Abstract This paper analyzes Frederick Douglass' famous anti-slavery speech on July 5, 1852 which claimed free blacks and slaves were not Americans because Constitutional benefits and protections granted to whites were not given to blacks. It examines his accusations that America had always had double standards and it had never been sincere and true in implementing liberty, equality and justice. The paper continues to back his claim with examples from David Walker's appeal against the apparent injustice of the white man and the writings of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, a militant civil rights fighter.
From the Paper "We can clearly see that Douglass' aim was to uncover the injustice and hypocrisy of American liberty and equality, its empty slogans and hollow mockery. By doing this Douglass not only inciting his black fellow men to rebel against such unjust and oppressive system but also uncovering the naked truth to the authority and to the people who are celebrating the Independence Day. Douglass by referring to past is pointing out to the systematic development of slavery in the United States. "
The purpose of this paper is to introduce and discuss the 1959 play ?A Raisin in the Sun"; a serious drama about a black family written by a black woman, Lorraine Hansberry.
Abstract The paper gives a background of the author and gives an overview of the play. It then reviews the historical aspects of the play and discusses its impact on audiences of the time. The paper also discusses the play's use of characterization, construction, setting, conversation, and theme and looks at the racial tone prevalent in the work.
Table of Contents:
A. Introduction
B. Background on Author and Play
C. Characterization
1. Flat, Round
2. Conversations
D. Construction
E. Theme and Contrast
F. Racial Tone
G. Setting
H. Conclusion
From the Paper "When the play appeared on stage in 1959, there was not a Broadway-going black audience, and no one could say with fact that white audiences would attend a play about a black family, yet attend they did. "Writer James Baldwin said that never before had so much of the truth of black people's lives been seen on stage" (Edwards). It made viewers think about their own reactions to integration and prejudice, during a time when the country itself was on the brink of racial integration."
Abstract This paper compares and contrasts the styles and themes fround in Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and Nelson Mandela's ?I am Prepared to Die.? Some of the topics discussed include prejudice, white supremacist attitudes, the use of non-violence to achieve your goals and that freedom will not be given unless it is demanded by those who are oppressed. The paper points out that although the messages are similar, they were written for different reasons. King's was written to explain his mission and his message, to the white clergy to chastise them for their neglect and condemnation of his actions, while Mandela's was written to defend the charges brought against him before a court of law and to explain his actions. According to the paper, these two men have become symbolic with the fight for freedom and equal rights.
From the Paper "Although, the message is the same in each work, they are written to different audiences and from different reference of perspective. King's letter is written to his fellow clergymen, directing his remarks to the white clerical population, Christian and Jewish communities. It was written to explain his mission and his message, as well as a chastisement for not only their neglect, but for their condemnation of King's actions. Mandela's work was addressed to the court as a legal defense case. It was written to defend the charges brought against him before a court of law and to explain his actions. King's work is cited with biblical references, such as, ?just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town."
From the Paper "Voting has been a major issue for black Americans in this century, although the 15th Amendment, which was ratified in 1870, provides that neither the federal government nor any state shall deny the right to vote on account of race or color. It specifically authorized Congress to enforce its provisions by legislation.. Nevertheless, especially in the South, white people denied blacks the right to vote, using everything from literacy tests to physical harm. In 1965, however, the Voting Rights Act was passed, and it suspended in certain areas the use of literacy tests and similar devices as prerequisites to registration and voting and provided for the appointment of federal examiners to register persons who met valid state voting requirements.. This act was a departure from the acts of 1957- ... "
From the Paper "In her novel Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison uses the history of one black family as a way of commenting on the history of blacks since the Civil War, and the main character of Milkman goes on a quest for his past, discovering how the women of his family have been ill-served by the world, by the men in their lives, and by himself because he has not known of their sacrifice or their reality. Yet this does not necessarily mean that he will be able to achieve a stronger sense of either their lives or his own. Even though his quest appears to be successful, the ambiguous ending of the novel leaves the reader uncertain about his fate, a device whereby Morrison creates some doubt and leaves the reader more interested in seeing to it that such a quest is successful and that a new attitude is created than would be the case if the story were clearly resolved."
From the Paper "This study will provide a summary and critical review of Deborah Gray White's Ar'n't I A Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South.
White in this book is trying to bring into the public consciousness the suffering endured by female slaves in the slavery-dependent South. She says that most studies of slavery focus, either deliberately or subliminally, on the male slave. And those "few scholars who study black women fail to note that black women suffer a double oppression: that shared by all African-Americans and that shared by most women" (23). With respect to slavery specifically, White says many scholars conclude that female slaves were better treated than male slaves. In fact most black women of the time plowed, planted, and hoed, did.."
