Longtown Racism

Shades of Difference: theoretical Underpinnings of the Medical Controversy on Black-White Differences in the United States, 1830-1870

Another reason it important to study and understand Australian Novels such as ‘Crow Country’ is that it can help fight racism. In ‘Crow Country’, it is apparent that racism is a key theme of the book, as it has shaped many of the actions and turmoils in the book. Even the main murder in the book is because of racial prejudice, and it is something that shouldn’t be an everyday action in the world. An example of racism in the book is referenced when it was revealed that David was left nearly dead by Craig Mortlock and his posse when they had lured and beaten him up by the family lake. This happened not only because of the love issues, it was also partly caused by racial prejudice. If we had clear knowledge on the backstory and culture of Aboriginal

When he had arrived in Buffalo, Lewis’s first reaction to when they had finally reached his Uncle Otis’s home. “When we reached my Uncle O.C’s home and Dink’s house, I couldn’t believe it, They had white people living next door to them...on BOTH sides.” (Lewis and Aydin March Book 1: 43) Segregation in the north wasn’t a big deal to people in the north than it was in the south and from that he experienced a lot during that visit in the north. Once he had returned back home, he knew what was different now, he understood what the problem and differences were while he was up in Buffalo and at home. It came to him when school time was coming back around in the fall. “ In the fall, I started right the bus to school ,which should’ve been fun. But it was just another sad reminder of how different our lives were from those of white children.” (Lewis and Aydin March Book 1: 47) Between the black and white community, Lewis saw how “degrading” it was when it had came to school. They didn’t have the nice playground, the nicest bus, roads, and the ugly, sad sight of the prison full of black men and only black men, but he had managed to get pass all of the gloominess with a positive outlook of reading. “ I realized how old it was when we finally climbed onto the paved highway, the main road running east from Troy, and passed the white children’s buses..We drove past prison work gangs almost every day the prisoner were always

Boarding the train from Chattanooga to Memphis seems like an innocent thing to do (“UMKC” par. 2). For the Scottsboro boys, boarding that train was one of the worst things they could have done. Two dozen whites and black road the train that day, and within the first

Omi and Winant provided an excellent historical context of racial formation, from the being the United States’ social, cultural, political, and economic

Beginning with the findings from Buck’s Constructing Race, Creating White Privilege, there are multiple, brilliant examples of racial mixing and establishing “whiteness,” both being main points discussed in Omi and Winant’s racialization theory. Buck establishes that ideas about race weren’t truly established until the late 1700s, and how physical differences were seldom ever noticed beforehand. This is illustrated with stories of different individuals living together with little conflict. Buck uses the

“American cities didn’t simply sparkle in the summer of 1925. They simmered with hatred, deeply divided as always” (Boyle, 2005, p. 6). Life was extremely difficult for African Americans during the early 1920s; a period of time that was better known as the segregation era. In the book Arc of Justice, written by Kevin Boyle, the words “racism” and “segregation” play a significant role. Boyle focuses in the story of Ossian Sweet, a young African American doctor who buys a house in a white neighborhood in Detroit back in 1925. After Dr. Sweet’s arrival to their new home, he and his family suddenly become threatened by a white mob that is formed against their arrival. Dr. Sweet and his

This question is important because it first reveals how American cities “simmered with hatred, deeply divided as always…. Time and again in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, urban white proved themselves capable of savagery toward their black neighbors…” (6). Unless documented in novels such as Arc of Justice, the deep racism and brutal mistreatment of black people in the past may fade away from memory. The question is also important because it explains how “the Sweet case did help move America away from the brutal intolerance of the

In Kevin Boyle’s Arc of Justice: A saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age, the author creates a way to describe the discrimination and horrible racial treatment inflicted on the African American community following the civil war and continuing into the 1900’s by following a black doctor’s life and his controversy in equality. The author sets the scene in the booming city of Detroit, a place many blacks ventured to when trying to escape the cruelty Jim Crow Laws forced upon many African Americans. The great migration of blacks fleeing to Detroit in search of a new life brought an increase of over seventy thousand people in just the short span of fifteen years. This sudden unwanted abundance of people, still disliked even in the North, lead to a city full of racial prejudices and unjust discrimination.

In a world of startling current events that lead humanity to reflect on the past for answers, countless books are written to inform people of the world’s controversial history. Constantly, bias slithers into the writing of many authors, allowing history- without the painful truths- to be swayed by the winners. Nathaniel Philbrick’s Mayflower follows the journey of the Pilgrims, the winners in this case, as they venture to the New World and leave a destructive trail, leading to war with the Native Americans. As in any story, especially one involving war, there are two sides, and Philbrick makes it clear what side he fights for. Philbrick depicts the Pilgrims in a positive and biased manner through the detailed and glorified portrayal, biased Pilgrim quotations, and the clear contrast he creates between the Native Americans and the Pilgrims, presenting the Native Americans negatively and the Pilgrims as heroes.

Ohio has a rare history, for not being prejudice. It was a state where people’s color of their skin did not matter, and had many interracial marriages. In Longtown Ohio, there was no difference between white, black, and Native American. The only thing that mattered was the way they acted. The man which caused this was James Clemens. He was a freed slave, who became a wealthy farmer. According to article “Ohio town holds rare history: Races mix freely for nearly 200 years”, by Washington Post, a man named Connor Keiser, the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of James Clemens explains how he wants the state to stay the same when everyone was treated equally. Although the population of Longtown Ohio is now 98 percent white,

Historical archives discovered by Dorman show that colorism had tangible boundaries within the African American community during the 1920s (47). It is stated that blacks often divided themselves into four subcategories which consisted of “black”, “brown”, “light brown”, and “yellow” Negros (Dorman 47). The above ranking would be listed in a hierarchy from “black” being at the bottom of the socially accepted hierarchy to the “yellow negro” being the most revered and desired socially.

White over Black: American attitudes toward Negro 1550-1812 is a book written by Winthrop D. Jordan, who was a historian in the subject of the history of slavery in the Americas.

Its almost difficult to too determining whether “Fruitvale Station” does in fact show images that are so called, “nice” but actually have a wider spread of racism or doesn’t show any sign of racism at all. It can be argued that this film shows no signs of racism because it is only a story of what a man had to go through but then we can argue that the film does have a wide spread of racism due to the fact that we might see images of what a “African American” stereotypically does in the city of Fruitvale. When Louise Spence and Robert Stam discuss the dangers of “positive images” its hard to put this upon “Fruitvale Station”, because it’s a story of a man who does all he can for his daughter, but he so happens to live in the a very rough neighborhood.

I recall a summer day in 1989 when I played the game of hid and go seek with my new friends Tabitha and Jordan. Horten Gardens was a community that existed in a middle and upper class neighborhood in Millington, TN that my mom chose to reside in one year ago. “You will meet nicer people and get a better education”, my mom told my brother and I when we first drove into this neighborhood with mansion like houses and ponds in their front yards. My friends and I welcomed ourselves to the sweet and savory smells of baked cookies and junk food that we persuaded our moms into cooking nearly every day over summer break. Completely oblivious to the different colors of our skin, no one ever recognized that I was the only black kid that stood out like a sore thumb. The only color we recognized was the enormous street light attached to Jordan’s house that was full of bugs it attracted every night like humming birds to flowers. That light was the beacon that signaled to all of our parents that we were out past dark.