Paternalism vs. Agency
When examining historical political cartoons, an individual must be cognizant not only of the lens with which they see the world, but the lenses that others use to view such items. Each viewer brings a set of life experiences and biases that shape their perceptions, in ways both subtle and profound. Those who favored emancipation and Reconstruction argued for better treatment of newly freed men and women, but at times may have done so from a sense of paternalism, a prescient assumption of Rudyard Kipling’s 1899 poem “The White Man’s Burden: The United States and the Philippine Islands.” Visual representations often portrayed blacks as passive victims of racist southerners and neglected to show them as individuals who
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expressed determination to resist white supremacy, to work hard to support themselves and their families, and to maintain a sense of pride and dignity. This apparent denial of black agency is more readily apparent from a modern perspective and ultimately may not be in conflict with the reality of the situations depicted: blacks often were victims of violence and injustice without sufficient means to defend themselves. Source: Josiah Wedgwood, “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” 1787 One of the most enduring images from the era of American slavery is Josiah Wedgwood’s 1787 abolitionist seal “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” which features a kneeling black supplicant in chains. The image, while well-intentioned as a condemnation of the institution of slavery, is fundamentally paternalistic, featuring a powerless enslaved man begging for better treatment. The goal of the image placed on medallions, jewelry, and pipes was to serve as propaganda that would help bring an end to slavery. No thought appears to have been given to the lasting effect that portraying black people as supplicants might have. Source: Matthew Somerville Morgan, “Emancipation”, Fun (magazine), May 15, 1865. In a similar manner, the engraving “Emancipation” features a black caricature groveling before Columbia, who says “Take thy freedom, and be thankful; for it has cost me much.” The cost is shown by the monument in the background listing both Abraham Lincoln and Stonewall Jackson, larger-than-life figures of both sides of the Civil War, and the Biblical reference to “first born” sons being sacrificed by the Egyptians as punishment for continuing to hold Jews in bondage. The quotation from Columbia conveys the notion that black people should be grateful merely to be treated as human beings, so they shouldn’t even think about asking for voting rights, education, or 40 acres. The artist seems to be suggesting that the sacrifice of whites in the north and south was somehow greater than the injustices faced by enslaved people over the past century and a half. That the source of this article was a British humor magazine initially raises some questions -- is it a reflection of the early imperialist psyche or could it meant to be an ironic indictment of the white northern mindset? The lack of cultural context makes this somewhat ambiguous, but once again raises the question of a potential side effect of satirical imagery. However, in a compendium of Morgan’s work, the illustrator includes a few paragraphs describing the work, stating in part, “The dream of Garrison the Liberator has come true at length… The manumitted negro falls upon his knees in gratitude to the gentle Spirit who had stricken off his chains.” There appears to be no irony whatsoever, rendering this piece particularly tone deaf. Source: Charles Stanley Reinhart, “Shall We Call Home Our Troops?”, Harper’s Weekly, January 9, 1875. Upon first inspection, the “Shall We Call Home Our Troops?” wood engraving seems like a straightforward image.
It depicts a U.S. Marshal protecting a cowering freed man from a rich southerner with a whip. The title is a reference to the possible end of military occupation of the Reconstruction-era South as northerners began to grow tired of the expense of Reconstruction and the attention being paid to the problems of the south. In the engraving, the southerner appears as a diabolical figure, the marshal is heroic, and the black man is a defenseless victim. The caption, however, complicates matters. It is a quotation from an editorial in the Birmingham (Alabama) News that reads, “We intend to beat the negro in the battle of life & defeat means one thing—EXTERMINATION.” The statement is not a reflection of what the artist believes, rather an indictment of the sentiment expressed by a southern newspaper. The artist is credited as an essentially anonymous “C.S.R.”, who can be assumed a white northerner attempting to influence white northern readers of Harper’s Weekly to oppose an end to the military occupation of the South. If U.S. forces were to withdraw, the clear implication is that a resumption of white supremacy akin to slavery would occur, thereby assuaging the concern of the Birmingham News author. A sympathetic northerner might see this piece and feel a return to the outrages and injustices of the past were too high a price to pay for the removal of the …show more content…
troops. While the metaphorical depiction seems spot on, once again the black figure is powerless. Not a supplicant this time, just recoiling from potential violence and doing nothing to assert his strength or independence. Source: Thomas Nast, “Patience On a Monument,” Harper’s Weekly, October 10, 1868 In an extraordinarily powerful cartoon, Thomas Nast depicts a Union Army veteran and former enslaved man (indicated by the broken chains and a sign mentioning emancipation by Lincoln) who sits atop a monument listing the violence and abuses suffered by African Americans under slavery and during Reconstruction, including racist remarks made by Democratic politicians. As if those indignities weren’t enough, violent scenes of white violence appear on either side of the monument. But worst of all, three slain figures lie in a pool of blood at the base of the monument -- a child, a woman, and an infant, all African Americans – his family. Nast’s work here is a blistering depiction of the plight of African Americans embodied by one man who, though devastated by his grief, is yet a heroic figure, sitting atop the monument. A particularly literate reader might recognize the title as a to Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night where the character Viola tells Orsino about a woman with a unrequited love that cannot be consummated who “sat like Patience on a Monument, smiling at Grief.” Although the play is a comedy, Viola, in disguise as a man, is trapped in a tragic situation. There’s no doubt the character in the cartoon is a tragic figure and a victim, but he is also a heroic figure. Source: Thomas Nast, “The great labor question from a southern point of view,” Harper’s Weekly, July 29, 1865. Here cartoonist Thomas Nast provides a different approach in which he makes his political point while simultaneously providing his black subject a significant measure of dignity and strength.
