In Dunbar’s short story “The Lynching of Jube Benson” Doctor Melville makes a grave mistake when participates in the lynching of an innocent man. When the reader takes into account the loyalty and devotion that Jube showed Annie and Dr. Melville, the gravity of this error is magnified. When the doctor tells the story years later, he sets it up as a series of unfortunate events which resulted in an unfortunate outcome. In reality, Dr. Melville’s role in Jube’s lynching was inevitable. Dr. Melville’s upbringing which conditioned him to see blackness as evil and sub-human as well as his hypocritical nature culminated in him murdering Jube Benson. From a young age, Dr. Melville was surrounded by the racist ideology which portrayed black men as …show more content…
aggressive, predatory brutes. While explaining the story of Jube’s lynching, he nonchalantly mentions that “at first I was told that the black man would catch me, and when I got over that, they taught me that the devil was black, and when I had recovered from the sickness of that belief, here were Jube and his fellows with faces of menacing blackness.” The images that surrounded his as a child still plagued his subconscious even if he was not fully cognizant of that fact. In these few lines, Dunbar highlights the fact that the rape myths that were used to justify violence against black men also made it possible for someone who only got the best of Jube Benson to suspect him of something so vile and horrific. As soon as Annie utters the ‘That black-‘, Jube goes from a loyal friend to a black rascal, all of the bad things the doctor had been taught about black people came flooding back. Within seconds Jube was no longer human, he was now a “human tiger” The visceral response which manifested itself in such a devastating manner led Dr. Melville to act without reason and go against all of the evidence and training that would have led him to conclude that Jube was not the perpetrator. Melville’s role was also inevitable, because he like all of the men who participated in the lynching, failed to recognize Jube as a human being. The search party that went looking for Jube more closely resembled a hunting party. They turned him into a human tiger and a monster instead of the “fellow who everyone trusted.” Even early on in the story when describing Jube’s relationship to Annie, the doctor likens Jube to a faithful dog under Annie’s thumb. Later on when he uses Jube to keep potential suitors away from Annie he describes him as a Cerberus, also known as the hounds of Hades. This unrelenting dehumanization reaches its climax when Jube sees Annie’s lifeless body for the first time and goes into a fit of despair. The love and devotion that he had for Annie make her death a devastating event. However, to the white men that hunted him down, his emotions are seen as an admission of guilt. The fact that Jube is black makes it impossible for them to even consider the idea that Jube has depth and feelings just like them. If they had thought of him as a human being, they would have realized that Jube loved Annie far too much to hurt her. Throughout the story, Dr.
Melville proves to be an unreliable doctor and friend. The doctor only finds Jube at fault for lying to keep suitors away from Annie even though she was complicit in the lies. She cackled from behind the curtains as Jube sent away gentleman after gentleman. Dr. Melville never saw Annie’s faults because, she like all other white women at that time were seen as pure deities. When the doctor slips in and out of consciousness, he envisions Annie as a pure white fairy and Jube who faithfully stayed by his side as a black but gentle demon. Additionally, Annie and Dr. Melville used Jube to do Annie’s tasks so that they could spend an extra hour together. While Dr. Melville failed to acknowledge his own act of deception, he and Annie were just as deceitful as Jube. Dr. Melville failed as a doctor because despite his training, he acted against reason. When he finds the body, he does not take the time examine the body or even take in the surroundings. Instead, he quickly joins a mob to hunt his supposed friend. If he had acted logically, he would have checked Annie’s fingernails to see if she had fought with her attacker. When they find out that Jube is not the killer, he again fails as a doctor because he leaves the body that could be resuscitated for a body that has been dead for hours. Throughout this short story, Dunbar pokes holes in myths and assumptions about the difference between blackness and whiteness. In “the Lynching of Jube Benson” white characters consistently display barbaric attributes and show very little regard for human life, while the black characters show their humanity through the ways in which they care for those around them. By the end, I think his story acts as a persuasive argument for why racist ideology goes against science and
logic.
‘Fire in a canebrake’ is quite a scorcher by Laura Wexler and which focuses on the last mass lynching which occurred in the American Deep South, the one in the heartland of rural Georgia, precisely Walton County, Georgia on 25th July, 1946, less than a year after the Second World War. Wexler narrates the story of the four black sharecroppers who met their end ‘at the hand of person’s unknown’ when an undisclosed number of white men simply shot the blacks to death. The author concentrates on the way the evidence was collected in those eerie post war times and how the FBI was actually involved in the case, but how nothing came of their extensive investigations.
