When analyzing on historical figures it is crucial to remain as objective and critical as possible. This is due to the aptness within historical scholarship to sustain existing representations rather than on challenging them. This is considered true in respect to the historical figures that are shunned because society seeks to uphold a certain status quo. However, it is essential to be reminded that representations of historical figures are often socially constructed and biased, and furthermore not reflective of reality. Enoch Powell, a politician deemed as the instigator of British prejudice, is regarded as one of the most hated politicians in Britain. This is largely due to the Rivers of Blood Speech, which shunned foreign immigrants and …show more content…
Through this effort, he tried to prove that he was not the only one who protested against the incursion of immigrants. There were countless people who concurred with Powell, however, frightened to voice their opinion in a state where the general policy suppressed the discrimination against immigrants. He mentioned the experience of an elderly widowed lady from Wolver Hampton who was supposed to be the last white person living in the street. She has consistently denied applications from immigrants who wanted to purchase her house. Consequently, she was taunted as ‘a racist’, received excreta in her mailbox. She goes on and mentions how “wide grinning piccaninnies” were constantly following her. To the casual observer, the word “pickaninny” meant a derogatory term that was used to refer children of African slaves. Powell had also juxtaposed the ‘negro’ community and the Kenyan Asians and criticized how the “Negros” had to fight for their rights in America, while immigrants coming into Britain were already becoming full citizens. However, Powell’s proponents argued that the word could be easily used to describe a child regardless of their racial origin. The powerful story of a British woman who was intimidated by his ‘colored’ neighbors provides pathos to the public. Powell understood how prior to his speech, the public viewed foreign immigrants as victims of racial prejudice. However, Powell …show more content…
Through his claim, he had made it clear that there is a thin line between seeking opportunities in Britain and stealing them away from the British inhabitants. Nevertheless, the public understood his claims in the most controversial terms, and believed that Powell’s claims began to look like a Nazi Uprising. His efforts to marginalize immigrants were similar to how the Nazis exercised absolute power over the Jew’s personal freedom. In contrast, members of the conservative party believe that Powell’s solution was fairly
The use and repetition of the word “nigger” suggest both physical and psychological boundaries for Griffin, which, of course, also extend to the black population of the mid-twentieth century. In identifying himself with the term, Griffin becomes overwhelmed by its dehumanizing and de-individualizing effect: “I knew I was in hell. Hell could be no more lonely or hopeless, no more agonizingly estranged from the world of order and harmony” (66). Griffin’s internalization of discrimination and his repression as “Other” allows Griffin to convey the “wrong-doing” by the white middle class, forcing a truthful realization of the detrimental effect of racism on the
“She was black as she could be, twisted like driftwood from being out in the weather, her face a map of all the storms and journeys she’d been through. Her right arm was raised, as if she was pointing the way, except her fingers were closed in a fist. It gave her a serious look, like she could straighten you out if necessary” (Kidd 70).
The poem with the same title as the collection ’’I am not a racist but…’’ she uses satire to show how easy racism is not recognised or played down. She was hurt at a very young age by racist attitude and words as she wrote about her school years in the poem ‘’Making...
In the early 1830's, Mexican-Indians, seeking a better life in the "land of opportunity," crossed the border into America only to find themselves and all who followed forced to assimilate to a new culture. The white Americans pushed their food, their beliefs, their clothing style, and the English language upon these immigrants. Some of the seemingly brainwashed Mexican-Indians saw the American actions as signs of kindness and acceptance. Yet, fearful others considered being caught by the strict American border patrol a "fate worse than death" (490). Immigration officers warned "foreign-looking" people to carry citizenship identification at all times, and they "sneaked up on innocent dark-skinned people, and deported them," possibly also "mak[ing them] suffer unspeakable mortifications" (484, 486). Those legally able to reach America became subjected to American ideals and customs. The whites relocated those unwilling to live the "accepted American lifestyle" to specified areas. Aware of this law, Sancho cynically w...
In the story, this group of brownies came from the south suburbs of Atlanta where whites are “…real and existing, but rarely seen...” (p.518). Hence, this group’s impression of whites consisted of what they have seen on TV or shopping malls. As a result, the girls have a narrow view that all whites were wealthy snobs with superiority like “Superman” and people that “shampoo-commercial hair” (p.518). In their eyes “This alone was the reason for envy and hatred” (p 518). So when Arnetta felt “…foreign… (p.529), as a white woman stared at her in a shopping mall you sense where the revenge came from.
