Black Identity And Missing Identity

Part of the definition of ethnic identity can often times be the common rejection of other ethnic values for a specific reason. This rejection of influence from other ethnicities seemed to be quite a common theme in all of the novels reviewed in our selection, but most abundant in Coming of Age in Mississippi, by Anne Moody. In this novel there was consistent conflict among black slaves due to the turmoil endured throughout lives in which rich, white plantation owners were served. Many slaves, and freed slaves that maintained the same duties with pay when awarded their freedom, were fed up with working for men that had treated them so poorly in the past. Lack of employment options

Based on historical events, Charles Chestnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition, gives human details to produce a vivid picture of life in the south after the failure of reconstruction. His work has many underlying themes among which are the use of the press to stir already volatile emotions through propaganda, class structure not only along color lines but within races, and the effects of the white supremacists’ agenda on the integrity of those who claimed to be morally advanced. Through this story, Chesnutt allows the reader to enter the minds of the characters to show how change will not take place until both whites and blacks detach themselves from traditions that seem to be engraved on their

The people of post-Revolutionary America prided themselves on their newfound independence from Britain, boasting independence in trade, culture, and social structure. The new nation’s white citizens unified through perceiving themselves as distant from Britain’s constricting class hierarchy, despite upholding a well-defined, pedigree-based social order. William Grimes’s autobiographical Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave and Oliver Tredwell’s 1825 speech “Should the U.S. remove the Indians” revealed the importance of pedigree for post-Revolutionary nationalism, caused by white unification through the subordination of people of color.

First, ask yourself how would you feel after hearing the news that one of your family members had been lynched? Throughout the chapters 1-8, we can experience and observe the disheartening history of violence and lies. It is additionally an irritating depiction of a partitioned country on the very edge of the social equality development and an eerie contemplation on race, history, and the battle for truth. Throughout history, the conditions of the lynching, how it affected the legislators of the day, quickened the social equality development and keeps on shadowing the Georgia people group where these homicides occurred. During the 1900s until 19600s various African-Americans experienced various harsh conditions of violence, never being granted the right to vote and being segregated from whites based on their race and skin-color from their white masters. In general racism between whites and blacks can be seen throughout the globe during the era of slavery

The title for this selection of poems, “Old News”, reflects the theme of racism in this section of Miranda’s memoir. This title is ironic because the problems in these newspaper clips show “new” acts of discrimination against Native Americans. However, the violence depicted in these poems has been recurring for hundreds of years. Since the founding of the American colonies in the 1600s, Native Americans have had their land, families, and sense of safety stolen from them. These European settlers did not understand the culture and behaviors of Native Americans, and, as a

Wexler’s attention to these details ensures that the lynching victims are more than flat “symbols,” constructed by a foreign and long past semiotic system, to the reader. She writes, for instance, of George Murray, or Dorsey, who had “returned [to Monroe] from the army” (167), after “four and one-half years” of service, in September 1945, that he was a man who had “love for music,” “skill as a farmer,” and a memorable smile (99). In this respect, Wexler accomplishes the same empathy for an innocent victim as the NAACP, in 1946, might have done, and in similar style—as she contends, in parallel fashion to the deceased victims’

In Trethewey’s “Native Guard,” graves symbolize of the futility of mankind’s efforts to conceal its evils, and of failure to combat the racist system put in place by white America. For years, Trethewey’s mother fought to protect her daughter from the hatred and prejudice in America. Her protest against the hatred of America was snuffed out by abusive partners and the nascent racism of America. In the poem “Graveyard Blues,”she describes the atmosphere of the graveyard as blues-y and dreary. She “wander[s] now among names of the dead: My mother’s name, stone pillow for my head,” her mother’s name now only a marker of her lifetime of suffering. Not only a problem in Trethewey’s time, racism and inherent discrimination was an issue for even the African American heroes of the Civil War, the Native Guard receive no recognition from the historians of the fort or the Daughters of the Confederacy. In the poem “Elegy for the Native Guards, Trethewey states that there are “no names carved for the Native Guards— 2nd Regiment, Union men, black phalanx. What is monument to their legacy?” They receive no honorable grave. They receive the most barbaric of burial rites, doomed to have “fish dart among their bones.” The bodies of the native guard are cast out of sight into the ocean, neglected in an attempt to forget the evils committed against them. Their forgotten and neglected grave symbolizes the futility of fighting against the racism of America, as well as the futility in concealing