Four black sharecroppers (Roger Malcom, Dorothy Malcom, George Dorsey and Mae Murray Dorsey) are brutally murdered by a group of white people. The murders attracted national attention, but the community was not willing to get involved. The community was not fazed by these brutal murders but, by the fact that this incident got national attention. They were even more astounded that the rest of the nation even cared. In this book Laura Wexler shows just how deep racism goes. After reading the book I discovered that Fire in a Canebrake has three major themes involving racism. The first is that racism obstructs progression. The second is history repeats itself. The last theme is that racism can obscure the truth. This lynching, in particular, marks a turning point in the history of race relations and the governments’ involvement in civil rights. In the end this case still remains unsolved. No concept of the
African-Americans aged 12 and up are the most victimized group in America. 41.7 over 1,000 of them are victims of violent crimes, compared with whites (36.3 over 1,000). This does not include murder. Back then during the era of the Jim Crow laws, it was even worse. However, during that time period when there were many oppressed blacks, there were many whites who courageously defied against the acts of racism, and proved that the color of your skin should not matter. This essay will compare and contrast two Caucasian characters by the names of Hiram Hillburn (The Mississippi Trial, 1955) and Celia Foote (The Help), who also went against the acts of prejudice.
One's identity is a very valuable part of their life, it affects the Day to day treatment others give them which can lead to how the individual feels emotionally. Atticus, defending Tom Robinson, who is an african american man from the plaintiff of the case, Mayella Ewell, who is a caucasian woman, accusing that Tom raped her is supposivly a lob sided case. During the great depression, any court session that contained a person of color against a caucasian would always contain the “white” individual winning the case. The cause of the bias outcome comes from the lawyer of the african american does not try to defend or the jury goes against the person of color simply because their black, this shows the effect of racism to anyone’s identity in the courtroom for a case simply because of race. Atticus, deciding to take Tom Robinson’s case seriously sacrifices his identity as the noble man he is, to being called many names for this action, such as “nigger lover”. He is questioned by
Considering the circumstance of racial inequality during the time of this novel many blacks were the target of crime and hatred. Aside from an incident in his youth, The Ex-Colored Man avoids coming in contact with “brutality and savagery” inflicted on the black race (Johnson 101). Perhaps this is a result of his superficial white appearance as a mulatto. During one of his travels, the narrator observes a Southern lynching in which he describes the sight of “slowly burning t...
Staples’ claim is made clear through the series of chronological anecdotes that make up his essay. The snippets of his life range from a short story about crossing a street at night in Chicago to being mistaken for a burglar while rushing into his office to turn in a deadline story - all because of the color of his skin. The anecdotes in his essay are meant to show the reader what to believe instead of merely telling them. Staples has a clear reason for writing and has strong beliefs about racism, however the stylistic devices he uses are meant to guide the reader into developing their own opinion on racism, which Staples in turn knows will persuade. Instead of stating his biased opinion from the start, he invites the reader in through his stories, even though the images themselves are hard to stomach. Staples wisely avoids a...
The book to ‘To kill a mocking-bird’ was written in the 1930’s and explores prejudice against black people. The book is portrayed through the eyes of two innocent children and shows the “irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South [of America] in the thirties. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one mans struggle for justice.”
