Social Minefields Analysis

In Elise Johnson McDougald’s essay “The Task of Negro Womanhood,” she elaborates on the difficulties of being a black, working woman in society. In order to understand the struggles of a black woman in America, “one must have in mind not any one Negro woman, but rather a colorful pageant of individuals, each differently endowed” (McDougald, 103). This is because to be able to understand the problems they face as individuals one must think of black women as a collective unit. McDougald focuses on the women living in Harlem because they are more free and have more opportunity to succeed than in the rest of the United States. Though they are considered more

Nella Larsen was an American writer of the Harlem Renaissance. One of her novels, Passing, took place New York society during the 1920s. The story surrounds the reunion of two women, Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield and their struggles they face because of ‘passing’. Through Passing, Nella Larsen demonstrates the challenges that the gender constructs during the time as women are powerless against race and men.

The Glory Field by Walter Dean Myers best conveys the character traits of courage, ambitiousness, and supporting family even when times appear to be distressful. This book takes you through African American history with the excitement and thrill of fiction. It allows you to witness the glory of African American evolution, from a period of slavery to modern day. The reader witnesses courage as African Americans try and fight for freedom and equality in an unforgiving society. African Americans try and defy the society’s perspective of them in an attempt to reach an optimal level of success. They work to divert from their typical expectations, and strive for success even when the possibilities are minimal. They strive to build a better living besides being maids and factory workers, and they attempt to remove every obstacle in their way of success. They desire to go above what is expected of them, so they can achieve at a prodigious level in a segregated society. Even as technology advances, the reader witnesses the character’s sense of community. They always believe that family is crucial to success even in times of distress. If they abandon their community, then they abandon the only people that support them. In this time period, their community was composed of the only people that cared about them. The African American society emulates these traits throughout this book, as the author inserts you into their fight for equity and freedom. The Glory Field takes

There was a heavy amount of contextual evidence demonstrated throughout this book, what with the minute print and informative words given. The perspectives of the South and the North were infused with the perspectives of people today, and how discrimination has been implemented throughout our society both then and now. With ‘the intent to introduce readers to individual African American working women’ [Preface, xv], she elicits such feelings and highlights the real struggle of those African Americans that were confirmed and transformed by giving examples from historical events such as The Great Depression, the American Revolution, Labor movements and reforms in both the North and the South.

In the “Imitation of Life” and in Nella Larsen’s novellas, Quicksand and Passing, the issue of passing is presented and developed. In Passing, regarding Irene, “She wished to find out about this hazardous business of ‘passing,’ this breaking away from all that was familiar and friendly to take one’s chances in another environment, not entirely strange, perhaps, but certainly not entirely friendly” (Larsen 157). Both versions of the film and both novellas portray black women who come face to face with the act of passing. In the 1934 version of the “Imitation of Life,” the film deals with passing in terms of a lighter skinned girl named Peola while in the 1959 version, the lighter skinned girl’s name is Sarah Jane. The issue of passing in the film and literature remains relevant in the parallels and experiences found amongst Helga Crane in Quicksand, Irene and Clare in Passing, and Peola and Sarah Jane in the film adaptations. The black female characters struggle with the perks and acceptance allotted through passing in white society and the appreciation and understanding of their racial backgrounds.

When you live in the suburbs of Atlanta, it was easy to forget about whites. Whites were like those pigeons: real and existing, but rarely seen or thought about…everyone had seen white girls and their mother coo-coing over dresses; everyone had gone to downtown library and seen white businessmen swish by importantly, wrists flexed in front of them to check the time as though they would change from Clark Kent into Superman…those images were a fleeing as cards shuffled in a deck, where as the ten white girls behind us were real and memorable (179).

The book “Coming of Age in Mississippi” By Anne Moody is an autobiography and talks about the lifestyle of growing up as a Negro in the rural south during horrid times for blacks. Moody was born on September 15, 1940 and died just last year on February 5, 2015. Moody starts her story from the beginning of child hood living with her mother and siblings. She was a brilliant student and also had the motivation for doing her best, but the barriers that blocked her simply seemed impossible to pass, she was a black female. It is noted that in Centreville, where she lived, 8th grade was the highest education for Negro children (28). Whites on the other hand had much more access to literally everything. It wasn’t until about the age of 7 when Moody played with other white children for the first time, this was how segregated the lives were. When including race Moody’s mother always seemed to hide things from Moody and that’s what sprung her curiosity. Moody was often scolded for asking questions that arose like, why the theaters had white and black sections.