Abstract This paper analyzes the title character Sula, whose multiple identities and outspoken sexuality, the writer suggests, are a result of her lack of father figure and the presence of strong independent eccentric women in Sula's life. The paper discusses Sula's place in Morrison's thematic search for self.
From the Paper "One critic, Patricia McKee, takes what seems to me to be a particularly perceptive view of Sula's character. She describes Sula in terms of her "spacing and placing" of experience. In essence, Sula's ways of "closing down or opening up distances between things and persons" is what makes her so different. We see how she creates her own identity and understand some of what makes her an imperfect model for others. In Sula we watch things that are missing and connections that failed or never took place. Sula misses what never was, "things denied or negated" (McKee 1-3). Sula ?disconnects elements of meaning that other people connect.? (McKee 13) Sula creates her own identity through "distancing. . .like an artist with no art form"(Morrison 121) she doesn?t ?use form to control experience: but rather "realizes the capacity of absence" to "provide definition" McKee (12-13). She destroys what has meaning for others and she does not truly create meaning for herself. "I don"t want to make somebody else (babies) I want to make myself ? (Morrison 92). Sula is an ?experimenter with life. . . an active destructive artist who, in the absence of "paints, or clay" or a knowledge of "dance, or strings" (Morrison 121) makes human beings her adventure in life. Sula is her own art form, but she is destructive to herself and others. In the dream she has just before she dies, Sula sees herself as The Clabber Girl Baking Powder lady disintegrating into powder. This, in the end, is how she sees her life, as a fine uncatchable dust."
Abstract A paper focusing on the book "Ain't No Makin' It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood" by Jay MacLeod and how it pertains to the ideology of the American Dream. The paper shows how MacLeod's book questions the validity of the American Dream and discusses how this theory is seen by social thinkers such as political scientist and author Jennifer L. Hochschild.
From the Paper "Ain't No Makin' It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood is an ethnological study focusing on two sets of teenage boys living in housing projects in Clarendon Heights. Through observation and interviews, author and sociologist Jay MacLeod attempted to determine why the socioeconomic status of these young men remained stagnant, despite the mobility inherent to the ideology known as the "American Dream." Struck by the seemingly low level of aspirations expressed by the young adolescent boys, MacLeod researched the hopes and dreams of these young men, focusing on two groups: the "Hallway Hangers" and the ?Brothers.?"
Abstract An examination of Randolph Campbell's book, "An Empire for Slavery". The paper discusses the book which looks at the history of slavery in Texas. The author gives an overview of the main points in the book and illustrates how Campbell commands an impressive amount of data to prove his thesis. Campbell's cultural and statistical contributions to this issue are mentioned.
From the Paper "Randolph Campbell's book An Empire for Slavery, details the specific nature of the history of slavery in the state of Texas, the youngest slaveholding state in the Southern part of the Union. It is common to view ?the peculiar institution,? as its practitioners, according to Campbell, often called it, as simply uniquely Southern institution. However, Campbell makes it clear that slavery was not simply a Southern institution, but a specific series of practices that existed within a unique cultural context in every state where it was practiced. Texas is a particularly interesting case, Campbell suggests, because in Texas, there were threatened and ineffectual attempts by both Spanish and later the state government of Texas prohibit the practice of slavery on a mass level. Texas had existed as an independent country and thus had its own history apart from the rest of the more genteel South, supposedly. Texans clearly identified themselves as frontier dwellers, rather than inhabitants of an agricultural, aristocratic elite. However, because of the richness of the Texas soil, the use of slaves proved too tempting to be ignored. Slavery spread rapidly, although contemporary Texans would often wish to forget this."
Abstract This paper looks at the relationship between poverty and race in the U.S. and how a black person is more likely than a white person to be poor, to have a lower family income, a lower paying job and fewer resources to get out of poverty. Through a literature review, it examines how experts have suggested a number of reasons for this situation, from different cultural expectations to greater historical barriers. It also argues that racism plays a significant role in perpetuating black poverty as well as contending that racism can be used as an excuse for self-perpetuation, obscuring other causes of poverty and preventing many blacks from making full use of what resources they do have to secure the kinds of lives for which they long.
