Comparison Between A Negro And An Ofay By Danny Gardner

Ritual Murder is a play by Tom Dent in 1967 and it is considered a hopeless tragedy because it depicts New Orleans as one of the most violent cities in the United States, especially amongst the poor African-Americans. It is about murder. It is a ritual murder because “it happens all the time in our race on Saturday nights (Dixon 474). More specifically, Ritual Murder is about Joe Brown Jr. who killed his best friend, James Roberts, on a summer Saturday night. It is a heartbreaking, chilling, and violent crime in New Orleans considering it's with black-on-black-- black people killing black people. Sadly, the problem Dent recognized decades ago in Ritual Murder portrays is still ongoing with us today (473). This paper will explain Dent’s Ritual Murder phenomenon of black urban crime by delving into the victims and perpetrators, as well as reasons that lead to the murder.

Contrary to the past attempt by elders to protect the youth, which involved scolding without reasoning, these two authors give their reader the naked truth when explaining the realities of this world. This naked truth is displayed when Coates tells his son “…the policeman who cracks you with a nightstick will quickly find his excuse in your furtive movements”(71). Coates doesn't avoid telling his son about the injustices that he may face nor does he avoid telling his son how this injustices will be justified. Baldwin illustrates his experience in New Jersey just as straightforward when he says “…I frightened the waitress who shortly appeared…I hated her for her white face and for her great, astounded, frightened eyes. I felt that if she found a black man so frightening I would make her fright worthwhile”(593). Baldwin uses powerful statements like “…I would make her fright worthwhile” in order to make sure his readers understand the intensity of this hatred. Both Coates and Baldwin paint vivid pictures with their explicit wording in order to be sure that the reader comprehends just how serious each matter

Racism is an issue that blacks face, and have faced throughout history directly and indirectly. Ralph Ellison has done a great job in demonstrating the effects of racism on individual identity through a black narrator. Throughout the story, Ellison provides several examples of what the narrator faced in trying to make his-self visible and acceptable in the white culture. Ellison engages the reader so deeply in the occurrences through the narrator’s agony, confusion, and ambiguity. In order to understand the narrators plight, and to see things through his eyes, it is important to understand that main characters of the story which contributes to his plight as well as the era in which the story takes place.

Many tragic events happen in this short story that allows the reader to create an assumption for an underlying theme of racism. John Baldwin has a way of telling the story of Sonny’s drug problem as a tragic reality of the African American experience. The reader has to depict textual evidence to prove how the lifestyle and Harlem has affected almost everything. The narrator describes Harlem as “... some place I didn’t want to go. I certainly didn’t want to know how it felt. It filled everything, the people, the houses, the music, the dark, quicksilver barmaid, with menace; and this menace was their reality” (Baldwin 60). Another key part in this story is when the narrator and Sonny’s mother is telling the story of a deceased uncle. The mother explains how dad’s brother was drunk crossing the road and got hit by a car full of drunk white men. Baldwin specifically puts emphasis on the word “white” to describe the men for a comparison to the culture of dad and his brother.

Through Atticus and Tom Robinson, the reader gets a first hand account of the minority’s perspective, the hostility antipathy, that the African American race had to evade everyday of their lives, in work or at school. Hatred for specific minorities, specifically blacks, has been portrayed more through violence instead of civil protests, or even ignorance. Hate crimes became more popular during the protests of the 70’s and 80’s, the hate crime laws were passed in

The route the children are designated to take, in addition, is specified in the writing to inspire in the audience fear. The segregated school for Black students is located within a mass of railroad tracks, warehouses, and red-light districts, all notably dangerous locations for children to be in. By specifically mentioning that Ellison had “forbidden words” added to his vocabulary, he implies that he had interacted with the many unsavory individuals in the area to the extent of learning immoral materials or skills (Ellison 4433). This emotional appeal enforces the idea that impressionable children are innocent and that their actions were forced upon them by the adults in control. It also appeals to the parental instinct to protect children and preserve their future. By being forced to maintain continuous exposure to dangerous environments and professions of ambiguous morality, the Black children are victims of tarnishing and possible injury by the White authority purposefully segregating the children to hazardous areas. The strategy in specifying the unfortunate circumstances the African American children are facing is for causing the White adults to appear as villains who impose professionals of socially denigrated on innocent children. In contrast, Ellison, despite not doing anything particularly virtuous, is designated the ‘hero’ to be cheered for along with all his associates and peers, who are also victims.

Stylistically, Revoyr’s deliberate prose permits readers an uncomfortable gratitude of the slow marks racism burns on the appearance of a community. Both the Japanese and African-American characters in book Southland wear the marks of prejudice, from removal to internment camps to LA rebellion racial profiling (Revoyr, 2003, pg. 68). Her prejudiced white cop character Nick Lawson does not brave out and speak his hate in a quick, convenient slur; rather, she permits his expressions and sensitively disposition to shape through small, hostile gestures. When eventually he fires off his descriptions, revealing to abandoned witnesses his real feelings, the sickening permits any reader may harbor is well earned (Ranford, 1994, pg. 67). Racism is not certainly the quick match and moment when their neighborhoods erupt into a form of riot in Southland; for Revoyr’s, it appears gradually, on a slowly accumulating bed of fuel.

