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Minstrelsy In America
Minstrel shows history
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The general argument made by Andrew Womack in his work, “Ridicule and wonder: the beginnings of minstrelsy and New York”, is that minstrelsy played a major role in creating an American identity. More specifically, Womack argues that minstrelsy is actually embedded in the American culture. He writes, “From TV shows to Hollywood movies, cartoons to comedies sketches, popular music to the jargon and dress of what is known as American culture, minstrelsy fomented a process that still affects our society today.” In this passage, Womack is suggesting that minstrelsy has left its legacy in the American culture. In conclusion, Womack’s belief is that the impact of the minstrel show has been so deep in the core of American life that its influence is
The film, “In the White Man’s Image” and Sally Jenkins’ narrative, “The Real All Americans” both discussed the controversial issues and historical significance of nineteenth century social policies dealing with cultural integration of Native Americans, yet while “In the White Man’s Image” covered the broad consequences of such policies, it was Jenkins’ narrow focus on the daily lives of students involved that was able to fully convey the complexities of this devastating social policy. Jenkins’ recreated the experiences of students at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, bringing the reader along with her as students were stripped of culture, language, and family to be remade into a crude imitation of white society. “...Now, after having had my hair cut, a new thought came into my head. I felt I was no more Indian…” (Jenkins, pg 75). Richard Henry Pratt, the creator of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School that became the inspiration and model for many similar institutions across the nation, intended to save a people from complete destruction, yet the unforeseen consequences of his ...
How many years have passed since public discrimination against blacks ended? How many times have you personally heard someone make fun of someone because they are black within the past five years? How many times have you heard the “N” word being used as not an insult, but as a nickname for a friend? The truth is: In 2016, the “petrifying” “N” word has become less of an insult, and more of a simple nickname that many teens and young adults use for each other. The simple connotation of the word has been modified throughout the years from being something that was used as hurtful slander of the black population, to a petty pet name. For this simple reason alone, all of the arguments about Huckleberry Finn being “Racist Trash” and not about anti-racism are erroneous. I believe that Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn eloquently conveys an anti-racism message to it’s readers by simple means of satire, hyperbole,
C. Vann Woodward’s The Strange Career of Jim Crow looks into the emergence of the Jim Crow laws beginning with the Reconstruction era and following through the Civil Rights Movement. Woodward contends that Jim Crow laws were not a part of the Reconstruction or the following years, and that most Jim Crow laws were in place in the North at that particular time. In the South, immediately after the end of slavery, most white southerners, especially the upper classes, were used to the presence and proximity of African Americans. House slaves were often treated well, almost like part of the family, or a favored pet, and many upper-class southern children were raised with the help of a ‘mammy’ or black nursery- maid. The races often mixed in the demi- monde, and the cohabitation of white men and black women were far from uncommon, and some areas even had spe...
The movie 'Ethnic Notions' describes different ways in which African-Americans were presented during the 19th and 20th centuries. It traces and presents the evolution of the rooted stereotypes which have created prejudice towards African-Americans. This documentary movie is narrated to take the spectator back to the antebellum roots of African-American stereotypical names such as boy, girl, auntie, uncle, Sprinkling Sambo, Mammy Yams, the Salt and Pepper Shakers, etc. It does so by presenting us with multiple dehumanized characters and cartons portraying African-Americans as carefree Sambos, faithful Mammies, savage Brutes, and wide-eyed Pickaninnies. These representations of African-Americans roll across the screen in popular songs, children's rhymes, household artifacts and advertisements. These various ways to depict the African ?American society through countless decades rooted stereotypes in the American society. I think that many of these still prevail in the contemporary society, decades after the civil rights movement occurred.
As human beings, we have a certain expectation of how we should be addressed and respected. A lack of respect can draw from different sources age, race, religion, and other factors. In history, this condescension can be seen as racism, prejudice, discrimination, exploitation, or segregation. A significant point in time was set in America during the first half of the twentieth century when segregation of whites and blacks was prominent. During this time period, blues music made an appearance and its popularity grew immensely. The songs I Wonder When I’ll Get to be Called a Man and Black, Brown and White, composed by William “Big Bill” Broonzy, illustrate the impertinence felt by African Americans from the rest of America. Ultimately the genre,
George Schuyler’s article “The Negro Art Hokum” argues that the notion of African-American culture as separate from national American culture is nonsense. To Schuyler, all seemingly distinct elements of African-American culture and artistic endeavors from such are influenced by the dominant white American culture, and therefore, only American. The merit of Schuyler’s argument stems from the fact that it is practically impossible for one culture to exist within the confines of another without absorbing certain characteristics. The problem with Schuyler’s argument that Langston Hughes notes in his response article, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” is that it assumes complete assimilation of African-Americans by a singular national culture. Fundamental to Hughes’ rebuttal is the allowance of a unique African-American culture extant of the standards of a singular American cultural identity. For Hughes, this unique culture lies within the working-class, out of sight of the American national culture. This culture, while neither completely African nor American, maintains the vibrant and unique roots of the African-American experience. Schuyler advocates cultural assimilation, while Hughes promotes cultural pluralism, in which minority cultures maintain their distinctive qualities in the face of a dominant national identity.
