Cultural Segregation And Black Culture

In the 1960’s, black and white individuals were not recognized as being equal. The two races were treated differently, and the African Americans did not enjoy the same freedoms as the whites. The African Americans never had a chance to speak their mind, voice their opinions, or enjoy the same luxuries that the white people attained. Through various actions/efforts like the lunch counter sit-ins, freedom rides, and bus boycotts, the black people confronted segregation face on and worked to achieve equality and freedom.

What really is in a name? Apparently, there is a lot. In Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s story, "What's in a Name," there is a telling story about a young boy learning the powerful pain and humiliation in the racist practices of American society. Gates illustrates how racism can perpetuate prejudice that aims to take away individual identity and put entire groups of people down. Yet, the fact that Skip was willing to never look Mr. Wilson in the yes again shows that Gates himself was not going to just take the racism any longer, but was willing to fight it in his own unique way.

Why do people get made fun of for their names when they have no control over them? Firoozeh Dumas’ “The “F Word”” tells about how she gets made fun of for her name. It also is about how Dumas feels about her name. She uses many examples of times in her life when her name has caused problems and made situations difficult for her. Dumas is from Iran, but moved to America when she was young. Her name is “Firoozeh,” which is very different from American names, so many people couldn’t pronounce it. Many of the children in her classes made fun of her name and didn’t want to talk to her because it was so different.

High school is often considered a microcosm of society. Beliefs, social order, and current issues present themselves through student’s interactions and the environment they learn in. One of the oldest and still prevalent issues in the United States today is race and equality. So it is no surprise when racial issues are exposed in public education. Although many believe the civil rights era fixed most discrimination, racism remains in schools. Even after court ordered integration, classroom disparities have led to harmful segregation to continue within schools.

Despite nearly one hundred years passing since the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans in Southern States were still faced with the most distinct forms of racism. The so-called “Jim Crow” laws that were present in United States at the time, served to segregate blacks and whites from all aspects of public life, including schools, public transport and juries. Often faced with extreme right-wing terrorist groups such as the white supremacist Klu Klux Klan, many among the African American community chose to live in a society of oppression that to actively campaign for equal rights for all humans regardless of the colour of their skin. It wasn’t until the 1950’s and 60’s that the people attempted to challenge the established order by engaging in influential protest movements with the help of key activist groups and their leaders. In particular, one key example of a powerful protest campaign was that which occurred in 1965 in Selma, a small town in Alabama. Here, the African American community united in an effort to ensure that all citizens were equal before the law in regards to their ability to register to vote. Their work in banding together and marching from Selma to the state capital Montgomery, was vastly important to both the Civil Rights Movement as a whole, as well as the assurance of the Black vote within the United States. Consequently, this essay seeks to emphasize just how influential this act of protest was to the movement as a whole, whilst analysing the

In “Races isn’t what defines me: exploring identities choices in transracial, biracial, and monoracial families”, Butler-Sweet, Colleen explains that there has been a controversial issue in the United Sates for more than half a century, among black children raised in white homes. The author’s main claim is that transracial adoption will miscarry a black identity. Comparing experiences among monoracial, biracial, and transracial families on black identity.

The Unites States is a true melting pot of ethnicities and cultures. For many members of minority groups a certain hybridity is readily adopted, but for others, cultural assimilation can be quite difficult. Chicana author, Sandra Cisneros described this phenomenon as “always straddling two countries… but not belonging to either culture” (Doyle. 54). African American author, Alice Walker shared Cisneros’ sentiment, but focused her attention on the assimilation of black cultures and subcultures within the United States. Cisneros and Walker make the same poignant statement about the strains of cultural assimilation, with reconciliation of split identities as the goal, in their respective works, 1991’s “Woman Hollering Creek,” and 1973’s “Everyday Use,” yet their unique ethnic perspectives allow them to make it in surprisingly different ways.

Just fifty years ago, America was a society of segregation and racism. The dictionary defines racism as “the belief that a particular race is superior to another.” Although it is clear times have changed, racism is still seen in modern american society. It’s also clear that relationships between African Americans and whites are generally better than they were in the forties and fifties. Today, it is rare to witness a black man walk down the street and step off the sidewalk to let a white man walk by, or to see a black man sitting on a different section of the bus or train because a white man told him he has too. But superiority of races is still happening. A lot of this has the do with the ignorance of others. Passed down generation to

As soon as children are born, their journey through losing their personal identity begins. They are given names like Equality, Liberty, or Union, names that at first glance seem to cause no harm. The rulers give these names in an attempt to showcase the positive outcomes of collectivism. In

Segregation, an word that has haunted countless AfricanAmericans for years upon years. Segregation is the action or state of setting someone or something apart from other people or things or being set apart. It has cut AfricanAmericans short from many opportunities, leaving us dumb founded.

A study on employment took two resumes with the same qualifications; then send these resumes out to help-wanted ads. The only difference between the resumes that were the applicant’s name. One resume was given a traditionally white name like Greg, while the other resume was named after a traditionally Black name like Jamel. The researchers found that the application with the White sounding name revived a

Rather than attempting to understand naming practices or the names themselves, people often mock, scorn and marginalize the person attached to the name. Jamelle Bouie, a writer from the Daily Beast, in an article titled, “Are Black Names ‘Weird,’ or Are You Just Racist?”, found what many black people have been well aware of: there is a double standard concerning the uniqueness of the Black American name versus unique White names. (Bouie) He, along with other writers and researchers found that “job applicants with ‘black-sounding’ names are more likely to be rejected, regardless of qualifications. ” This raises a serious question: how can people realize self-determination if they cannot move beyond, even, the interview stage? A possible answer is the adoption of a

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.

    Names are a terrible way to understand someone’s identity because names are regularly replicated. In my sixth grade class, there were three Mollys. We all had different backgrounds, different religious affiliations, and different personalities. If our names displayed who we are, wouldn’t our identities all be the same? Instead of staring at names and trying to understand their meaning, one should focus on a person’s personality, for personality depicts our identity. In fact, I have learned from experience to not infer one’s identity based on their name. For instance, in middle school, I was mutual friends with a girl named Kassidy. One Tuesday afternoon, my friend, Katy told me that Kassidy was going to sit with us at lunch that day. I shrugged my shoulders and replied with a casual “okay”. Before Kassidy walked in, I had a whole image of her in my mind: blonde hair, cute pastel colored clothes, and religious, all stereotypes that I thought a person with an innocent name like Kassidy

People with normal names live a privileged life. If your first name is something like James or Emma and your last name is something like Jones or Williams then you have no idea what it’s like to have a name that is unusual or “original.” However, the main characters from the novels The Outsiders and The Wednesday Wars know this feeling too well. Imagine having the name Ponyboy Curtis, or Holling Hoodhood because you could definitely have some trouble fitting in being called by a name like that. The Wednesday Wars is about a 13 year old boy growing up in Long Island during the late 1960’s living through all the politics and opinions in the year but also dealing with small middle schooler problems like having to wear tights in a play and getting bullied by the “big kids”. The outsiders is about a 14 year old boy growing up in Tesla, Oklahoma also during the late 1960’s. However, in this story the kid doesn’t talk about politics at all, instead he talks about his life struggles and real problems like the death of his parents, living a poor life where his two big brothers have to work jobs and not go to school to support them, and his brotherhood with the boys in their gang called the greasers. However, these two boys, despite having very different upbringings definitely have a few things in common, starting with their unique names.