What Does The Sambo Dancing Doll Symbolize In The American Dream

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The American Dream exists in the hearts of all Americans and is a concept that drives many people from all over the world to the borders of a welcoming America. It holds the promises of infinite possibilities in a limited world. Escaping from societies where societies where racism and poverty are often prevalent, immigrants come to America to grasp a part of the infamous American Dream. Nonetheless this dream also exists in the hearts of many Americans already present in America. Perhaps it burns the brightest in the hearts of African Americans, whose past is tainted with execution based on their race. Yet, the American Dream is not applied or only conditionally available for those that seek it the most- minority or immigrant populations. The …show more content…

More specifically, the sambo doll represents the old racist stereotypes are still present even without slavery. The jingle, singing “shake him, stretch him by the neck and set him down--he’ll do the rest”(Ellison, 431) is alluding to the control whites have over backs, even in the years after the abolition of slavery. Moreover, the narrator describes the doll” throwing itself about with the fierce defiance of someone performing a degrading act in public, dancing as though it received a perverse pleasure from its motions” (Elisson, 431). Clifton, having been shunned from the brotherhood, is now mocking their ideals by demonstrating that whites will always have the master role when it comes to dealing with blacks. Similarly Booker T. Washington in 1895 advises in his speech, “The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremist folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing” (Washington, Atlanta Exposition Address). He invites the African Americans to struggle but not fight against others. The equality will come to us through privileges but agaiation is not the right way to approach for the social

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