Both scenarios are somewhat fanciful depictions that serve as stinging indictments of white southerners. In the first, he shows a dignified black farm worker carrying a hoe and pick axe. His former master idly reads a newspaper while he leans back in his chair and says, “My boy, we’ve toiled and taken care of you long enough—now you’ve got to work!” A careless glimpse at the cartoon might lead the viewer to conclude that Nast is expressing the viewpoint of the white southerner, but the headline makes it clear that the artist is ridiculing the outrageous claim. The notion that a white plantation owner had toiled to take care of enslaved people who had worked under the worst possible conditions year after year is patently ludicrous. But unlike the distracted, obnoxious former master, the black worker stands upright and in the foreground, an image of strength and
dignity. SOURCE: Alfred Waud, “The Freedmen’s Bureau”, Harper’s Weekly, July 25, 1868 Here an officer of the Freedmen’s Bureau stands as the peacemaker between crowds of armed white southerners and freed men. While there is an element of paternalism in the sense that the outside force of the federal government stands between the two parties, ostensibly in defense of the black men, the two groups appear to be evenly matched. The men on the right side of the cartoon are strong and unafraid, ready, perhaps even eager, to engage. Waud’s depiction tells a similar story as the “Shall We Call Home Our Troops” cartoon, but in no way serves to further the image of blacks as supplicants, defenseless victims, or cowards. A modern artist would be far more cognizant of the challenge of depicting injustice without adding a second layer of victimization through the enduring power of the image than the artists of the 19th century. When even in 2017, American history textbooks feature only a handful of images of black people from this era, it is important for modern day students of history to consider both the power of imagery and the varying lenses audiences may be using to examine history.
This week I read the short article on Alan Locke’s, “Enter the New Negro”. This article is discussing the Negro problem in depth. “By shedding the chrysalis of the Negro problem, we are achieving something like spiritual emancipation”. Locke believes that if we get rid of whatever is holding us back we would gain something renewing and beautiful.
The theme of Night is resilience. To be resilient is to be strong and able to bounce back when things happen. Elie shows resilience many times throughout the course of Night, and some of these times included when Elie and his block are being forced to run to the new camp, when somebody attempts to kill him and when he loses his father to sickness. When Elie is with the group of people running to the new camp, he knows that he needs to persevere and be resilient, even when the person that he is talking to gives up (Wiesel 86). Elie tries to tell somebody that they need to keep going, and that it will not be much longer, but when they give up, Elie does not seem to pity the boy, and he stays strong. Somebody also attempted to strangle Elie while
Since 1945, in what is defined by literary scholars as the Contemporary Period, it appears that the "refracted public image"(xx) whites hold of blacks continues to necessitate ...
Racism in 1912 was a very big issue and still is in our society today. W.E.B DuBois’ essay “A Mild Suggestion” portrays the idea and reality of the social inequality that took place in 1912. DuBois uses satire to offer a solution to the apparent African-American problem in the United States. Dubois writes “the colored man says ‘the next morning there would be ten million funerals, and therefore no Negro problem”’ (DuBois 93) He then goes on to state that on a chosen night, the people implement a planned mass killing of all the African-American folk, therefore solving all of their problems. The essay is able to show how effective racist language and ideas can be, as well as providing a good example of a writing style that keeps the reader engaged throughout the piece.
The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B Dubois is a influential work in African American literature and is an American classic. In this book Dubois proposes that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." His concepts of life behind the veil of race and the resulting "double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others," have become touchstones for thinking about race in America. In addition to these lasting concepts, Souls offers an evaluation of the progress of the races and the possibilities for future progress as the nation entered the twentieth century.
Marriage is a concept that society takes extremely inaccurately. It is not something one can fall back from. Once someone enter it there is no way back. In Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” she tells the story of Delia, a washerwoman whom Sykes, her husband, mistreats while he ventures around with other women and later attempts to kill Delia to open a way for a second marriage with one of his mistresses. By looking at “Sweat” through the feminist and historical lens Hurston illustrates the idea of a sexist society full of men exploiting and breaking down women until men dispose of them.
