The book, A Negro and an Ofay by Danny Gardner, is the first book in the Elliot Caprice series. This book is set in mid-century Chicago, as Elliot Caprice, the protagonist, struggles to find his place in the world as a biracial man. As Caprice tries to find himself and his place in the world, he encounters many life transitions: going from the classroom to the front lines, to becoming a Chicago cop and then eventually, to becoming a criminal on the run. As the story deepens, the book becomes more of an investigation of where Elliot fits into this world, and it explores his life situations. Much of the book is based on Elliot trying to determine where he fits in the world because of his mixed-race heritage. During the book, Elliot encounters different situations where he must decide whether he should act either black or white. At the beginning of the book, Elliot reflects on his alias (Nathan “Buster” White), as he says the “White was for the most mysterious half of his racial heritage” (Gardner 3). When Elliot was put in custody of the St. Louis County Sheriff department, he gave them his alias, which he resolved to use when his life depended upon his deceptions. In chapter 2 after Elliot has won the debate, John pulled him away to celebrate: “That meant they’d both be white that night.” (9) This statement indicated that John is a white individual, and by the same token, Elliot knows which part of himself he had to be. In the same chapter there was a highlighted moment after
This world is filled with many troubles including racism. Society often depicts whites as superior to blacks. However, this is not precise, because every race has both good and bad within it. The world is trying to break away from racism to become a better place for everyone around the world. Racism is not only about the color of one’s skin, it can impact individuals around the world due to their race or religion. The title of this novel is “Black and White” by Paul Volponi. In this coming of age story, two friends, Marcus Brown and Eddie Russo, who are black and white (respectively), are senior basketball stars at their high school. Marcus lives in community housing which is fraught with crime with a single mother. On the other hand, Eddie lives in a private house nearby where Marcus lives. Both Marcus and Eddie are in financial hardships and need to find easy money to cover their school and basketball fees. The two agree to start pulling robberies when they unintentionally shoot a black man. They are left in anxiety trying to avoid getting caught while trying to lead a normal life after the incident. They both end up going through the justice system, and Marcus must serve jail time while Eddie gets to go free. While all of this transpires, Marcus and Eddie manage to keep their friendship strong and overcome any barriers together. Any true friendship can overcome racial stereotypes put in place by society including the racial barrier between Blacks and Whites. The novel
The essay that I am presenting today is “Strivings of the Negro People” by W.E.B Dubois. This essay was written in as an article in the Atlantic Monthly in 1987, but before I get to essay, I would like to give some background information about Mr. Dubois. Both scholar and activist, W.E.B. Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He studied at Harvard University and, in 1895, became the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard. He wrote extensively and was the best known spokesperson for African American rights during the first half of the 20th century. Du Bois co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909. He died in
The black race has faced many hardships throughout American history. The harsh treatment is apparent through the brutal slavery era, the Civil Rights movement, or even now where sparks of racial separation emerge in urbanized areas of Baltimore, Chicago, and Detroit. Black Americans must do something to defend their right as an equal American. “I Am Not Your Negro” argues that the black race will not thrive unless society stands up against the conventional racism that still appears in modern America. “The Other Wes Moore” argues an inspiring message that proves success is a product of one’s choices instead of one’s environment or expectations.
The Film I Am Not Your Negro is a 2016 Documentary that depicts the key events of the 20th Century African American History. This documentary was inspired by James Baldwin’s thirty-page unfinished manuscript. The manuscript was going to be his next project in which he called Remember This House. The manuscript was to be a personal explanation of the lives and successive assassinations of three of his close friends, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Unfortunately, in 1987 James Baldwin passed away leaving the unfinished manuscript to be forgotten, well that is what some thought. Now master filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the manuscript James Baldwin never finished. The outcome is a fundamental examination of race in America, using Baldwin's original thoughts and materials to make the project possible. I Am Not Your Negro is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of Black Lives Matter. It is a film that questions black representation in Hollywood and beyond. And, ultimately, by confronting the deeper connections between the lives and assassination of these three leaders, Baldwin and Peck have produced a work that challenges the very definition of what America stands for. Though this is the main thought of the documentary there are many key features that make this film much so about whiteness in American History and now.
Over the last two years in the United States the African-American people have been fighting a war within our own backyards. The Washington Post reports that since January 2015, the police have shot and killed over 175 young black men ranging from ages 18-29; 24 of them were unarmed. On the flip side 172 young white men were killed, only 18 being unarmed. With these statistics there are similarities in the numbers but, blacks were killed at rates disproportional to their percentage of U.S population (1.Washington Post). Of all unarmed people shot and killed by police in 2015. With 40% being black men make up just 6% of the nation’s populations. In the wake of the killings of Mike Brown, Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling, and many more the world has been made more publicly aware of injustices black people have to handle when dealing with law enforcement. Crime in the black community is nothing new in the black community or should I say black on black crime. There is a bad stereotype that has been put on black people since slavery times that I believe has help fueled the violence between the police and my people.
