Bone Black Essay

The abolition of slavery in the United States presented southern African Americans with many new opportunities, including the option of relocation in search of better living conditions. The mass movement of black people from the rural areas of the South to the cities of the North, known as the Black Migration, came in the 1890s when black men and women left the south to settle in cities such as Philadelphia and New York, fleeing from the rise of Jim Crowe Laws and searching for work. This migration of blacks from the South has been an important factor in the formation of the Harlem Renaissance. The period referred to as the Harlem Renaissance, was a flourishing period of artistic and literary creation in African-American culture and

We are all living in a society that is filled with social expectations of gender. From our early age, we seem to be able to response to these expectations accordingly. For example, we notice Barbies are for girls while robots and cars are for boys only. In the “Performative Gender”, “Doing Gender”, and “Nerd Box”, authors all indicate gender is learned instead of inherited. They bring out their insightful observation and critical personal experience to illustrate how the social expectations with punitive effects construct our gender unconsciously. These articles provide a great lens for us to understand the mental state and behaviors of the main characters in Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. In Fun Home, Alison Bechdel portrays how living in Beech Creek, Pennsylvania during the 1930s not only repressed both her father, Bruce, and her from coming out as a homosexual and genderqueer, but also trapped her mother, Helen, in her “women box”. Through the graphic memoir, Fun Home is able to present the struggling process that one may need to go through before admitting one’s unusual gender identity and sexual orientation.

As echoed in Bell Hooks’s We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity, the culprit to the Black Lives Matter (“BLM”) movement is masculine patriarchy which, in turn, reinforces racism and oppression. The general public fails to recognize that BLM stemmed from oppression to black males, not the black community as a whole. Furthermore, even though this movement is intended to fight anti-Black racism, it is focusing on the empowerment of black women.

In the book Bone Black, Bell Hooks gives a vivid look into her childhood. She starts off by talking about a quilt that her mother gave her from her mother. She thinks that this is special because her mother gave it to her and not one of her other sisters. Then she goes into describing how the children in her family never knew that they were poor until they grew up. They liked the dolls that they played with and the food that they ate. They never wondered why they didn’t have the things that their white neighbors did have. You would seldomly hear them complain because they had to walk to school and the white kids rode the school bus. She thought that they had a pretty normal family.

Whiteness and racism comes from the oppression, colonization and systems of dominance over black people and their feelings. In this case, an intersectional feminist analysis matters because women who are able bodied, cis-gendered, privileged and white are only being considered whereas bell hooks argue that men, women and trans people who oppressed should be fought for. And Peggy McIntosh adds onto this but a white woman who addresses and recognizes her privilege to help other white individuals understand what they have and blacks do not.

The brand new mission that involved the 1-502nd Infantry regiment was not only a hostile, but a confusing one in the least. In 2005, the 502nd Infantry Regiment was flung out to the 330-square mile region in Southern Baghdad known as the “Triangle of Death,” homing one of the most dangerous insurgency in the country. This area was the focal battleground between the Sunnis and Shi’ites as well as the central grounds for terrorists to ferry men, weapons, and money into the capital (Frederickson 113). The 502nd Regiment was assigned to the task of root out insurgent strongholds, promote social and municipal revival, and to train the local Iraqi Army battalions into a competent fighting force,

Teasing, bullying and abuse due to one’s nontraditional sexual orientation is something that has been going for an extraneous amount of time and I admire the people who put together the short film, “Imagine a World Where Being "Gay" The Norm & Being "Straight" Would Be the Minority”, because it creates an opportunity for ignorance to be seen in a light that almost anyone can comprehend. Those who are completely heterosexual while being on the fence about why same-sex couples deserve the same rights as everyone else, can view this film and be able to step into the shoes of the people who are discriminated against because of their sexuality. I chose this link for this assignment, because this particular topic is very close to my heart. I first saw this film many years ago when I was merely fourteen years old and it was so powerful, it left me in tears because of the bullying I’ve personally experienced due to my own sexual orientation.