Sweat by Zora Neale Hurston At the time when African Americans writers were struggling, Zora Neale Hurston was realized by her fresh and utterly distinctive language of text. Her style was not so much invented, but it is cleverly brewed together with the poetry of black folk speech. "Sweat", one of the most enduring of Hurston's work, explored many levels of martial conflicts and female exploitation. This story is around Delia, a symbol of Southern black woman in the early 20th century. Delia, an abused wife, has many conflicts deep inside which make her change: from being abused to defend, from shouting helplessly to anger then to a scary calm, and from accepting to revenge.
Zora Neale Hurston’s writing embodies the modernism themes of alienation and the reaffirmation of racial and social identity. She has a subjective style of writing in which comes from the inside of the character’s mind and heart, rather than from an external point of view. Hurston addresses the themes of race relations, discrimination, and racial and social identity. At a time when it is not considered beneficial to be “colored,” Hurston steps out of the norm and embraces her racial identity.
Lynch is a writer and teacher in Northern New Mexico. In the following essay, she examines ways that the text of The Souls of Black Folk embodies Du Bois' experience of duality as well as his "people's."
Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss, was a popular American writer and cartoonist ironically known for his work with children’s books rather than wartime propaganda. His work was published throughout the wartime era by PM Magazine. As one of the few primary sources, this visual provides a foundation for criticism throughout my paper. The content provides an interesting vantage point, such that focusing more on the details enables the viewer to observe the sly innuendos of racism. Furthermore, the cartoon serves as a foundation in which it can be compared by its content and message to other works, such as the cartoon by Austin.
In The Marrow of Tradition, author Charles W. Chesnutt illustrates examples that signify the thoughts that whites had of and used against blacks, which are still very much prevalent in public opinion and contemporary media. Chesnutt writes, “Confine the negro to that inferior condition for which nature had evidently designed for him (Chesnutt, 533).” Although significant strides have been made toward equality, the media, in many instances, continues to project blacks as inferior to whites through examples observed in television shows, music videos, films and newscasts.
Hare writes that the color white symbolizes purity and black stands for evil and derogatory referent and that “... theirs brains,..., at last has been washed white as snow.”. At a young age, children are taught how to read children’s books. ‘“Why are they always white children?” asked by a five-year old Black girl” (Larrick, 63), as many books seen are only white. Nancy Larrick wrote an article about children’s book and argued how children’s books portrays only whites in books, while there are many non white children and white children across the United States that are reading these books about white children. Larrick also points out that across the country 6,340,000 million non white children are learning to read and understand the American way of life in books which either omit them entirely or scarcely mention them in it (63), and of the 5.206 children's book, only 394 included one or more blacks, which was an average of 6.7 per cent (64). Children’s books will not contain a black hero/heroine because in the books, being depicted as a slave or a servant, or better yet to ...
George Yancy, in his piece Dear White People, tries to get white people to recognize their racism just like he recognizes his apparent sexism. This is a bold move by Dr. Yancy, who is a professor at Georgia State University. The quote above, is a simple statement of his goal for his New York Times article from December 24th, 2015. My reaction to this quote and the entire article is; why I am being blamed, as an individual, for black suppression and my overall happiness in the system? Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught us to not judge by one’s color of their skin, but by the content of my character. Yancy goes against these teachings, as he uses group politics to race bait white people into a certain reaction that he will use to prove his point.
At the time that Rudyard published “The White Man’s Burden”, whites were already conflicted on what to do about the non-whites (US, 437). Some whites claimed that there should be little to no intervention of the whites on the non-white societies because Charles Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest” is the way that things should be (US, 437). The whites who were for intervention argued that it was the humane and religious duty of whites to become involved (US, 437). They also exclaimed that it was better to help the non-white develop because of the need for trade (US, 437). Because there had already been such a debate between the whites over this issue, Rudyard’s poem gained attention quick (lecture notes, 2/8). Rudyard’s work gained attention of American leaders and became an inspiration for future actions of imperialism (lecture notes, 2/8).
In “The Miracle of Purun Bhagat,” Rudyard Kipling uses the setting to let you see the true personality of the main character. The story is about giving up everything you know and have come custom to, to find out who you really are. As Purun Dass, the main character, grew up he realized that things were changing. Dass was of the upper class. He and his dad were so important that everyone looked up to him. Dass realized that being wealthy and having everything was not the right thing to do. He wanted more. He wanted to understand what people believed to be good. In order for him to do that, he had to give up everything. He changed his name and only took with him an antelope skin, a brass- handled crutch, and a begging- bowl.