Analysis Of The Book ' How Of Be Black ' By Baratunde Thurston

Kelly Brown Douglas begins by posing a series of questions, including, “Who is the Black Christ?” and “Is the Black Christ Enough?” (6-7) For Douglas, the Black Christ, “…represents God’s urgent movement in human history to set Black captives free from the demons of White racism” (3). The question of “Who is the Black Christ?” is addressed in Chapter 3. The question of “Is the Black Christ enough?” is addressed in Chapters 4 and 5, as Douglas critically examines the relationship of the Black Christ to the Black community and ends with addressing what womanist theology is and why there is a need for it in understanding the Black Christ.

John Howard Griffin's research should undeniably be considered sociological. He began with a theory, if he became black he could help understand the difficulties between races as both a white man and a black man in the south and with this knowledge develop a means to bridge the gap. With this information he developed a micro-theory, trying to explain a limited part of human behavior; why is there hate among blacks and whites? He collected his data in a process of explanatory research. He needed to test his theory in order to elaborate existing explanations. He gathered all his data and went through all research methods in the hopes of explaining his theory. He followed the research

In Firoozeh Dumas’s story, “The F Word” from Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America (2003), Dumas recalls her struggle of growing up in America with an Immigrant name. She begins her story by telling us the similar struggle her brother, cousin, and friends went through right along side of her. The kids at their school took their Iranian names, which had a special meaning in their country, and turned them into a cruel joke. She goes on to tell us that all the immigrants knew that moving to America would come with its own set of new challenges, but nobody expected to be the joke of the school because of their names. Her name, Firoozeh, which means “turquoise” in Persian, translated to “Unpronounceable” in America. At the age of twelve, Dumas was fed up of the laughing and name calling. She tried to simplify her life by adding an American middle name to her impossibly hard to pronounce Iranian name. Her decision for an American middle name grew intenser after kids began calling her “Ferocious” in fifth grade. That summer when she moved to Newport Beach, she declared to her family that she wanted to add an American middle name to her name. Immune from mockery, she asked for suggestions from her family members and she finally settled with the name “Julie” as her new American middle name. That afternoon, she introduced herself for the first time as Julie to a neighbor girl her age, who coincidentally was also named Julie. Her life in sixth grade became much simpler because people were actually remembering her name for a change. There were only two problems: people spoke poorly about immigrants in front of her because they didn’t see her as an immigrant with her American name and she no longer felt like herself.

The Condemnation of Blackness by Kahlil Gibran Muhammad outlines the struggles and tribulations that African Americans had to face after the American Civil War. The book gives specific accounts as to why African Americans were deemed “The New Problem” and how that changed, highlighting discrimination of African Americans as the real problem. Muhammad also focuses of on the work done by social scientist, criminologist, libertarians, activist of both black and white races and how their work affected the African American people and their place in society as a whole. Muhammad also explains how the labeling of blacks as criminals has had an influence on our society today.

Matt Fowler is a store owner with some sort of prior education. He is a father of not only Frank, but Cathleen and Steve as well, and is married to Ruth. Frank was going to school to earn a degree during the time when he was viciously and senselessly killed by a man who is older, but definitely not wiser. Richard Strout, on the other hand, dropped out of school at UMass due to grades and is currently a bartender. His priorities weren’t as well laid-out as Frank’s were, and Matt appears to resent two main characters, Richard and Mary-Ann Strout. Matt resents Richard for not only taking away Frank’s chance to live his life the way he was meant to, but also resents Mary-Ann for getting involved with Frank, knowing that Richard has violent tendencies and would get jealous. Matt has changed after the murder of his son, and Richard and Mary-Ann are to blame.

In Chapter three of The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B Du Bois discusses Booker T. Washington and some of his accomplishments for African Americans and also criticizes some of his lack of understanding in his propaganda that he could have done more in his position to progress African Americans status instead of trying to be accepted by the white community. Washington has been criticized by Du Bois because of his “submission” to the white view on African Americans and their rights Du Bois calling him “the most distinguished Southerner since Jefferson Davis” (Du Bois, 1903).

“Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books.” –Richard Wright, Black Boy. The author suffered and lived through an isolated society, where books were the only option for him to escape the reality of the world. Wright wrote this fictionalized book about his childhood and adulthood to portray the dark and cruel civilization and to illustrate the difficulties that blacks had, living in a world run by whites.