Alicia Keys is reiterating an identity that is universally accepted by most African-American women (Harris-Perry 184). This is the cultural identity of the Strong Black Woman (SBW): self-reliant, tough, and hardworking. Stuart Hall defines cultural identities as, “[A] sort of collective ‘one true self’, hiding inside the many other, more superficial or artificially imposed ‘selves’, which many people shared history and ancestry hold in common” (Hall 223). SBW is a self-construction manifested by black women in the Americas. It is used a coping mechanism in response to pervasive sexism and racism. The SBW construct dates back to slavery because the image projects traits of all three stereotypes established during the era of slavery: She looks like the Mammy but is loyal to the black community; She does not require physical and emotional security from men, thus, she resembles the Jezebel; She is angry, just like the Sapphire (Harris-Perry 187). This paper unveils the unfavorable impact of the Strong Black Woman (SBW) cultural identity in the Americas. The argument is centered on the effect of this cultural image on the private sphere, public sphere, and the health of black women. The paper also proposes

Melba Beals, a young African-American, was part of the Little Rock Nine: a group of nine African-Americans who integrated into Little Rock’s renowned all-white school, Central High. In Beal’s memoir Warriors Don’t Cry, the main character Melba desperately survives through the acts of prejudice brought towards her in her white environment around her. These terrifying experiences throughout Melba’s journey reveals to the reader that a successful journey of one is always heavily assisted by important figures around that person.

     Community is an important concern in both black and women's literature. The racist and patriarchal nature of American society, what Morrison refers to as the master narrative of our culture, places blacks and women and especially black women in a position of powerlessness and vulnerability. Communities serve as a protective buffer within which black women must function in order to survive. However both Hurston and Morrison identify and criticize how the patriarchal nature of the master narrative is present in black communities. The male-female hierarchy in the black community mirrors not only the patriarchy of the dominant white culture, but also the white-black

While reading literature, we manage to forget that they have true roots to what is being written and what they actually represent. When looking at the similarities of how literature is represented it obvious to see that there are certain socially constructed groups presented. Although these socially constructed groups do vary throughout literature, they still tend to be very similar. In Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use,” Lorraine Hansberry play “A Raisin in the Sun,” and Langston Hughes’s poems “Harlem” and “Theme for English B” they evaluate the social construction of African Americans. What makes these authors so alike is the similarities that they share; being that they were all born in the early 1900’s, are all of African American ethnicity, and acknowledge the social construct of African Americans in these works. Looking at each of these works of literature they represent the struggles that African Americans faced when trying to be seen as equal, by allowing these works to be shown in different insights towards the battles faced in their movement towards being seen as equal.

The early 1900s was a very challenging time for Negroes especially young women who developed issues in regards to their identities. Their concerns stemmed from their skin colors. Either they were fair skinned due mixed heritage or just dark skinned. Young African American women experienced issues with racial identity which caused them to be in a constant struggle that prohibits them from loving themselves and the skin they are in. The purpose of this paper is to examine those issues in the context of selected creative literature. I will be discussing the various aspects of them and to aid in my analysis, I will be utilizing the works of Nella Larsen from The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Jessie Bennett Redmond Fauset,

Crossroads and “Champion of the World” both explore African American culture, the competition between races, and the different African American careers, which helps the reader remove racial biases with a richer understanding of the diversity of their culture.

Racial identity is an important concept that everyone must deal with in their life. It is an individual’s sense of having their identity be defined by belonging to a race and or ethnic group. How strong the identity is depending on how much the individual has processed and internalized the sociological, political, and other factors within the group. In some instances, people do not identify with their race and they will “pass” as another. Nella Larsen, an African American writer and prominent member of the Harlem Renaissance movement, she explores the consequences of “passing”. Larsen’s Passing is a novel that challenges the concept of ethnicity, race and gender while revolutionizing the idea of what we describe as identity. The novel explores the issue of race through vivid plotting that depicts a mentally touching story of affecting boundaries in the early American society. The novel also explores the effects of racial construction on a person through multiple levels. Through Larsen’s characterization and setting she is able to bring out the social construction of race in an enjoyable and educated format in which race, class distinction and identity themes are intertwined. Larsen herself often struggles with identity, as she grew up being raised by an all-white household after her father, a black West Indian, disappeared from her life. Larsen depicts the theme of racial identity by using two women characters, both of which are attractive, and are “light” enough to be able

These visuals may reconstruct and confirm racist pigeon-holes that dub black buttocks with terms such as “junk,” “bubble,” or “cake,” linking its physicality and location to ideas of black ghettos, and dictating “its value and the spatial location for women who possess this body type” (Durham 41). However, within these stereotypes, along with Beyoncé’s self-representations, exists “classed femininity,” where “shared racial history is less useful when attempting to delineate within-group distinctions, such as class” (Durham 40-41). “Black ghetto” stereotypical depictions, such as hypersexuality, are often performed to maintain southern black authenticity in hypermasculine demeanors in order to gain respect from their black and white counterparts. This is done when Beyoncé’s lower half is utilized in her musical performances “to mark authentic blackness rooted in the American South” (Durham 43). These “hood” roots assist in creating respect and visibility for these otherwise demeaned, diminished, and silenced bodies, although, this practice can merely be a facade as “both the street and the strip club are hypermasculine spaces where Black girls and women are economically and sexually vulnerable” (Durham