Analysis Of Chester Himes's 'If He Hollers Let Him Go'

This is proof that this terrible act was very typical within slaveholding societies. Now, just because this relationship seems usual in the south, it does not mean everyone condoned it. The wives of many slave owners proved they were not okay with a white male and a black female relationship by the way they acted with “anger and resentment” towards other slaves (McLaurin, 26). Wives chose to ignore this behavior simply because if they didn’t, not only would their lives be in danger, but so would their children’s.

     Rufus loves her and to her ill luck she will be the one punished. Not only will she be violated body and mind but she will be stripped of the one person she loves, her husband Isaac. Rufus’s only concern is not able to have Alice and I also think because of that fear of not getting what he wants it motivates him to want her even more. Dana observes that raping a black woman is not seen as a crime. It has become an act that has generally been accepted in their society.

Interracial marriage has traditionally been viewed as a means of expressing a hatred of oneself, of escaping something in one’s culture or self that one no longer wants to identify with. Jacki Thompson Rand describes the outcome of this phenomenon in an essay on her experience as the child of an interracial marriage. She explains how her mother married a white man in an effort to make herself more white, and therefore more legitimate: “My mother 's marriage to my father was a racial love

In Queer Loving Siobhan B. Somerville examines the history of the imposed restriction on the seemingly simple, yet complex features of love in regards to race and sexuality. on heterosexual interracial love and homosexual love. Somerville suggest that the many legal constructions and restrictions placed on race and sexuality are undeniably and inevitably intertwined. Thus, she approaches the subject from what she refers to as a sideways view rather than examining the relation parallel to one another. This in turn proves that there is a heteronormative construct that is a reoccurring pattern in society.

Not only was it taboo but it was also unheard of. Harriet Jacobs was given a strong will and mind by God. She added to what God gave her by taking the advice of her grandmother. During this time in history black women were raped, molested, tortured, degraded and exploited economically. Black women worked on plantations picking cotton, cooking and cleaning their homes and nursing the mistress babies while most times their children were neglected. There was no possible way you had a right because you were property and property can’t own property (Jacobs). Dr. Flint told Harriet she was made for his use, made to obey his command in everything; that she was nothing but a slave, whose will must and should surrender to his (Jacobs). Harriet would not accept those words. Harriet would not accept that sentence he pronounced on her life. Jacobs knew she had a brain and could think for herself and despite what society had dictated to her race and to black women she would help to free other black women.

James Baldwin’s short story gruesomely paints the picture of how racism and sexuality are linked. The story takes place during the civil rights movement in the United States (Gorman 119). During this time, African Americans were still being oppressed, and white people were angry that they were making progress in society. This often lead to brutal attacks and sometimes death. In the story, the narrator, Jesse, is having difficulty having sex with his wife and compares her to the black women that he has sex with. As the story progresses, the problem emerges with the killing of a black man who is dismembered by a white man right before young Jesse’s eyes. Instead of seeing this as a horrible experience, Jesse takes on the attitude of those around him. Through characterization, point of view, and symbolism, James Baldwin’s story, “Going to Meet the Man,” demonstrates the connection between sexuality, particularly masculinity, and racism.

Alice is a very light skinned, black woman who could pass off as white without any makeup. She works as a supervisor of case work in city welfare. She came from the one of the richest Negro families on the West Coast. She is, in Bob’s mind,

In What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America, Peggy Pascoe examines the history of miscegenation and how it laid the foundation of white supremacy in the United States. While visible forms of white supremacy such as segregation helped mask the importance of miscegenation laws, Pascoe argues that miscegenation laws was a national movement tied inseparably to gender and sexuality that went beyond the Black/White dynamic, which courts and bureaucracies of local marriage officials used to produce race in America. Pascoe goes on to argue that the core of miscegenation laws reached beyond the realm of romance as courts began to condemn the respectability of interracial relationships by equating them with illicit sex rather than marriage. Thus, this idea of unrespectable, unnatural, and immoral relationships became women into the fabric of the American society.

Ida. B wells can be considered to be among the greatest African-American civil rights activists because of her stand on the lynching of people of color in the South. She was also affected by the ‘primitive’ behavior of white men at the time as her newspaper’s office was destroyed because of the opinion it raised. One of the examples Wells gives of whites lynching blacks was of Ebenezer Fowler who was the richest black man in his town. He was accused of having a romantic relationship with a white woman because of the romantic letter he sent her. At the time, the white men were allowed to seduce any woman but if a black man tried to have a romantic relationship with a white woman it was declared

The trial itself provides Harper Lee with the opportunity to examine the attitudes of people like the Ewells and the presumably more respectable members of the jury. Bob Ewell emerges as a drunken, bullying, child-abuser with little respect for the law and even less for truth and justice. But however low in the social order he is, Bob Ewell can still look down on black people. At the beginning of his testimony he complains about a 'nest' of them near him bringing down the property values of his shack by the town dump. Tom's account of Mayella's actions suggests that he may have indulged in some form of incest with his daughter, but the taboo against relationships between white women and black men is so strong that even Bob Ewell is shocked and horrified by it. He responds first by savagely beating his daughter and then by accusing Tom Robinson of rape.

The text notes a quote by Governor Blease stating his belief in how adultery is the most favorite past-time of the African American women and doubts about whether the crime of rape can be committed upon and African American. When such views highly sexualizing and de-humanizing the African Americans were prevalent in white men in power, they preyed on and abused African American women. Such women who came to free their prisoner relatives/husbands were abused and raped for example; the justice system, ran by the same white men, also turned a blind eye to cases of rape and sexual assault upon African Americans. (305)

If He Hollers Let Him Go, a contemporary American novel published by Chester Himes in 1945, addresses multiple themes of racism and injustice during the World War II era throughout its pages, using the experience of a single black shipyard worker named Robert Jones. Jones awakes every morning in the wake of disturbing nightmares that center on his fears of the war, of racism, and of the thought that his own blackness might forever be the paramount obstacle in his search for total freedom.

Bob loves Louisa, but doesn't understand her. Although, given the way Toomer has structured the story, how can he be blamed? Bob has a mind of stone, and Negro's are described as wooden, and more connected to the earth. In other words, the moon, trees, and wilderness that is familiar and welcome to the Negroes, is interpreted as `gloom' in Bob's mind. This hints to the irreconcilable differences between blacks and whites, each thinks and relates in a completely different way to their environment. While Bob rambles through the trees, his thoughts are on Louisa, a woman he seeks to control, but can not relate to. He has no care to establish his place in nature, and no thought to believe that there is a power above his own.

In the book, The Color of Water, there were many events that have occurred throughout the story as well as conflicts that were involved at the time. Some events that occurred in the era at that time were the Black Panthers, the KKK, Malcolm X, being a Jewish immigrant, being a kosher, and etc. These events had a huge impact on how Ruth’s and James’ family came about and how they lived during those times. These occasions also affected the American society. With this in mind, to better understand the era in which events from The Color of Water took place, interracial marriage was a very crucial influence that occurred.

In this essay I will be looking at the representation of interracial relationships and how these relationships have been portrayed in cinema from 1903 up until present. I will be discussing the how miscegenation has been represented to audiences over the years as a problem, and something that is unnatural. This essay will be anasyling scenes from movies such as Birth of a Nation, and What