Authors: Skin Color or Talent? Essay

To start off, both of my parents are white Americans. My father’s great grandparents came to america from czechoslovakia in the late 1800’s and same for my mothers German great grandparents. Born and raised in primarily white small towns, my parents are your stereotypical middle class white americans. About 10 years into their relationship when my mom first got pregnant with my oldest brother Dalton (23), they bought a 3 story house that was right outside of a suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of Anoka, Mn. The nearest gas station was about a 8 minute drive, and the nearest restaurant was 10. They had 3 boys together, and took in my oldest cousin Chey when she was 10 because my aunt had passed.

In David Carr’s essay, “On Covers of Many Magazines, a Full Racial Palette is Still Rare,” the author states his opinion/analysis of the magazine industry and the, small amount of diversity that is involved with it at this time, but he believes that it could be on the rise. In this essay Carr takes his opinion, explains it, and also supports it with many statistics and quotes from people involved in the industry. He supports his argument with many rhetorical devices and successfully proves his point.

African-American writing is the collection of writing created in the United States by journalists of African heritage. It starts with the works of such late 18th-century essayists as Phillis Wheatley. Prior to the high purpose of slave stories, African-American writing was commanded via self-portraying profound accounts. African-American writing came to ahead of schedule high focuses with slave accounts of the nineteenth century.

In today’s entertainment industry, whether it be books, films, advertisements, or television shows, white people are depicted terribly. Likewise, in her essay, Judith Ortiz Cofer tells of her struggles of being a Puerto Rican woman. Men sing songs to her, like “La Bamba” or “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina,” just because she is Hispanic. They think she is promiscuous based on the way that she dresses, but it is really just because it is hot in Puerto Rico.

Let’s face it. Almost all Jewish characters we see on screen are written by Jewish writers. We like seeing ourselves represented, and we love writing about ourselves. It’s the same with every minority: Asians write about other Asians, African-Americans write about African-Americans. But the reverse rarely happens. When was the last time you watched a film or TV show that centred around a minority and the writers and creative team weren’t comprised of people from the minority? Shows about African-Americans written by White people? A story about a Gay couple written by a Straight dude? I don’t think so, minorities write about minorities and majorities write about majorities.

Though it has become less of an issue in recent times, distrust of foreigners has always been an issue. This can be easily observed in Willa Cather’s My Ántonia. Within the first few pages, a statement is made about ‘alienating foreigners’. Jake, a friend and fellow traveler, tells the main character, Jim, that while Ántonia Shimerda has “pretty brown eyes…”, he points out that you are “…likely to get diseases from foreigners.” Jim’s first impression of the Bohemians is that they are illiterate, uneducated, disease-carrying people. Even after Jim learns to accept the Bohemians’ culture, the society around him continues to look down upon the immigrants, proving throughout the book that a culture with outsiders will always scorn those

After reading, Acting White (Fryer, 2006) my point of view has been changed and I have became more aware of the acting white phenomenon. I realized that it is a larger issue than I considered it to be. This issue is very important to me because I am Hispanic and Hispanics fall under the same situation that other minorities are struggling with.

When he meets the man hired to be replacement at the bar the young man expresses to him that he plans to join the diversity committee to make a difference. Jaynes replies to him saying “You’re not fighting Whiteness, you’re feeding its perversion” (20). While some feel as though things such as diversity committees are put into place to help erase the racial lines that divide American cultures, if these committees prove to be stagnate and unproductive they are really just keeping the systems segregated. It is easy to say that you have a “diversity committee” but if it is not actively trying to fight against segregation and focusing on all Americans being viewed as one instead of as different subsets, the committee becomes useless. Instead of the diversity committee representing change, it is aiding in pathology of Whiteness. Johnson takes Morrison’s argument past simply identifying that Whiteness is still very much dominate in literature today and focuses on ways that we are still helping it to exist. He challenges the reader to identify the roles they are taking in keeping this “impenetrable whiteness” alive and helps them see that they are too affected by the pathology of Whiteness. Johnson challenges the readers by addressing the very thing that they do to try to make a change is what is holding

A television show has been part of everyone’s life now a day. The president race in 2016 has been one of the longest and famous topic talked by everybody in pop culture. Especially for an international student who is currently studying at the United State knowing what is going on in the country is important. The two questions that I choose to respond is what was the most shocking, degrading, or eye-opening part to you? Why? And the second question is what are your thoughts about how race / gender / sexuality / orientation / media / pop culture is depicted by a particular medium.

