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Problems with racism in literature
Racism in america literature
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Jerald Walker’s short story ‘Dragon Slayers’ begins at a Christmas party where a white man says Walker should hate him and all of the white race. But Walker has a different outlook on this issue. Walker believes that he has to focus on black courage and overcoming the issues that lie ahead; not let oppressors define who he is. He refuses to fall into any sterotype and let racial slurs get the best of him. Walker advocates that Africa Americans cannot play the victim and must not turn to anger and violence. Africa Americans must realize their heratige and understand the pain and suffering but also the amazing hericotic and courage they had. Walker teaches an African American Literature course and all of his students have to agree to be black for the course of the semester. His students must try to critically think as a black individual. His course is not a typical African American course where the teachings only focus on white cruelty and their oppressers but black …show more content…
courage. The teaching of black courage is that one can not punish theirselves with what the white race has done but learn from it. Walker learns this way of thinking from his professor McPherson.
One day in class professor McPherson makes a connection between rap music and Walker’s paper and said they are both phony. He talks about how rappers are extreamly wealthy and their families are doing well but they claim they are in the streets and “hustling” to make their way through life, when in reality they are doing better than a large portion of the population. The reason he says Walker is doing the same is because he wasn’t talking about himself… he is talking about his family and their hardships, that he has not experienced. Then Walker learned one of the most important lessons that would be with him forever; that people love sterotypes, sterotypes engage a reader but once the reader is interested you have to add your own esense of you into your writing. This means as a writer you have to show the reader the real you but you have to understand yourself first. One must not base their life on the life or sterotype of
others. I believe ‘Dragon Slayer’ is the perfect title for this short story because you don’t need to let your dragons (demons) run loose. You have to slay them if that means finding peace with them or overcoming them. Your experiences are what define you, you experience advisity everyday, it’s how you grow from them that make you the person you are. There can’t be good without the bad. You can’t constantly dwell on the past in hopes to move forward and truly understand yourself. In my opinion Walker is not simply saying let anyone off the hook but not to let the history of another person define who you are. I honestly loved picking apart this article because if you don’t read it close enough you won’t understand what Walker is really trying to get across. I agree with a lot of what Walker had to say. This is seen everyday and this is something people deal with everyday even if you are not of African American decent. Everyone can take their own path and be successful and happy but that is only if we don’t trouble ourselves with our dragons. Instead, rise above and appreciate ourselves for who we are.
Clint Smith’s poetry collection, Counting Descent, is an accumulation of compelling stories that seek to complicate the misconstrued conception of tradition and lineage that a majority of Americans have towards the historical upbringing of African Americans. In his poem, “Something You Should Know,” Smith utilizes the behavior of a hermit crab to establish a metaphor; similar to how a hermit crab molts its skin and searches for a new home, a new safe haven, Smith is fearful of letting people know his true self, thus causing him to seek shelter from potential rejection. Through the metaphor, Smith explores the disconnect that results from belonging to a society that stereotypes the lineage and perceived personalities of African Americans while living in a community that is fearful of the acceptance of blacks.
No matter where one is from or where one finds themselves today, we carry with us in some way or another a specific heritage. Certain events and circumstances can lead to someone trying to forget their heritage or doing everything in their power to preserve that heritage. Alice Walker’s “EveryDay Use” was published in 1973, not long after the civil rights movement, and reflects the struggles of dealing with a heritage that one might not want to remember (Shmoop). Alice Walker is well known as a civil rights and women’s rights activist. Like many of her other works she uses “Everyday Use” to express her feelings on a subject; in this case African American heritage. Through “Everyday Use” it can be seen that Alice Walker has negative feelings about how many African Americans were trying to remove themselves from parts of their African American culture during the time of the short story’s publishment. This idea that Walker was opposed to this “deracinating” of African Americans coming out of the civil rights
Cullen, Countee. "Incident." African-American Literature: A Brief Introduction and Anthology. Ed. Al Young. New York: Harper Collins, 1996. 398.
The old Negro was known as more of a myth than a man, because of the vindictive formula’s of who Negroes were allowed to be way back when. When it came to African Americans, there was always debate as to how they should be treated, because of the color of their skin. In addition to being condemned and silenced as if they had no voice. Commonly being enslaved whether it was physically or mentally the old Negro could not dispose of past, history has contributed to them socially. Furthermore, the old Negro never knew his worth he was known as a “creature of moral debate” treated like a non human figure in society eyes. In order to get ahead or outsmart the old Negro played the role of a trickster, because of their socially declination they played
In the novel, Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C.Wrede ,the main character Cimorene gets looked down on by others , because she doesn't fulfill the ‘’proper’’ duties of a princess. Instead Cimorene would rather skip her lessons and have the royal servants teach her things like magic,fencing,and cooking. Her parents later found out and had the servants stop teaching her these types of things.This caused Cimorene to become upset,she also found out that her parents were going to marry her off into another kingdom to a prince named Therandil .Cimorene was talking to a frog and mentioned running away,Cimorene considered this idea and ran off into the The Forest of Enchantment. Cimorene doesn’t adhere to the basic guide of what a princess should or shouldn't do. Some say that she is acting like a princess but she really isn’t.