From the Paper "The reasons for this disparity are not clear-cut. Civil War and civil rights have gone a long way toward equalizing circumstances between blacks and whites in America. Yet this equalization has not been economic, and one of the most significant explanations is that racism continues to be a powerful force in American life. Legislation eliminated the most blatant forms of institutionalized racism, but it could not stamp out the subtler ways in which dominant forces continue to try to suppress and discriminate against those who are different. As Jacqueline Jones points out, "From the time of slavery onward, white farmers and nonagricultural workers maintained historic advantages over black people, no matter how outwardly similar the situations of the two races" (6). Social reforms could not prevent the ruling classes from trying to hold onto whatever advantages they had already managed to secure."
Abstract This paper examines the concept of racial profiling, using race to profile criminals and how African-Americans and other minority groups have been unfairly targeted by law enforcement officials. It looks at how racial profiling taps into one of the irreconcilable conflicts of American society, liberty versus security, although with racial profiling, it has been shown that crime has been significantly reduced in major cities, such as New York City. It shows how ultimately, racial profiling has created a gulf between law enforcement and the minority communities it purports to protect and how all too frequently, innocent people are persecuted. In other situations, people from the minority community refuse to testify on behalf of law enforcement in trials against criminals because of the minority people's distrust of law enforcement.
From the Paper "Against incriminating statistics that police unfairly target minorities is the reality that most of the criminals come from minority neighborhoods and communities. One of the statistics cited by the liberals is the 1998 statistic stating that 83 percent of the 27,000 "stop and frisk" incidents by a special police unit concerned minorities. However, according to New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, this statistic does not translate into the fact that policemen are deliberately harassing individuals from minority neighborhoods. Instead, these statistics reflect the reality that many suspects, whose ethnicities are described by their victims, come from minority communities (Getlin). According to national figures, blacks comprise 13 percent of the American population, but over 40 percent of the arrests for rape and car theft (Puddington 5)."
Tags: law, enforcement, african-americans, minority, groups
Abstract This paper contains a self-designed case study on racial discrimination in the workplace. It also takes into account the various laws that deal with such situations and how the employee is compensated for maltreatment.
From the Paper "The Federal Law states that it is illegal to discriminate against employees on the basis of their race. In the United States, it is prohibited to discriminate and harass employees. This implies that the employer cannot treat an employee or applicant prejudicially because of one's race or color or sex or even ethnic background in all forms of the employment relationship, including: help-wanted ads, interviews, pre-employment testing, hiring, job assignments, shift assignments, promotions, compensation, benefits, job training, layoffs or termination."
Abstract Langston Hughes was one of the world's most important interpreters of the African-American experience in the United States during the decade prior to World War II and the subsequent Civil Rights Movement. Hughes published a variety of famous works, including the thought-provoking poem, "Let America Be America Again". The paper shows that in this poem, Hughes presents a strong awareness of the American dream, yet talks about it as if it were a thing of the past, even to those who had once believed in it and even profited from it. The paper shows how Hughes cleverly uses a method of physical disconnection to demonstrate how Negroes, at the time, never experienced the American Dream. The paper also shows how Hughes' writing style is influenced by his race and culture, showing hints of jazz and blues in the poem.
From the Paper "Many critics say that Hughes? poem is written in the tone of a black sermon, as if he were preaching to his audience (Wagner, p. 311). Others say that the poem is written in a conversational style, in which Hughes enables the speaker and audience to interact with one another. Still, the rhythm and rhymes contribute to the overall effectiveness of the poem, in which Hughes conveys his thoughts, emotions and beliefs about America in the 1930?s."
Abstract This paper presents a review of "Honor and Violence is the Old South", which is actually an abridged version of Bertram Wyatt-Brown's "Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South". The book presents an objective and highly well-researched account of life for women and slaves in the South who were considered devices with which to maintain family honor. The subject of honor is studied from a historical and anthropological perspective. The author seeks to explain why white masters treated slaves in an inhumane manner and similarly how women were expected to behave in patriarchal societies of the South.
From the Paper "The author explains that there were two extremely important driving forces behind South's obsession with preservation of honor. For one, it was believed that since Northerners were the enemy, they must never be allowed to ridicule South's men of honor. It was essentially a defensive tactic that helped South keep its head high against a more sophisticated, civilized and successful enemy. In the antebellum period, South was mainly an agrarian society while North had become a major industrial force. It was clear that South's economy was waning with most immigrants settling in Northern region and contributing to the development of industries there. Cotton plantations were one of the main sources of income for the rich South and with decrease in its production, South was losing to North on the economic front."
Abstract This paper depicts the representation of race in the novel "Passing" by Nella Larsen and describes the role it plays in the lives of the characters involved.
