An African American Male In His 20's

Essays should have organized thoughts, an interesting writing style, and most importantly get the attention of the reader. The essay, “African Women in Colonial Society,” by Carol Berkin was no exception. The claims were well thought out and clear, and the essay definitely hooked readers in with an anecdote that led into the story quite fittingly. She had three noticeable claims that were major that she talks about in the essay, and that is the struggles of African women, moreso compared to that of a man’s, the silver linings that the women found, and finally the unity of the Africans through common languages and religion.

I then described my life and who I was. After describing this, I explained my experiences in confronting racism. The point of the essay was to state that racism is still alive and can be present anywhere. After writing this essay, I learned that my mechanics and style was not where it should be. Even with the revisions Mr. Heldenfels made in the draft, I still made mistakes with mechanics and tense shits. I had written comma splice and has several spelling mistakes. I looked to improve my mechanics after writing this essay.

The revision process for me was difficult. It was difficult because I thought that my ideas were clearly stated and organized. However, that was not the case. There were sections in which the language of my essay made the ideas that I was trying to convey disorganized. Other times I had too much going on and had to slow down the pace of the essay. In brief there were errors within my essay, therefore I needed to make revisions to improve the quality. There were many changes/revisions that I made. Firstly, I omitted a paragraph in which I made a relation to 187 Reasons Why Mexicans Can’t Cross The Border. Though it had good content in regards to identity, I realized that it threw off the idea of a close reading. The objective of this assignment

The essay that I am writing stems from the short story by Sherman Alexie titled “Flight Patterns”. In this story it gives us some insight on even though people are subjected to discrimination, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

I really liked how you backed up the things you said with examples. For example, you talked about how African Americans fought for equal rights through protests, sit ins, and peaceful acts of defiance which led many whites to realize their needed to be a

Scrolling through the possible essays to assess, it didn’t take long to find one that was eye catching. A Title by the name of Walking While Black by Garnette Cadogen caught my attention for obvious reasons. Cadogen depicts one of the terrors black men risk enduring every day in the United States. Cadogen’s storyline, techniques and informal language enables readers to connect to his story. The beginning of the essay takes us where his love for walking begins-his hometown Kingston, Jamaica. He creates a storyline, starting from his last night strolls in his hometown and walking us through how he ended up in the New York City being slammed against a cop car by a handful of policemen interrogating him.

The challenging component this semester was the transition from high school English reading and writing level to college level. It is mainly because High school writing did not have many expectations from students, its main focus was on the ideal five-paragraph essays. As compared to college, writing is mainly geared and focused on one’s ability to thoroughly answer the assigned prompt. Initially, I was not sure if I was capable of handling a fast-paced course, however, I quickly adjusted to the change and I am glad that I chose to stay. In English 10, I have learned many valuable elements that I can incorporate into my everyday writing. I have included my writing from project 2 a rhetorical analysis on, “Black Lives Matter”, which effectively demonstrates my growth as a reader, thinker, and writer.

Choices identify who you are as a person. They determine not only one’s personality, but what their choices will foreshadow. Lily, a young fourteen year old girl, is curious about her past and is willing to leave home to find answers. She lives with both T.Ray, her father, and Rosaleen, her African American caregiver. Since T.Ray doesn’t apply to the father role, Rosaleen not only cares for Lily, but acts as a mother figure towards her. She is a strong person who fights for what she believes is right. Rosaleen is not the only mother figure in this book, as you get deeper into the story, you discover another African American woman who cares for Lily just as much as Rosaleen. August Boatwright, one of the four Boatwrights introduced in the

Growing up being an African American male I would often hear that I had “2 strikes against me and with one more strike I would be out.” Now this is something I’ve been told since I was a toddler by my mother, father, grandmother, and on occasion even my teachers. They were implying that being black in America is a strike, and being a male was another strike, and all I needed was one more strike before I ended up behind bars or even dead. So based of what I’ve been told it seems to me that I came into this world with a huge disadvantage. This was disappointing information that was fed to me while I was growing up, but for me this drives me to become the best that I can to be so I don’t become the average statistic. Adrienne Rich writes an essay where she talks about the importance for someone like me to claim my education, Now, I’m sixteen so this would be a good time in my life to start and claim my education.