The three writers grew up in different places. In the Essay, “The Soul of Black Folks” , Du Bois illustrates the soul of a black young boy who saw his life in two different worlds. The world of a black person and the world of a white person; the life of being black and the problems in the hill of New England where he grew up and faced racial discrimination. Du Bois was a sociologist, writer, educator and a controversial leader of the negro thought. Alice Walker wrote about how creative and artistic our mothers and grandmothers were in her essay “In Search Of Our Mother 's Garden”. She grew up in the 1960s in south Georgia where her mother worked as a maid to help support her eight children. Alice described her as a loving, strong and talented artist who showed her work in the garden. She wrote about her mother 's garden and how happy and radiant her mother was when she worked in her garden despite her busy days. She had no moment to sit down to feed her creative spirit because she was busy been a mother, a provider and a slave in the face of the society. She grew up seeing the struggles of hardworking,creative and strong African American mothers and grandmothers. She was a poet, novelist, and a womanist who was against racial and gender oppression of women. Glenn Loury grew up in Chicago’s South Side, where he attended political rallies. He described his childhood as being part of lower middle class. The writing of Du Bois , Alice Walker and Glenn Loury manifests

It was like seditious and insidious too, and like socialist, suspicious, fascist and Communist. It was an odious, alien, distasteful name, a name that just did not inspire confidence. It was not at all like such clean, crisp, honest, American names such as Catchcart, Peckem and Dreedle.”

In this unit I have learned many interesting things about being Black. For example, in the article by Awad El Karim M. Ibrahim, Becoming Black, I learned about BE meaning Black English and BSE meaning Black talk. Because where I am from I never was taught that there was a such thing as Black English, only talking black. Also, I did not know about Code meshing, which was mentioned by Vershawn Ashanti Young in the article, Should Writers Use Their Own Language.I have always mixed formal and informal talk my whole life and I never know it had a proper name for that style of talking. I thought it was intriguing that in the article written by Johannes A. Smit, Black Women, Writing and Identity, that women should be housewives and nothing else. I was told since birth that

At birth everyone is given a name by their parents. Your name is part of your identity and how you are addressed and recognized by the world. The different verities among the population created other names given to different races. These names are offensive, demeaning and are only used to refer to a person in a disrespectful manner. They can also cause a segregation among a nations people, these names are forced upon people weather they are rich or poor, old or young, male or female and are used to describe the same race of people. In the class reading "What 's in a Name? “by Henry Louis Gates he reminisces about a personal experience of his that he had with his father. In the story he describes his father was a hard worker and, because of this he was in high financial standings and, he was well respected and given privileges that at the time was rare for people of his race but he was still black and his name, his individual identity was not important instead he was given a racial identity, this is the only thing he was known as, this type of negative recognition is something many black Americans can relate to. One’s race is a predominant part of our identity and is what causes discrimination.

After reading Between the World and Me, it is not hard to see that Ta-Nehesi Coates has gone through the rollercoaster ride of living in his black body. From growing up in the streets of Baltimore city, where fear and vulnerability was his bullet proof vest; to the fear of PG county police as a young adult. For Coates to tell his son that “the struggle is really all I have for you,” is not optimism nor pessimism, but it is the realism about growing up as a black man. Instead of living in fear knowing the reality of the black body tendency to be jacked up, we should find a way to break from it. Tai chi has created a way to defend the black body and prevent it from being destroyed by channeling the qi, teaching self-control, and releasing tension, stress, and anger in a positive way.

Jalapeno bagels is about a boy named Pablo whom cannot decide what to take to school for International Day. He wants to bring something from his parents’ baker. He wants something that represent his heritage but he cannot decide what to bring. His mother who is Mexican baked pan dulce and change bars. His father who is Jewish baked bagels and challah. Both of the bake good were good but while helping his parents with the bakery on Sunday morning, Pablo made a decision on what to bring. He decided to bring jalapeno bagels because they are a mixture both of his parents and just like him too. The multicultural representations in the story line is Mexican and Jewish. The pictures that were drawn in the book, the family has the same color of skin even though the parents are different cultures and the main character is mixed. There were no different skin colors.

Between 1890 and 1906, Black people were rejected from the area of politics, as southern states amended their constitutions to deny Black American citizens their voting rights that had been ratified by the Fifteenth Amendment. The beliefs of racial uplift, was an idea that placed responsibility on educated Black people for the well-being of the majority of their race. This was a reaction to the assault on African American civil and political rights, also known as “the Negro problem (Washington 8).” During this era, there were opportunities for Black people to become leaders of Black communities everywhere. African American leaders combated stereotypes by highlighting class differences among Blacks that believed in the stereotypes themselves. In 1903, W. E. B. Du Bois published the book, The Souls of Black Folk. He criticized "the old attitude of adjustment and submission" that had been expressed by Booker T. Washington in the Atlanta Compromise Address (Hill 734). Washington addressed that Southern Black people should work and submit to White political rule, while Southern White people guaranteed Black people the reception of basic educational and economic opportunities. Du Bois believed that full civil rights and increased political representation, would uplift the Black community during this time. African Americans needed the opportunities for advanced education to develop this sore of leadership, titled the “Talented Tenth”, an African-American intellectual elite

A romantic drama film is a genre that explores the difficult aspects that come with love. The plot usually includes two people that are in love that can’t be together the way they want to be due to obstacles. The obstacles in a romantic drama film can include a family 's disapproval, to forbidden love, to one 's own psychological restrictions. The Notebook is a movie based on a best-selling novel that was written by author Nicholas Sparks. This is a love story that is composed of a series of obstacles between two young people that are madly in love with each other. It perfectly fits and displays the criteria for a successful romantic drama film because it includes the complexity of love, and elicits emotions.