He uses specific tone through his text his tone is meant to inform and persuade giving him creditability towards his argument. He uses pathos through his text by saying the way music makes people feel a certain way and understand the argument making it stronger, he also uses the story of his mothers death to play with the readers emotions. He uses words like ghetto, Blacks, love , soul, gangsters, etc to show persuade the audience and she if the emotions of the reader would be affected. He then brings in ethos by using creditable mentions of Fetty Wap and statistics like “At the time of this writing, “Trap Queen” is the #2 song in America. To have the #2 song in America is to hit pretty much every demographic…” To provide the audience a sense of trust with him making his argument gain power. He also includes tweets to validate his argument and create stronger support from his intended audience and giving the audience a sense of
Ralph Ellison’s short story, Battle Royal, is mainly an account of the African American struggle for equality and identity. The narrator of the story is an above average youth of the African American community [Goldstein-Shirlet, 1999]. He is given an opportunity to give a speech to some of the more prestigious white individuals. His expectations of being received in a positive and normal environment are drastically dashed when he is faced with the severity of the process he must deal with in order to accomplish his task.
Making the white man superior to blacks, the narrator presents an oppression filled atmosphere whose constituents apotheoize the white man by praising him as a “ God”. “ “Humph! Y’all let her worry, yuh. You ain’t like me, he said. Ah ain’t got her to study ‘bout.
In the autobiography Black Boy by Richard Wright, Wright’s defining aspect is his hunger for equality between whites and blacks in the Jim Crow South. Wright recounts his life from a young boy in the repugnant south to an adult in the north. In the book, Wright’s interpretation of hunger goes beyond the literal denotation. Thus, Wright possesses an insatiable hunger for knowledge, acceptance, and understanding. Wright’s encounters with racial discrimination exhibit the depths of misunderstanding fostered by an imbalance of power.
Without details, the words on a page would just simply be words, instead of gateways to a different time or place. Details help promote these obstacles, but the use of tone helps pull in personal feelings to the text, further helping develop the point of view. Point of view is developed through the story through descriptive details and tone, giving the reader insight to the lives of each author and personal experiences they work through and overcome. Issa Rae’s “The Struggle” fully emplefies the theme of misplaced expectations placed on African Americans, but includes a far more contemporary analysis than Staples. Rae grapples as a young African-American woman that also struggles to prove her “blackness” and herself to society’s standards, “I feel obligated to write about race...I slip in and out of my black consciousness...sometimes I’m so deep in my anger….I can’t see anything outside of my lens of race” (Rae, 174). The delicate balance between conformity and non-conformity in society is a battle fought daily, yet Rae maintains an upbeat, empowering solution, to find the strength to accept yourself before looking for society’s approval and to be happy in your own skin. With a conversational, authoritative, humorous, confident and self-deprecating tone, Rae explains “For the majority of my life, I cared too much about my blackness was perceived, but now?... I couldn’t care less. Call it maturation or denial or self-hatred- I give no f%^&s.” (Rae 176), and taking the point of view that you need to stand up to racism, and be who you want to be not who others want you to be by accepting yourself for who you are. Rae discusses strength and empowerment in her point of view so the tone is centered around that. Her details all contribute to the perspectives as well as describing specific examples of racism she has encountered and how she has learned from those
Some African Americans view their race as inferior to the white race. Even though the author may not hold this same opinion, it is still important that he or she understands that part of his or her audience does, especially when writing about racial identity. Zora Neale Hurston understood
“The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, – this longing to attain self-consciousness, manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message f...
A dialectic is the process of synthesizing truth by holding contradictory ideas in tension. Since Richard Wright’s short story “Long Black Song” and Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” have opposing arguments they must engage in a dialectic. Both stories examine the oppression of the African American race, but they find different sources for its difficulties and demise. In “Long Black Song”, Silas, while expressing his frustration for the superiority of the white men, articulates that the black woman is the source of African American difficulties. In “Sweat”, Sykes’s encounter with death reveals that the African American man’s arrogance is the cause of the demise of the African American race. Wright’s short story “Long Black Song” and Hurston’s short story “Sweat” engage in a dialectic, in which “Sweat” repudiates “Long Black Song”, and produce the truth that one’s hubris that is the source of the difficulties of one’s race and the demise of oneself.
Baldwin and his ancestors share this common rage because of the reflections their culture has had on the rest of society, a society consisting of white men who have thrived on using false impressions as a weapon throughout American history. Baldwin gives credit to the fact that no one can be held responsible for what history has unfolded, but he remains restless for an explanation about the perception of his ancestors as people. In Baldwin?s essay, his rage becomes more directed as the ?power of the white man? becomes relevant to the misfortune of the American Negro (Baldwin 131). This misfortune creates a fire of rage within Baldwin and the American Negro. As Baldwin?s American Negro continues to build the fire, the white man builds an invisible wall around himself to avoid confrontation about the actions of his ?forefathers? (Baldwin 131). Baldwin?s anger burns through his other emotions as he writes about the enslavement of his ancestors and gives the reader a shameful illusion of a Negro slave having to explai...
1) Skeptoid "Here Be Dragons" video (5/15/2017) I was a little confused at first of what kind of video I was watching, little did I know it was more informative than I ever thought about critical thinking. I learned about pseudoscience and the fact that people believe incredible ideas without a back up evidence. The video explains why people believe in pseudoscience nonsense. It also lists and explains "red flags." First, "appeal to authority," I think this is Kevin Trudeau. Just because he wrote a book, it doesn't make him credible. Second, "ancient wisdom," I think this one can simply be tied in with people who's got strong beliefs in their