Christopher Paul Curtis wrote The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 throughout the course of 1995. The novel follows the Watsons, a black family living in Flint, Michigan during the Civil Rights Era. In a historical context, 1963 and the early 1990s have far more in common than one would expect. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 following the church bombing in Birmingham, and yet race-based discrimination remains a problem even in our modern society via passive racism. This paper will analyze the ways in which Curtis’ The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 draws parallels between the time in which his is writing during and the time in which he is writing about. This analysis will also shed light on what can be called the “white

James Baldwin is well known for exploration on racial and social issues in his literary works. Baldwin was not a typical Civil Rights activist. He did not march or protest, but was a leading voice in the Civil Rights movement. Baldwin’s short story. “Going to Meet the Man”, was published in the early 1960s when racial tensions were still very high. He tells the story through the eyes of a white racist cop. This short story relates to the Civil Rights movement because of the hatred that Jesse has for the “black stinking coons” in his town. “It is evident from the story and the historical period in which the story takes place that Jesse has grown up in an extremely racist society. It can be assumed that he experienced elements of racism and prejudice on a daily basis from the attitude that his father expresses toward the black race as a whole throughout the story.” (Jeremy, Para. 10). This story brings to light what was happening all around America at this time. James Baldwin manages to climb inside the mind of a corrupt, racist Southern police officer and tell the story of how this man came to hate.

During the 60’s, having less melanin in the Southern states gave you endless privileges; a higher quality of education, functioning water fountains, washrooms provided with soap and hand towels, guaranteed seats on the bus and admittance to numerous restaurants and jobs. The neglect and discrimination the black community received before the Civil Rights Movement was inhumane. In The Heat Of The Night by John Ball is a novel that truly captures the atmosphere of the Southern states as they found themselves caught in between of the Civil Rights Movement. The novel is based around how 3 policemen; Chief Bill Gillespie, Sam Wood and Virgil TIbbs tries to crack the case of who murdered the wealthy orchestra conductor, Maestro Enrico Mantoli.

When reading "The Difference of Race" I found it particularly interesting that the South would go as far as to consider themselves a different race from the North. The article specifies why they most likely decided to do this, “As Jared Gardner has accurately observed, “growing regional divisions between North and South prompted metaphors of race to describe distinctions that were regional, political, economic—anything but racial” (Watson, 11). I find it interesting that this group of people based such importance on race that they felt they needed to be made into their own singular race to look better than not only the negro but also the North. It seems that this indicates that they not only wanted the importance and authority they had over colored people but they needed to also expand that control over the Northern people by trying to create their own race and then assert that it was already better than the other existing races. It was insightful to see that the South was this concerned about the way they were viewed and that they were in a position of power and prestige.

In these novels the theme I chose was racial prejudice, were it also gives a message racism and how far it could go. Further into “From An Ordinary” it's

After World War II, United States had one of its biggest economic expansion, but it was not simply a period of growth and prosperity. Jim Crow laws, organized crime, and other channels of violence and hate — the late 1940s and 1950s was anything but a peaceful time for the United States. Thanks to The Devil in a Blue Dress written by Walter Mosley, readers are able to witness this period of chaos alongside a tough but intelligent African-American WWII veteran, Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins through his struggle to find his place in society. Having taken place during the height of racial tension during that era, the story, narrated by Easy himself, naturally has race as one of its central theme. From characterization to simple interactions, negative stereotypes seems to always factor in (mostly). Still, the existence of generalizations is required for the novel’s success. The reason for this is Mosley’s choice in characterizations. For certain characters who follows the tradition role of their race, Mosley would have a character that is the foil to them. This juxtaposition brings out Easy’s strong characterization even more and challenges the tradition of colored characters being invisible in literature and, of course, racism. What makes this novel interesting, however, goes beyond that. The Devil in a Blue Dress’ featuring of colored characters, racial identity, social structures as resultant of race and wealth made this book the first in the genre. Although true to Omi’s theoretical model of “race and racial images [being] both overt and implicit within popular culture,” the novel’s effort to change how colored characters are portrayed is also evident. The novel, not only successful in achieving great popularity, also paved way for a social movement for minorities.

James Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son” interweaves his own racial experiences with the ongoing chaos and claustrophobia in Harlem. Following the death of his father, a man “eaten up by paranoia,” the author embarks on an introspective journey, realizing how his identity is shaped by both the traits he inherits from his father and the experiences he has with racist attitudes and violence. Baldwin’s prose is as complex as the concepts he deals with, as he comes to the conclusion that hatred is a choice, not a fact of life.

In this paper I argue that in Walter Mosley's White Butterfly, Mosley uses the detective genre to counter stereotypes and myths regarding black masculinity. Mosley uses the protagonist Easy Rawlins to restore the image of the black man in America and to give readers a better understanding of black men in America. Easy Rawlins in many aspects can be seen as a role model. The book was published in 1992 and the setting is 1956, in Watts, Los Angeles California. A few years into the Civil Rights movement where blacks are struggling for equality.