Before Peekay was old enough to go to school, he started having a close relationship with his nanny. His nanny, that he knew his whole life, was black and he often described her as his “lovely black nanny” with a “...white smile” (3). As he learned later on in life, Black people were seen as an inferior group of people, yet he disagreed because he knew a black women that raised him and knew the beauty within her is most likely the same in others, proving his push for equality. Not only did he find beauty in different races as a toddler, but a few years later he did as well. When Hoppie took Peekay to trade in his tackies (shoes) for new ones, Peekay was amazed at the “beautiful dark lady” at the counter, whereas Hoppie believed that the lady, as well as her family, “‘will cheat you anytime he [they] can’” (77&80). Hoppie allowed his racism to hold him back from viewing these people as equivalent to a white man, but Peekay was in awe at their beauty and cultural differences from what he’d seen before. This further presents Peekay’s ability to see beauty in races other than his own, allowing him to treat everyone the same. From both his ability to see the good in his Nanny and the family from Patel & Sons, it inspired him to create a school for black Africans towards the end of the book, showing how he took his admiration
Janie’s first discovery about herself comes when she is a child. She is around the age of six when she realizes that she is colored. Janie’s confusion about her race is based on the reasoning that all her peers and the kids she grows up with are white. Janie and her Nanny live in the backyard of the white people that her Nanny works for. When Janie does not recognize herself on the picture that is taken by a photographer, the others find it funny and laughs, leaving Janie feeling humiliated. This racial discovery is not “social prejudice or personal meanness but affection” (Cooke 140). Janie is often teased at school because she lives with the white people and dresses better than the other colored kids. Even though the kids that tease her were all colored, this begins Janie’s experience to racial discrimination.
The following day the family heads off to Florida. Another major point of irony happens as the story revolves around the grandmothers traditional southern values of respect for other people; especially elders, respect for your home and country. At the same moment as the grandmother is lecturing her grand kids about respecting their home state she sees a young Negro boy and says: “Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!” (Pg 208). Her hypocrisy becomes evident as she wants the family to do what she says not what she does.
He imagined his mother lying desperately ill and his being able to secure only a Negro doctor for her. He toyed with that idea for a few minutes and then dropped it for a momentary vision of himself participating as a sympathiser in a sit-in demonstration. This was possible but he did not linger with it. Instead, he approached the ultimate horror. He brought home a beautiful suspiciously Negroid woman. Prepare yourself, he said. There is nothing you can do about it. This is the woman I have chosen. (15)
Where the main themes are similar to those which were implied earlier. Americans did not like that there were non-English speaking minorities around. They feared multiculturalism in which immigrant’s minority identity could benefit them in such forms as welfare. They also held a belief that foreigners were a drain on America’s resources. “Weapons for those who wanted foreigners to assimilate: deportation, time limit on naturalization and adoption of the English language, suppression of the foreign-language press, internments, the denial of industrial employment to aliens” (Hingham, 2002). As time progresses we see that these tactics are used on all non-white immigrant minorities, including the one who were later considered
Lyndon B. Johnson's, a man who was raised from humble beginnings was able to rise up in politics from a Representative, to a Senator, to Vice President, and finally becoming our nation’s 36th President. Starting off his presidency with tragedy due to John F. Kennedy’s assassination, he took the position of extending the legacy of JFK’s visions and making them his own during his time in office. Although Lyndon B. Johnson is not viewed as one of our greatest presidents due to his foreign policies and involvement in the Vietnam War, his achievements in domestic policies in my opinion has had the greatest developmental impact on politics in the US since 1945.
Mr. Griffin was a middle age white man who lived with his wife and children. He was not oriented to his family. He decided to pass his own society to the black society. Although this decision might help most of the African Americans, he had to sacrifice his gathering time with his family. “She offered, as her part of the project, her willingness to lead, with our three children, the unsatisfactory family life of a household deprived of husband and father” (Griffin 9). Leaving Mrs. Griffin and his children would deprive them of the care they needed. Even though he was not oriented to his family, he was full of courage. He was willing to discuss topics that people hesitated to talk about, trying new ideas that people were afraid to do. After turning back to his own skin color, he attended most media conferences and also wrote books about what he had gone through. During those interviews, Griffin was very considerate. He requested Wallace, a reporter, to report carefully so that he would not hurt his African American friends. “Please… Don’t mention those names on the air.
At first glance we see the Grandmother who is trying to pressure her son into taking her where she would like to go on this family trip. She does so by bringing up a convict on the loose by the name the Misfit stating she would not take her children to Florida with a convict loose in that area (O’Connor). The Grandmother tries to get them to go to Tennessee where she wants to go, this shows her selfishness. Then later in the story the Grandmother sees a little Negro boy and she remarks “Oh look at that cute little pickaninny!” (O’Connor) this shows a side of her racism.
Simon Wiesenthal life and legends were extraordinary, he has expired people in many ways and was an iconic figure in modern Jewish history. Szyman Wiesenthal (was his real named and later named Simon) was born on December 31 in Buczacz, Galicia (which is now a part of Ukraine) in 1908. When Wiesenthal's father was killed in World War I, Mrs. Wiesenthal took her family to Vienna for a brief period, returning to Buczacz when she remarried. The young Wiesenthal graduated from the Humanistic Gymnasium (a high school) in 1928 and applied for admission to the Polytechnic Institute in Lvov. Turned away because of quota restrictions on Jewish students, he went instead to the Technical University
Powell continues in his speech to say that all that come to Britain are given full citizenship and that there is no ‘first-class’ or ‘second-class’, but also that this doesn’t mean a “citizen should be denied his right to discriminate.” He even has the audacity to imply that the British natives are being prejudiced against in favor of the immigrants. This, of course, is not true.