her. Nel views her mother very negatively for the way she raised her. Nel starts to determine her life and great her identity when she became friends with Sula. The effect of negative maternal interactions on an individual is explained by Diane Gillespie and Missy Dehn Kubitschek as they discuss
Another reason I had feelings of anger for the character Dee, was that she was uneducated. Not the usual education, such as in college, because she had that, but the education of her heritage, or past. The second statement to her mother was when her mother says "Dee", Dee replied saying her new name Wangero, followed by the statement that Dee is dead and that she could no longer bear the name of the people that oppress her. At no point during the story was Dee oppressed or even mentioned being oppressed in the past. Then she tries to track back where her name came from, to show her mother it was a slave name or something along those lines. Her mother tracked it back as far as she could remember and no such thing was pointed out. To move on to another situation where Dee made herself look foolish and uneducated is, when they are leaving, she tells her mother that she just doesn't understand.
The story began when La Vaughn was just fifteen. La Vaughn described her school life and her two best friends, Myrtle and Annie. Myrtle and Annie had been her friends all throughout her childhood, but now, it seemed that the three friends were drifting apart as their common interests changed. Both Myrtle and Annie had become very involved in a religious youth group that La Vaughn had no interest in joining. La Vaughn felt that the leaders in the religious ...
When she and her Ma got home, it was almost dark outside. Frances saw something suspicious, her brother(Mike), shouldn’t be out at this time. Once they got inside, Frances and her mother tucked in all the children and went to bed themselves. Frances was still wondering about Mike, “What was he doing?” She fell asleep falling wiry of her younger brother. When she up, they had breakfast, and headed to their jobs. Frances was still wondering what Mike had done. “Was he stealing? No, their Da(father) had taught them better than that before he fell ill and died. She had never seen her mother cry until then.
The sisters band together to raise funds for their road trip to the “BIGGEST BINGO IN THE WORLD” (1125) distracting them from their fighting. “[T]he women start their fundraising activities with a vengeance” (1143) each of them using their individual skills as well as pairing up to maximise all of their efforts. The ladies use this fundraising frenzy to distract themselves from the “crazy” (1115) life on the rez where there are “[n]o jobs[, and] nothing to do but drink and - forget about [their] Nanabush” (1115). Only Marie-Adele and Zhaboonigan know the truth that Nanabush is back and having “a holiday” (1143) messing with the girls fundraising activities. The sisters finally raise enough money to get to Toronto and “THE BIGGEST BINGO IN THE WORLD” (1139) and start on their road trip full of “intimate conversations” (1148). Philomena discusses the child she gave up for adoption 28 years ago with Pelajia, Annie and Marie-Adele discuss what is going to happen when she dies, Emily discusses her lost lover with Marie-Adele and Pelajia, and Zhaboonigan and Emily discuss having children. Throughout all of the discussions, each sister gives advice and support to deal with the issues most of which were caused by living on or being from the rez. This part of the road trip was influenced by Nanabush’s attack on Marie-Adele and became important
Theresa states that her nephew, Tiny, was shoot by the police and that it was not an accident. She states how police were after gang members for trying to make peace within their community. Allison witnessed police trying to take her son so they could beat him and she stood up for him and the cops let him go. At the end of her chapter she says that they knew they would her son and the cops did kill him after she decided to move away from that community. Theresa shows why kids in her community grew up to dislike the
Wolfe portrays the character of Miss Pat to the audience in a questionable manner. To elaborate, Wolf presents Miss Pat as a symbol of perfectionism, an African-American woman who is taking the charge of the slave ship as a flight-attendant and pretending as nothing has happened through her “little jokes” although she knows that the worst is yet to come. Moreover, Miss Pat walks the audiences through the history of African-American’s and their struggles to overcome white dominations. For example, she suggests the audiences abandon their “god” and “Worship a new one”. Meaning, they must lose their own self-identity in order to fit in. Although Miss Pat tries to act as a strong figure, just like rest of the audiences, she is also conflicted by her own “rehearsed” presentation. For example, throughout the play, Miss Pat speaks “reassuringly” in an attempt to clear up her own self-doubts in order to play her role better. Miss Pat’s character forces the audience to feel sympathetic towards African-Americans and guilty for overlooking their everyday struggles to fit into a society that often takes away their power and
... perfect exemplars of how an ideal innocent women, can face undoubtedly tragic fates. Despite much strength in their characters, both Daisy and Desdemona exhibit the vulnerability of their innocence, the ability for others to take advantage of them, and glaring weaknesses. They are unaware of their surroundings, which lead to questionable actions. Their inevitable tragedies occur because of how each character dealt with these situations placed in front of them. All in all, Daisy and Desdemona are responsible for their tragedies because they are women placed in unfamiliar positions and are unable to deal with situations placed in front of them.
To begin with, Miss Moore, Sylvia, and the other children are from the “slums”. However, what differentiate Miss Moore and everyone else in the neighborhood is that she has a college education, and speaks Standard English. As a result, Miss Moore plays the role as teacher to the neighborhood children. Most of the children from the neighborhood were poverty stricken and had a ghetto vernacular. Especially, Sylvia, who mouth is atrocious and has a strong animosity towards Miss Moore. For instance,“Miss Moore was her name. The only woman on the block with no first name. And she was black as hell, cept for her feet, which were fish-white and spooky.” Moreover, Miss Moore has high expectations of the children, so she takes them on a trip outside the hood to unveil the real world. Before going on the trip to the toy store Miss Moore tried to explain the value of money to the children. For example, “So we heading down the street and she’s boring us silly about what things cost and what our parents make and how much goes for rent and how money ain’t divided up right in this country.” At first, Sylvia is t...
The story begins with Delia, a working Black woman in Florida, who is a wash woman. It is a warm spring day and she is sorting and soaking the clothing she washes for the white residents of her town. Her husband walks into the house and is immediately looking for a confrontation. It is throughout this confrontation that the exploitative and abusive nature of Delia and Syke’s relationship becomes clear.