' Confessions Of A Nice Negro Or Why I Shaved My Head?

Discrimination has afflicted the American society since its inception in 1776. The inferiority of the African American race – a notion embedded within the mindset of the white populace has difficult to eradicate – despite the efforts of civil rights activists and lawmakers alike. Many individuals are of the opinion that discrimination and racism no longer exist and that these issues have long since been resolved during the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. However such is not the case. Discrimination is a complex issue – one that encompasses many aspects of society. The impact of discrimination of the African American race is addressed from two diverse perspectives in the essays: “Notes of a Native Son” by James Baldwin and “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King .

According to Matthew Mason’s academic journal “A Missed Opportunity? The Founding, Postcolonial Realities, And The Abolition Of Slavery,” African Americans have been enslaved in America since the early 17th century.” The first slaves were brought by the Dutch to the colony of Jamestown, Virginia to help harvest tobacco. The institution of slavery was practiced in America through the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Slavery helped to build the economic foundation of the United States. When the Emancipation Proclamation was passed by Abraham Lincoln in the year 1893 it changed the lives of over three million slaves who were reclassified as “slave” to “free.” Former slaves struggled to find their place within this new world of freedom which they had not yet known before. However, African Americans still faced problems such as discrimination, lack of opportunity, stereotyping, and mortality. Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois both confronted these issues. These two men advocated for the advancement of Black people within society, however in this essay I argue that Du Bois was more effective than Booker T. Washington because of his idea that African Americans should have the same possibility to achieve the same rights as any other race in the United States.

W.E.B. Du Bois, a prominent African American scholar in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, wrote many significant essays that challenged the dangerous societal view that black Americans weren’t capable of progress. In one of those essays, Strivings of the Negro People, he develops new terminology to discuss the many forces that act upon black Americans in a white dominated society, the most important of which is double-consciousness. The phrase, “double-consciousness”, refers to the division of the African American self into conflicting two facets: one being the American and the other the Negro, ever being forced to look at themselves through the eyes of a racist society.

In the new proactive book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander dives into the not so complicated racial issues that plague this country that we tend to ignore. In all of history, African Americans have had to constantly fight for their freedoms and the right to be considered a human being in this society. It’s very troubling looking back and seeing where we have failed people in this country. At the turn of the century, when people began to think that we had left our old ways behind, this book reminds us that we are wrong. Racism is still alive today in every way, just in different forms.

The discriminating social stratification in 1950’s developed a set of servile behavior on the blacks. They were thought to be inferior to whites, and were treated accordingly. Moreover, different parts of the country had various ranges of sensitivities while dealing with the blacks. For example, in Mississippi things were particularly tense after the Parker lynch case. No black man would dare look into any white man’s eyes in fear of the repercussions. On the bus, a man warned Griffin to watch himself closely until he caught onto Mississippi’s ways. In an extreme case like this, it was vital to learn about their roles and behave accordingly.

In the 1960s, Black masculinity was reshaped by the newly acquired political power of the Civil Rights era. Notions of the ‘good negro’ (or obedient/deferential negro) were purposefully destroyed and replaced with a more defiant/revolutionary representation. The 1960s-70s played a pivotal role in the creation of this aggressive male identity. Specifically, the combination of the media’s portrayal of the antagonistic Black Power Movement, and record crime rates in African American neighborhoods, created feared images of African American men (Milton).”

This book makes clear that the struggle for racial equality was nationwide and not just isolated to certain geographical locations. A common misconception about the civil rights movement is that blatant racism was a problem only encountered in the Deep South. However, Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour does a great job of clarifying this misconception and showing the many elements of the struggle for justice that blacks from coast to coast experienced.

In “Going to Meet the Man” by James Baldwin the reader opens up with a scene that is considered one of the most horrific torture and murder scenes in history; or of the 1940’s. The story is so graphic that it takes you away from the main idea of racism, hatred and murder. Nevertheless, the theme of the story is a transformation of a young child into a stereotypical Black Southern-American hating bigot. Through dramatic detail Baldwin explains the mindset of a white southern police officer and how he came to hate Black-Americans. This was representative of the racial, violent black South because this exemplified what happens to most white-Americans and how they are brained washed unknowingly to hate anyone that does not resemble the same

The black race has faced many hardships throughout American history. The harsh treatment is apparent through the brutal slavery era, the Civil Rights movement, or even now where sparks of racial separation emerge in urbanized areas of Baltimore, Chicago, and Detroit. Black Americans must do something to defend their right as an equal American. “I Am Not Your Negro” argues that the black race will not thrive unless society stands up against the conventional racism that still appears in modern America. “The Other Wes Moore” argues an inspiring message that proves success is a product of one’s choices instead of one’s environment or expectations.