In 2014, growth has been made but there are new hindrances that stand in the way of Black representation. One problem is in the use of ethnic recasting, make normally white characters and casting them as people of color, which works in theory but has downsides in practice. Another is a form is representation that is not truly representation. Now, instead of creating stories that have black heroes, many stories have biracial characters. Others have characters whose race is not easily clear, or purposefully left undefinable. These characters are then called a

Through a number of important essays, Marleen Barr’s “Afro-Futurism” opens up a conversation about racial autonomy and collective agency in a literary space that seems to have been reluctant to even whisper about such things: namely, Science Fiction. Maybe that is not all that surprising given the genre’s predominantly white(ned?) literary categorization that, while it has no outright barred people-of-color, has not in turn seemed to make any meaningful space for them, either . Indeed, there is such an implicit racial claim of science fiction by White Culture that when a person-of-color is cast in one of the starring roles of a major Science Fiction production – oh, let’s say “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” – that there is a massive outcry and calls for boycott and existential fears of white erasure.

African American literature is the body of work produced in the United States by writers of African descent. This particular genre traces back to the works from the late eighteenth century by writers such as Phillis Wheatley to later reaching early high points with slave narratives and the Harlem Renaissance, and thus continuing today with authors such as Colson Whitehead and Maya Angelou. Among the themes and issues explored within African American literature are the roles of African Americans within the larger American society, African-American culture, racism, slavery, and equality. African American writing has also tended to incorporate oral forms such as spirituals, gospel music, jazz, and rap. Dating back to the pre-Revolutionary War period, African American writers have engaged in a creative dialogue with American letters. The result is a literature rich in culture and social insight. These pieces offer illuminating assessments of American identities as well as its history. Since the time of early slavery African American literature has been overlooked within the literature criticism. This essay thrives to show that within the English profession African American literature does belong alongside the great works such as A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and poetry as A Road less taken by Robert Frost. I will dive deep into history to not only investigate what critics think about African American literature, but why is it not held to a higher standard just as American

Throughout American Literature, mostly Southern Literature, the theme of race and class have been key in author's writings. Important and influential African American authors who wrote about race and slavery and acquiring justice through nonviolence were Booker T. Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. August H. Nimtz quotes Barack Obama in his article saying, “...But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding … It’s a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end” (Nimtz, 2). Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and Booker T. Washington’s approach of nonviolence to acquire justice was more successful than the approach of “justice or violence” encouraged by people like W.E.B Du Bois and Malcolm X. When discussed, Dr. King Jr and Washington are compared to be similar for their nonviolence, and W.E.B. Du Bois and Malcolm X are deemed similar for their violence protestings. NEED MOREEEE

Racism and the effects of racism can be seen anywhere. In the hallways of the high school, the streets, housing, neighborhoods, cities, and more, one thing is seen, and that 's segregation, which is ultimately caused by racism. Walking in the hallways at school, chances are that you’ll see a group of whites, a group of Hispanics, and a group of African Americans, but rarely do you see these three groups interacting with each other. Racism has been made a part of people’s everyday lives, a border posed by racism: segregation. Racism and its effects can not only be seen around us but can also be traced throughout countless readings in HWOC this year. Almost every literary work focuses on the topic or underscores at its effects, and today, you can walk into any library or bookstore and find something, whether it be a news article or chapter book, regarding racial conflict. This alone is evidence of how racism has integrated our society and continues to inform and manipulate our minds. The literature we have been exposed to this past year is a reflection of society, similar to a reflection in a mirror showing us the piece of hair sticking up in the back, literature is showing us the problem so it can be addressed.

Richard Wright’s plead in the Blueprint for Negro Writing could be very well summarized in one of the famous words from Thomas Kempis, “Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.” In this popular essay, Richard Wright denounced the Negro writers as he perceived them to be merely begging for the sympathy of the bourgeoisie instead of striving to present a life that is more worth living for the Black Americans (Mitchell 98). This paper argues that Richard Wright was justified in his assessment that literature was so concentrated on pandering to white readers thereby neglecting the needs of the “Negro