Wideman points out how the racism in America is an unbroken chain as he states, “The circle of racism, its preserve logic remain unbroken. Boys like Emmett Till are born violating the rules, aren’t they? Therefore they forfeit any rights law-abiding citizens are bound to respect. The bad places—ghettos, prisons, morgue slabs—where most of them wind up confirm the badness pf the boys” (Wideman 32). Wideman’s form and content in this quote is sarcastically profound to reveal the unfairness of the typical stereotypes that African Americans have to deal with, in their daily lives. Most certainly, black color skin when seen out in the public, and its connection among the ghetto, black skin is correlated with poverty status. Such arrogances effect the unfortunate African Americans living in
The Impact of African-American Sitcoms on America's Culture Since its start, the television industry has been criticized for perpetuating myths and stereotypes about African-Americans through characterizations, story lines, and plots. The situation comedy has been the area that has seemed to draw the most criticism, analysis, and disapproval for stereotyping. From Sanford and Son and The Jefferson’s in the 1970s to The Cosby Show (1984) and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the 1990s, sitcoms featuring black casts and characters have always been controversial. However, their significance upon our American culture cannot be disregarded.
In Stuart Hall’s “What is This “Black” in Black Popular Culture?” the historical implication of popular culture in the U.S is examined and the influence that blackness has in it is deconstructed. According to the text, the departure of European concepts of culture after WWII sparked a hegemonic shift as the United States emerged as a world power. Due to this, the U.S. became the epicenter of global culture production. However, since America has always had a large ethnic population due to slavery, the true face of American popular culture was black American vernacular traditions. Even today, slang that emerge from black ghettos and communities become highly popular with people of other races. In fact, much of black culture is not just our culture,
By growing up in a community where she was largely shielded from racism, Hurston was able to establish a sense of self-pride that many black people lacked. While Hurston undoubtedly experiences many struggles due to her race, she lacks sympathy for her fellow African-Americans that experienced far worse. This acceptance of racist behavior is seemingly mirrored in Brent Staples’s essay “Just Walk on By,” but it is clear that Staples and Hurston do not agree on certain points.
Percival Everett’s “The Appropriation of Cultures” (2004), demonstrates the power of a symbol and the meanings that it can carry. In the story, Daniel Barkley is a highly accomplished African American man who graduated from Brown and frequently plays guitar near the campus of The University of South Carolina. From the beginning of the story, Barkley exposes a distinct independent personality that isn’t afraid to break stereotypes or labels. The first scene describes an instance in a bar where white fraternity boys were challenging Barkley to play ‘Dixie’ for them. Instead of refusing, like most would have done, he instead begins to play and take ownership of the song. Later in the story, Barkley decides to purchase a truck with a giant confederate flag decal in the back. Despite the strange stares and confusion
The south was the picture of excess in pre-war times, and although after the war this changed, old ideas and prejudices died slowly. When the construction company came to the town with "niggers and mules and machinery," those old views were evident. (83) The treatment of the blacks in the south remained a vestige of that decadence for years to come, as evidenced by the need for the civil rights movement. This corruption illustrates the townspeople's willingness to look the ...
Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” is a lyric poem in which the point of attraction, the mask, represents the oppression and sadness held by African Americans in the late 19th century, around the time of slavery. As the poem progresses, Dunbar reveals the façade of the mask, portrayed in the third stanza where the speaker states, “But let the dream otherwise” (13). The unreal character of the mask has played a significant role over the life of African Americans, whom pretend to put on a smile when they feel sad internally. This ocassion, according to Dunbar, is the “debt we pay to human guile," meaning that their sadness is related to them deceiving others. Unlike his other poems, with its prevalent use of black dialect, Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” acts as “an apologia (or justification) for the minstrel quality of some of his dialect poems” (Desmet, Hart and Miller 466). Through the utilization of iambic tetrameter, end rhyme, sound devices and figurative language, the speaker expresses the hidden pain and suffering African Americans possessed, as they were “tortured souls” behind their masks (10).
History casts a dark shadow on the entire issue of black assimilation in the United States. Since the beginning of slavery in the Americas, people of African descent were oppressed and exploited purely on the blackness of their skin. The Post Revolutionary era “era of freedom” hindered every aspect of African American life; blacks measured as less than human beings, facing discrimination up close and personal. Despite these odds, the latter half of the 18th century illustrates how African Americans molded their identity in America to establish their own social, political, and economic institutions thus, developing an African American identity.
Alice in Wonderland belongs to the nonsense genre, and even if most of what happens to Alice is quite illogical, the main character is not. “The Alice books are, above all, about growing up” (Kincaid, page 93); indeed, Alice starts her journey as a scared little girl, however, at the end of what we discover to be just a dream, she has entered the adolescence phase with a new way to approach the mentally exhausting and queer Wonderland. It is important to consider the whole story when analyzing the growth of the character, because the meaning of an event or a sentence is more likely to mean what it truly looks like rather than an explanation regarding subconscious and Freudian interpretations. Morton states “that the books should possess any unity of purpose seems on the surface unlikely” (Morton, page 509), but it’s better to consider the disconnected narrative and the main character separately, since the girl doesn’t belong to Wonderland, which is, as Morton says, with no intrinsic unity. Whereas, there are a few key turning points where it is possible to see how Alice is changing, something that is visible throughout her journey. Carroll wants to tell the story of a girl who has to become braver in order to contend with challenges like the pool made by her own tears, or assertive characters, like the Queen.