Consider this scenario in America today - a middle-age African-American man is not eligible to vote. This man’s father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great grandfather shared the same misfortune during their lifetime. The original patriarch could not vote as a slave, his son was beaten by the Ku Klux Klan for trying to vote, the grandson was intimidated by the Ku Klux Klan for trying to vote, and the great-grandson was prohibited from voting by poll taxes and literacy tests. The middle-age African-American man cannot vote today due to being on probation for a felony conviction.1 This same man probably had an ineffective attorney to represent him when he was arrested, was offered a choice of a plea bargain as opposed to a stringent sentence, and was subsequently placed under the control of the criminal justice system either by a prison sentence, probation, or parole. Once released from the criminal justice system, the man may be stigmatized for the rest of his life and may return to prison.2 As the middle-age man tries to re-integrate himself into mainstream society, his felony status can negatively impact potential employment, housing, and government assistance. This same man’s treatment could be compared to man living in a southern state at the height of Jim Crow.3 Jim Crow was a practice enforced by laws in the United States (U.S.) enacted between 1874 – 1975 to keep black and white races apart. The goal of these laws was to create “separate but

When African Americans involuntarily arrived in the United Sates, they were sold as slaves, deprived of their heritage, and were separated from their families. The dehumanization of slavery over four hundred years, strategically kept the African American at the bottom of both the social and economic realm. The historical ramifications over this period in United States history would prove to be detrimental to the institution of education in the United States for African Americans and would create an achievement gap that would be almost impossible to close.

Attached is a copy of my outline for the extended essay. It includes pieces of information from different research that I will use to support my EE. My research question is “What is the purpose of unconscious racial discrimination in humans and how effective are the conditions of Allport’s intergroup contact hypothesis in reducing racial discrimination?”. This is from a perspective where racial discrimination is viewed as an evolutionary need and unconscious implies that racial discrimination occurs automatically without the person’s awareness. I am not sure if it is better to use “involuntary”. If you can give me some input on that, it will be great. The last part of the paper will be about Allport’s intergroup contact hypothesis.

In the duration of this English class we have read multiple essays. The essays include a short story, “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros whose main idea is that there is not a correlation between age and emotional evolution. “College Pressures” by William Zinsser argues that college students are under excessive stress to plan their future and succeed. The narrative, “Mother Tongue”, by Amy Tan focuses on the variants in the universal English dialect which is based on one’s background. “Indian Education” by Sherman Alexies main purpose is to help readers understand the immense impact racism has on Native Americans. Each story had a different purpose but the common theme the essays shared was an educational setting.

After re-reading the essay, I would honestly give myself somewhat of a B or C. There are some grammar issues and even though I use grammar check, I still struggle with grammar. My essay is somewhat sloppy when discussing covert racism, overt racism, mental health and then I include how blogs have changed the topic of racism. I believe my organizational skills could really improve my essay. However, there are some very good points that I make regarding my thesis statement. The thesis ‘Blogging changes attitudes about racism because people are blogging about their personal experiences about how race impacts their lives”, is touched on later in the essay when I use a Tumblr blog to provide details about how people are sharing their experiences

For this essay I choose Midterm reflection II as my topic. I choose this topic because this topic meanly discuss about the white privilege, which some American people may not even considered about before. Before I took course on week, I never think about white privilege, and how does the whiteness operating as a social system in our society today. And how does whiteness relate to the citizenship. As Richard Wright said: “There isn’t any Negro problem; there is only a white problem.” Lots of people keep thinking that “Americans” means white. After I read the reading assignment and watch the video several times, I start to understand that how does this situation happen in America. And learned several way to fix the racial problems.