Nidiche Nyong O

For every image of shell-toe Adidas, cuban link chains and five-finger rings existed vivid pictures of suffering families void of money, resources and opportunities for advancement. This duality was, and continues to be fueled by the consequences of being at the bottom of a class system which fails to benefit the poor. It’s not being black alone that makes achievement seemingly impossible, but being poor that does. Unfortunately, stemming from times of slavery, people of color were considered second-class citizens undeserving of placement atop this country’s priority list. Over time, the gap in accumulated wealth and assets has grown so wide that even the most prosperous blacks of today fall far beneath the collective net worth of whites. And, for a culture credited for perpetuating lifestyles of excess, this poses both a blessing and a

Being bon in a small gold minding town of Springs, South Africa, Nadine Gordimer was exposed to the immigrant and racial status that flowed through the early 1930’s. It was very common for an African American to be born in a Caucasian environment, but Nadine was a Caucasian born in an African environment. Gordimer was born to parents that contradicted their geographical existence. Her father was Jewish-born and often occupied a stratum underneath the earlier settlers. Gordimer’s mother, Nan, had opposing opinions on blacks. Instead of complying with the discrimination blacks were bound to receive, Nan felt repugnant towards the discrimination and therefore found a daycare for the children of black workers. In solitary existence, with very

What is loneliness? To some, loneliness is the desperate need to be around other people. To others, loneliness is just another sad emotion. So how does an author successfully blend a tone of loneliness into their writing? In “The Thing Around Your Neck” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, many themes become clear: stereotypes, acceptance of one’s heritage, or even new beginnings. However, there’s an underlying sense of loneliness hidden in Adichie’s short story as well. Akunna’s experience is told through the second-person, so the reader is able to step into the shoes of the main character, experiencing her story as it’s told. The second-person point of view is especially known to amplify feelings through retelling

In 1955 a civl rights activist by the name of james balwding wrote his famous essay “Notes of a Native Son”. James balwdin was born in harlem, New York during a time where racial tensions where high althought of the united states. In this essay he highlights these tension and his experinmces regarding them, while also giving us an insight of his up bringing, Along with this we get to see his relationship with a figure of his life, his father or more accuraterly his stepfather. In the essay James balwdin says “This fight begins, however, in the heart and it now had been laid to my charge to keep my own heart free of hatred and despair”. This is a very powerdul sentence that I beleive portays James Balwdin transition to alduthood or a transiton away from his immaturity or navity to his enlightening of his “situation”. A situation

From the point of the first Africans arriving in the America’s, as slaves, up to King’s tireless work for change, they knew “through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” (224) King was doing just that, demanding the world’s attention, because “oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright for freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained.” (230)

The book’s thread of isolation and wandering parallels the theme of Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” Both present the idea that lacking affection from others leads to wandering ad isolation. Jane is the girl who can declare, “I walk alone.” There is no one in her life that she can rely on so she is a wanderer and isolated from everyone. Since she is alone, she is also foreign to emotions of love, comfort, and the feeling that she belongs. Jane feels that she is “a wanderer on the face of the earth” (231). Jane is an orphan and she is always in a constant search for a family that cares for her. Until Jane finds her family, she will be alone on her nomadic journey. Additionally, her shadow is the “only one that walks besides [her].” She is so separated from everyone that not even stranger goes near her, but only an incomplete version of herself. When Jane falls in love with Rochester, she thinks, “I had made an idol” of him (279). Since Rochester is her God, she does not have God to help her after Rochester betrays her and now she is separated from God’s protection. After she leaves Rochester to start a new life she is isolated from love and all by herself again. Her true identity as an orphan cannot ever be erased. She hopes that “someone out there will find me.” In

“Africa is at once the most romantic and the most tragic continent on the earth.” With this sentence, W.E.B. Du Bois opens his 1915 work The Negro. A few pages later, he poses a significant question, with which African Americans struggled for centuries: “What is a Negro?” This question had been on the mind of African Americans for a long time, as they struggled to forge an identity during and after the end of their long enslavement, pondering about the question whether they should and could consider the United States their home, or if they should rather return to Africa. On the psychological level, Africa remained present on the minds of many African Americans, at times as a highly romanticized mother continent, more commonly, as the helplessly

Everyone feels lonely at some point in their life. Whether they have lost a friend, family member, or loved one. Loneliness can have many negative effects on a person’s well-being. Some results could be craziness, depression, or even sickness. These effects could lead to even worse mental health issues. In order for humans to be happy, friendships and connections are vital; as well as never keeping isolated from the world. The characters George, Lennie and Crooks were all affected by loneliness. All these characters were affected in different ways. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, loneliness has a prominent affect on the characters’ mental health, as well as illustrate why friendships are vital.