Life for most homosexuals during the first half of the Twentieth century was one of hiding, being ever so careful to not give away their true feelings and predilections. Although the 1920s saw a brief moment of openness in American society, that was quickly destroyed with the progress of the Cold War, and by default, that of McCarthyism. The homosexuals of the 50s “felt the heavy weight of medical prejudice, police harassment and church condemnation … [and] were not able to challenge these authorities.” They were constantly battered, both physically and emotionally, by the society that surrounded them. The very mention or rumor of one’s homosexuality could lead to the loss of their family, their livelihood and, in some cases, their

In the 1980’s and 1990’s, society wasn’t the most accepting of places for people who were different from the “social norms”. Now I know, people today still struggle with trying to fit in and be “normal” but it was different. Being a gay man living in San Fransisco at the time, which had a large gay population, Richard Rodriguez had a hard time dealing with the discrimination he faced. Richard Rodriguez was an American journalist who wrote and published a memoir about his life as a gay man. In October of 1990, Rodriguez published his memoir “Late Victorians” in Harper’s Magazine, a critically acclaimed publication of the time. In his memoir, Rodriguez describes what it was like to realize he was gay and watch as the country changed to become a more accepting place. He does this by setting up how things can change and then explaining the actual ways things change for the gay population.

Gender transitions, cross dressing, and homosexual marriage are all unequivocally important social movements starting to gain recognition. Although gender transitions and homosexuality, along with other various LBGQT movement have been around for a while; social acceptance and safety for these various individuals is just beginning to occur. Merritt Kopas is able to confront and tackle this in her twine game, “Conversations with My Mother” by imparting a story about a mother’s letter to her child, using pathos to persuade the reader, and using strong visuals to tie the story together.

Brandy GentryJason ArmstrongEnglish Comp II TR 9:259 September 2017Boy or girl?Sophia has been in foster care her whole life, and today a family wants to adopt her. She walks out and see two new mothers ready to take her home. She grows up like a normal child; she learns morals, enrolled in school, and taught to be independent. How will she think when she is in high school, and people find out her parents are gay? Is her future ruined? Gay adoption will always be around, and will have judgement on whether people think it is good or bad for a child.Back hundreds of years ago, people all over the world were hung for being gay or having suspicions for being gay, so why allow them to adopt? Undoubtfully, some people

The final film by Marlon Riggs, Black is…Black Ain't, is concerned with the state of the African American community. This film essentially asks the question, what does it mean to be black? The director and producer, Marlon Riggs, guides viewers along an “an up-front examination of racism, sexism, and homophobia within the black community itself. Bringing together personal stories, interviews, music, history, and performance, Black Is...Black Ain’t asks African Americans: What is black, black enough, or too black?”1

It is no secret that when Alison Bechdel was a child, homosexuality was not exactly met with open arms. Due to the unpleasant views many heterosexuals had in regards to homosexuality, Alison Bechdel was at first quite cautious when it came to being open about her newfound sexual orientation; however, she eventually opened herself up to her family, friends, and the world about who she is and did not let the political prejudices of others stop her. This is evident when Bechdel writes, “It was in that tremulous state that I determined to tell my parents. Keeping it from them had started to seem ludicrous anyway” (76). Here, Bechdel decides to come out to her parents, deciding that it was absurd not to tell them. Evidently, the prejudices of society could not keep Alison Bechdel down, and this resulted in her personality being shaped by the courage of being oneself, which is hardly an easy thing to

Pepper points out that, “When you're gay, you monitor everything you do. You monitor how you look, how you dress, how you talk, how you act. "Do they see me? What do they think of me?” In an oppressive society, minorities are forced to conceal their identities, but Houses and Balls allow the LGBT community to come together and embrace and accept their true

Stephanie Fairyington wrote the article “The Gay Option”, describing her experience of coming out to her mother about her sexuality. In this article she talks about how being gay influenced her life in all aspects. Fairyington explains her own personal life so that the audience can better understand the meaning of her article. She came out to her mother in a letter at the age of twenty-eight and explained that it was something she didn’t choose. “If there was a straight pill,” I lamented, “I’d swallow it faster than you can say the word gay.” (Fairyington 50). She says this because deep down she wanted some sympathy from her own mother. Confessing something like this to your close ones is hard no matter how accepting you feel they may be.