In “The Black Imagine in the White Mind”, Frederickson draws thought-provoking attention to one certain writer and defender of slavery, Van Evrie, and the way his works may have contributed to Reconstruction’s failure. For example, in 1868, Van Evrie, changed the title of one of his well-known books from Negroes and Negro “Slavery” to White Supremacy and Negro Subordination encouraging racism to live on. Racism went by a new name now, “white supremacy.” Also, in 1868, Edward A. Polland, a Richmond journalist and writer, aligned with Van Evrie’s opinions, published a book titled The Lost Cause Regained. According to Polland, Negros were “inferior” to white men which justified slavery. His book’s main audience was Southern white men who were in agreement about slavery. His book fueled the white man’s desire to remain superior to African-Americans. A Nashville publisher, Buckner Payne, writing under the pseudonym “Ariel,” published a pamphlet titled The Negro: What Is His Ethnological Status? Payne proposes that Negros were created before Adam and Eve in the biblical sense, making them a “separate and distinct species of the genus homo.” He belittles Negros by comparing them to a He argued that because some of the sons of Adam intermingled with this lower species, God punished mankind by sending the flood. He dehumanizes African-Americans when he states they are beasts and man will be punished and “exterminated” if he gives his daughter’s hand to a negro in marriage. Payne maintained this is exactly what would happen if African-Americans were allowed to be equal to whites. The two races would eventually begin to crossbreed which would result in the tainting and corruption of the entire white race ultimately leading to its
Both the “character” of Frederick Douglass in Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and the character of Babo in Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno are, among many things, a tale of heroism. Although there are clear distinctions between Douglass’s autobiography and abolitionist work and Cereno’s fictional work -specifically in terms of how they resisted slavery and to what extent they were successful- both protagonists use their intelligence and strength to overcome their white masters and a society that has subordinated them.
At a meeting of the American Colored League, where turn-of-the-century Boston’s black citizenry, along with delegates from all over the country, have gathered to confront a wave of Southern lynchings, Luke Sawyer rises to deliver an impromptu speech detailing the brutalities of southern racism. Scheduled speakers at the meeting are the transparent representatives of these leaders: Du Bois in the figure of the radical philosopher Will Smith and Washington in the person of Dr. Arthur Lewis, the “head of a large educational institution in the South devoted to the welfare of the Negros” and a man who advocates peaceful accommodation with southern whites (242). Luke Sawyer takes the podium and begins to preach by criticizing the previous speakers (the corrupt Mr. Clapp and his lackey, John Langley) for their “conservatism, lack of brotherly affiliation, lack of energy for the right and the power of the almighty dollar which deadens men’s hearts to the sufferings for his brothers” (256). Rather than engaging in the rational debate form (as represented by Clapp and Langley), Sawyer passionately narrates a personal story of his own family’s suffering, a history in which his father is punished by a lynching mob for operating a successful black business in
The subject of racial issues and inequality has been something that has affected human history and has impacted the world around us. For hundreds of years, racial equality has been an immense problem. Today, racial equality and injustice is being fought in many different aspects. One crucial event in the fight for equality came during the O.J. Simpson murder case. The beating of African-American Rodney King due to the actions of a police officer added to racial turmoil leading up to the murder of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. The murder case went on to portray many examples of racial tension going on around the world, some of those examples were used against the prosecution throughout the trial. This worldwide story became the focal point
...any whites could have believed so strongly that blacks were inferior to them, so mediocre that they would treat them like animals and murder them in cold blood. But this is a problem that still occurs today, though in a lesser form, and it is important to study our past in effort to keep from repeating the mistakes of our ancestors. By reading things such as Anne Moody’s autobiography, we can get an inside view into what really took place in the South, and we can be inspired by people like Moody who stood up to it. The negativities of racism against blacks taught us important lessons about ethics and how humans should treat each other because we can see the effects it had on people less than 50 years ago. And if we learn from the mistakes of our ancestors and move away from their supremacist ideals, then as the freedom song in Coming of Age goes, “we shall overcome.”
...eding hearts” and “mouth . . . . myriad subtleties” (4-5).Today, everyone is entitled to having equal opportunities in the US. Back in Dunbar’s time, on the other hand, slavery prohibited blacks from being an ordinary person in society. Although they prayed heavily and persevered, they wore the mask for the time-being, in the hopes of living in a world where the color of one’s skin would not determine his or her character.
...ly towards African Americans because they had false perceptions of black individuals and automatically categorized them as horrible beings. The result of this kind of thinking condemned these poor people targeted to an angry mob with death by lynching. This reveals that whites had false notions on how black individuals are and they reacted purely out of ignorance and hate for successful African Americans.
Many years ago, Abel Meeropol famously wrote “Southern trees bear a strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees...” The purpose of this poem was to describe the heinous lynching of African Americans in the south. They would be strung up to a tree and hung in front of crowds of hateful people spewing ignorance with no regard for human life outside of their own race. Sometimes their neighbors and loved ones would be present as well, while they struggled to free themselves and gasp for air before they eventually die. Although lynching is better known as the act of hanging a body up to a tree, there are also other acts that fit into the lynching