12 Million Black Voices by Richard Wright is a photo and text book which poetically tells the tale of African Americans from the time they were taken from Africa to the time things started to improve for them in a 149 page reflection. Using interchanging series of texts and photographs, Richard Wright encompasses the voices of 12 Million African-Americans, and tells of their sufferings, their fears, the phases through which they have gone and their hopes. In this book, most of the photos used were from the FSA: Farm Security Administration and a few others not from them. They were selected to complement and show the points of the text. The African-Americans in the photos were depicted with dignity. In their eyes, even though clearly

At times have you heard single toddlers talking to themselves? Or a homeless talking to themselves? Or elderly speaking to themselves? Have you questioned whether being lonely can cause you to become ill? Psychology, the study of the human mind and why it functions a certain way, has led to a recent new discovery (Google). Loneliness is a controversial subject nowadays, especially since it is associated with depression and early death. Loneliness dates back to history when humanity relied on one another to survive the hot scorching days in the deserts or in the frigid cold. On top of loneliness making you feel unhappy, it also makes the human body feel mentally and physically unsafe due to the feeling of loneliness (Gammon). Some believe that it can cause an early death, while others believe it is more of a psychological issue that needs to be dealt with. Despite the existing controversy, new research demonstrates that there is a biological link between feeling the sensation of loneliness and illness (Gammon). The discovery that loneliness can actually cause you to become ill has to do with the sensation of being alone, rather than the physical isolation itself.

I have perfected the art of loneliness in my life. My closest companions are the heroines in books, and I wander through their wonder alone. I fight vigilantly through all the kingdoms as I struggled to find myself in the sea of my gleaming peers. As I embarked upon my journeys through dark and unknown places the familiarity of home became distant year after year when my family grew smaller. My head consists of storm clouds and thunder and my heart is heavy with doubt. I grow to depend on the consistent warmth of a good book after the real world leaves me frozen and cold from its harsh embrace. Time has a way of reminding me how far I am from escaping my perils, leaving home is the only solution. In order to find myself I have to leave everything behind and bravely face the many winters ahead of me in college. The world ahead of me was no longer black and white like the pages of a book. On a fateful August morning the time came where I was finally free. With a companion of heroins stowed away in novels and paper backs, wedged between comforters and graphic t-shirts, I am ready to perfect the art of happiness.

With slavery flourishing in America in 1832, Maria W. Stewart, an African American writer and educator, delivered a lecture clarifying to the white people of her time that racism still existed. At this time, even the free African Americans were confined to jobs of labor. They are limited to these types of jobs for the rest of their lives, without an opportunity to become rich or independent. The thought of equal rights ignites the souls of African Americans, especially Stewart, yet they are all working hard labor, which kills that energy. Through Stewart’s use of rhetoric, we can sense a certain energy within her -- a burning passion for escaping the labor-filled poverty that African Americans must endure. Change takes time, but, sometimes people must first be aware of what must be amended to spark the necessary change. Stewart is clearly pushing the idea that lifelong poverty is something African Americans must endure, something white people can all but imagine, and that it needs to change as nobody should be doomed to live a life of poverty.

At fourteen years old I was painfully aware of the duality of my identity: equal parts oppressed and oppressor. As I poured over the narratives of Gloria Anzaldua, Malcolm X, Ta Nehisi Coates, Angela Davis, Cesar Chavez, and Audre Lorde I embarked on my quest to denounce the pieces of my identity that had been constructed by the colonizer.

Even now, having eked out a living with the monks’ help, the piercing loneliness that made breathing difficult and re-opened old wounds still haunted her. Doubts preyed on her mind, together with the voices in her head, whispering she didn’t belong or didn’t fit in always left her

Since the moment man became self-aware, he looked up in the night sky and basked in the splendor of the stars and felt, what could only be described as, pure fear and loneliness. It is natural for man to fear what he does not understand, but what of loneliness? Under the twinkling of the stars, man has