The poem, “The Theft Outright” by Heid E. Erdrich, a Native American poet, refutes claims made in another poem, “The Gift Outright” by Robert Frost, that America was empty before the colonists. In his poem, Frost claims that America was “unstoried, artless, [and] unenhanced,”(Frost 15) demonstrating blatant racism by erasing the entire Native American culture and race from American history. Erdrich counters his beliefs by citing the colorful, full lives of Indians in the past and now, directly juxtaposing his work by saying that the Americas are “still storied, art-filled, [and] fully enhanced”(Erdrich 30) from the Native Americans that lived there. Similarly, the book “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie deals with racism. It tells the story of Arnold Spirit Jr, a Native American boy who wants a better life, so he switches schools from his poverty stricken school to an all white school in a small town called Reardan. Junior frequently faces challenges of racism; he is seen as less than his white peers at his new school because he is Indian, and he is constantly being shown by others’ words and actions that he does not deserve a quality education because of his heritage. Despite the novel’s humorous style, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” provides accurate commentary on education and racism in recent times through Junior’s experiences at Reardan, with his developing friendship with Gordy, his views on the pedestals that white

The Civil War caused a shift in the ways that many Americans thought about slavery and race. Chandra Manning’s What this Cruel War Was Over helps readers understand how soldiers viewed slavery during the Civil War. The book is a narrative, which follows the life of Union soldier who is from Massachusetts. Chandra Manning used letters, diaries and regimental newspapers to gain an understanding of soldiers’ views of slavery. The main character, Charles Brewster has never encountered slaves. However, he believes that Negroes are inferior. He does not meet slaves until he enters the war in the southern states of Maryland and Virginia. Charles Brewster views the slaves first as contraband. He believes the slaves are a burden and should be sent back to their owners because of the fugitive slave laws. Union soldiers focus shifted before the end of the war. They believed slavery was cruel and inhumane, expressing strong desire to liberate the slaves. As the war progresses, soldiers view slaves and slavery in a different light. This paper, by referring to the themes and characters presented in Chandra Manning’s What this Cruel War Was Over, analyzes how the issue of slavery and race shifted in the eyes of white Union soldiers’ during Civil War times.

The book, The Spirituals and the Blues, by James H. Cone, illustrates how the slave spirituals and the blues reflected the struggle for black survival under the harsh reality of slavery and segregation. The spirituals are historical songs which speak out about the rupture of black lives in a religious sense, telling us about people in a land of bondage, and what they did to stay united and somehow fight back. The blues are somewhat different from in the spirituals in that they depict the secular aspect of black life during times of oppression and the capacity to survive. James H. Cone’s portrayal of how the spirituals and the blues aided blacks through times of hardship and adversity

In the novel The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston uses ghosts to represent a battle between American and Chinese cultures. The two cultures have different views of what a ghost is. The Chinese believe the ghost spirits may be of people dead or alive. Chinese culture recognizes foreigners and unfamiliar people as ghosts because, like American ghosts, they are mysterious creatures of the unknown. Americans view ghosts as spirits of the dead that either help or haunt people. American ghosts may or may not be real. There spirits are there but physical appearance is a mystery.

It doesn’t take long to figure out that race and ethnicity issues continue to affect America - a quick glance at the news will show the latest riot, hate crime, or police brutality incident. This centuries old struggle has given rise to a number of literary works on the topic, many of which take a different approach to the issue. W.E.B. Du Bois, for instance, published the work The Souls of Black Folk in 1903, arguing for blacks’ right to equality in a horrifically segregated society. In these essays, Du Bois coined the term “double-consciousness,” wherein those with black skin must view the world both from their own perspective, and from the perspective of the predominately white society. The short story Recitatif by Toni Morrison explores this concept through the removal of the characters’ races, and the film Do the Right Thing, directed by Spike Lee, tells a story to demonstrate it. While the former shows double-consciousness through the usage of ambiguity, the latter almost directly references the concept. Taken together, these two sources argue a multi-faceted version double-consciousness, wherein society alienates the characters in ways that go beyond just the color of one’s skin.

Morrison’s critically acclaimed novel Beloved probes the most painful part of the African American heritage, slavery, by way of what she has called “rememory” -- deliberately reconstructing what has been forgotten.

Racism. Protests. Profiling. These three words are common buzzwords that are used in the United States media almost daily. They are used so often, some contend, that it has created a sense of apathy in the American public in regards to solving the age-old problem that has its roots grounded in slavery. Burns states, “[Toni] Morrison contends that the American history of slavery had been consciously “disremembered” so that it is conveniently shrouded by a comfortable state of national amnesia”. Likewise, in her novel the characters Sethe and Paul D in the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison also exist in a state of amnesia—but of their own slavery. In this essay, I will argue that in the novel Beloved, Toni Morrison use characters Sethe and Paul D and their willed forgetfulness of slavery and past actions to reveal the modern reader’s absent-mindedness of slavery and discussions of race.

Understanding the Coloured identity can be uncovered through the means of the symbols that establish this identity (Adhikari, 2008). When referring to Coloured people, not only do they have various symbols and thus various meanings are correlated to this, but is also located in various areas and context that includes historical, political, social and economic contexts (Petrus & Isaacs-Martin, 2012). After research conducted by Hammat (2009), it has found that employees drew on local and global influences in their adaptation of individualities and structures of race. Accordingly the conclusion drew the statement that to be coloured and successful meant being a good customer of global popular culture, music and fashion. Therefor this means the