In the 1900’s the U.S. pervaded an inexorable racism. Du Bois wrote “… the strife of all honorable men of the twentieth century to see that in the future competition of races the survival of the fittest shall mean the triumph of the good, the beautiful, and the true”. In January second of 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt closed a post office in a Mississippi’s town because white folks of this town taunted a riot because the new postmaster was an African American woman, Mrs. Minnie Cox. This upheaval is a good illustration of surveillance over African Americans – a concept that goes hand in hand with double-consciousness. Du Bois finish his speech by saying “that we may be able to preserve for future civilization all that is really fine and

The election of Barack Obama as the 56th president of the United States raised many hopes that the “Black struggles” was finally over. For conservatives, Obama victory reassured their beliefs that there was no longer such thing as racism and that every American had equal rights and opportunity to pursue the American dream. While many people have come to believe that all races have equal rights in America, Tim Wise argues in his documentary “White Like Me” that not only does racism and unconscious racial bias still exist, but that also White Americans are unable to simply relate to the variety of forms racism and inequality Blacks experience. This is mainly because of the privileges they get as the “default.” While Wise explores the variety forms of racism and inequality today such as unconscious racism, Black poverty, unemployment, inadequate education system, and prison system, the articles by the New York Times Editorial Board, the Human Rights Watch (HRW), and Adam Liptak further explore some the disparities in the criminal justice system. Ana Swanson points out in her article, “The Stubborn Persistence of Black-White Inequality, 50 Years after Selma” that while the “U.S. has made big strides towards equal rights,” significant gaps still remains between the two races. With the Supreme Court striking down a “portion of the Voting Rights Act that stopped discriminatory voting laws from going into effect in areas of the country with histories of disenfranchisement,” civil

It has been over one-hundred and fifty years since African-Americans have been liberated from the hardships of slavery. Even though the United States of America and its citizens have undergone many modern changes since slavery and its abolition, the effects of enslavement and oppression are still evident today. Many works such as Rituals of Blood: The Consequences of Slavery in Two American Cities, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, and Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy all explain a common conclusion; the chattel enslavement of African-Americans left a profound effect on former slaves and their descenders. In 1903, W.E.B. DuBois wrote in The Souls of Black Folk, “the problem of the Twentieth century is the color line”. The problem

August 28, 1963 (Eidenmuller) marked a very important day in history that had an impact not only on America, but the whole world. On this day, Martin Luther King Jr. presented his well known I Have a Dream speech that aimed to eliminate racism, inequality and discrimination. He strongly believed that one day people would put their differences aside and come together. So, what happened to that dream? Along with other equality initiative ideas, they rarely make it past the idea stages or end in the actual eradication result. It is clear to us that even after 51 years, our societies still struggle with accepting full equality. Within those 51 years we have made a mass amount of progress but, a common thought would be that after this long the issue should have been eradicated. Two essays that can be used as an example of proof that racial inequality still exists in our society are, Black Men in Public Spaces by Brent Staples and Who Shot Johnny? by Debra Dickerson. In these essays, both provide solid evidence to support their main goal with the use of different writing styles, tone, and rhetorical devices to display how African Americans are perceived and treated by society.

Barack Obama has always challenged the hegemony’s view on blackness in America. Critics took issue with his education, his speaking style, his choice of mustard, and even the legitimacy of his birth certificate. These qualifications were questioned bi-fold: he was black, yet he wasn’t black enough. His ability to make a three-point shot on a basketball court and give a rousing speech in the Rust Belt on the same day did not compute in the minds of racists in America. Barack Obama lived the modern day version of W.E.B DuBois’ double consciousness, an existence where he wished to be “both a Negro and an American”, as well as our president (3).

Twentieth century political theorist Albert Memmi defines racism as, “the generalized and final assigning of value to real or imaginary difference, to the accusers benefit and at his victims expense, in order to justify the former’s privileges or aggression.” The United States has not only assigned value to the concept of race, but was founded of off white supremacy in regards to it. This is further demonstrated and proven by Connor Cruise O’Brien’s article Thomas Jefferson: Radical and Racist, the Supreme Court decision regarding Plessey V. Ferguson (1896), and Lee Atwater’s 1981 interview on the Southern Strategy. A blatant disregard and misrepresentation of minority’s within the context of the American political system is one founded upon racism and further implemented through racist policy.