It is impossible for anyone to survive a horrible event in their life without a relationship to have to keep them alive. The connection and emotional bond between the person suffering and the other is sometimes all they need to survive. On the other hand, not having anyone to believe in can make death appear easier than life allowing the person to give up instead of fighting for survival. In The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, Aminata Diallo survives her course through slavery by remembering her family and the friends that she makes. Aminata is taught by her mother, Sira to deliver babies in the villages of her homeland. This skill proves to be very valuable to Aminata as it helps her deliver her friends babies and create a source of
On the other hand, Aminata in The Book of Negroes portrays excellent judgement by becoming the voice of freedom. Aminata has faced traumatic experiences on the slave ship and in the plantations, yet she continues to grow with ambition and determination. Aminata's hunger for freedom is what made her strong in the first place. Although her freedom was stolen away from her at an young age, she continues to seek what had been stolen away until she regained it; displaying her perseverance. Evidently, Aminata embraces her flaws and strives for what she believes in when she states, “I had chosen freedom, with all its insecurities, and nothing in the world would make me turn away from it.” (Hill, 303) Despite, belonging to the minority, being a black
“The Book of Negroes is a master piece, daring and impressive in its geographic, historical and human reach, convincing in its narrative art and detail, necessary for imagining the real beyond the traces left by history.” I completely agree with The Globe and Mail’s interpretation of this story. One could almost see the desolate conditions of the slave boats and feel the pain of every person brought into slavery. Lawrence Hill created a compelling story that depicts the hard ships, emotional turmoil and bravery when he wrote The Book of Negroes.
During this time in a movement known as the Great Migration, thousands of African-Americans also known as Negros left their homes in the South and moved North toward the beach line of big cities in search of employment and a new beginning. As Locke stated, “the wash and rush of this human tide on the beach line of Northern city centers is to be explained primarily in terms of a new vision of opportunity, of social and economic freedom, of a spirit to seize, even in the face of an extortionate and heavy toll, a chance for the improvement of conditions. With each successive wave of it, the movement of the Negro becomes more and more a mass movement toward the larger
The book’s narrator and main character is Griffin himself. At the beginning of the book, Griffin is living in small town rural Texas. Being an adamant supporter of the civil rights movement and plagued by an inability to understand what the black community is going through, Griffin decides to take a radical step. He hatches a plan to go undercover and surgically change his appearance to that of a black man. Griffin then plans to write an article chronicling his experience. He travels to the deep south to experience racism first hand.
The abolition of slavery in the United States presented southern African Americans with many new opportunities, including the option of relocation in search of better living conditions. The mass movement of black people from the rural areas of the South to the cities of the North, known as the Black Migration, came in the 1890s when black men and women left the south to settle in cities such as Philadelphia and New York, fleeing from the rise of Jim Crowe Laws and searching for work. This migration of blacks from the South has been an important factor in the formation of the Harlem Renaissance. The period referred to as the Harlem Renaissance, was a flourishing period of artistic and literary creation in African-American culture and
W.E.B Du Bois’s “Criteria of Negro Art” doubles down on Du Bois’s idea that all African American art should be a form of propaganda, while Langston Hughes essay focuses on a speaker who neglects his blackness as it was seen as unnecessary to make it in white America.
Although The Book of Negroes is a novel, a work of fiction, it is soundly based in fact. Lawrence Hill uses the novel in her aim to revive historical facts regarding the displacement of people and their treatment following their arrival to the new world. Through Aminata Diallo, the novels protagonist of whom’s perspective it is written, Hill emphasizes that the truth lies behind facts, and that historical facts are linked with human perception, serving as a concept of authenticity.
The theme of the novel ‘The Book Of Negroes’ is the sense of home, where one comes from, and identity. The author shows this by writing the novel from a first person aspect that tells a story about the protagonist named Aminata Diallo who recounts so many memories from her hometown Bayo so far.
I attended the performance of "The Magic Negro and Other Blackness", which featured the comedy of Mr. Mark Kendall. My favorite part of this performance was when Mr. Kendall talked about famous Black Americans. This included Frederick Douglass, Samuel Jackson, and Laurence Fishburne. Mark Kendall pretended to be speaking as Frederick Douglass in one part of his comedy routine. He pointed to how important Frederick Douglass was in making several statements. As we all know, Frederick Douglass was a very influential Black American in his time. He escaped from slavery, and became the leader of the anti-slavery movement in several states. Mark was very good at using the example of Frederick Douglass as a modern day black man to explain how black people are often treated harshly. He caught the audience's attention by using the tag line, "Freddy said it!" Then, Mark Kendall gave the audience a short description of Samuel Jackson and Lawrence Fishburne. These men are both Black Americans, who have reached stardom in their careers as actors.