The Color Of My Words Essay

• May believe that accomplishment of one goal or activity fulfills obligations to minority communities; may engage in token hiring practices.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker is a very controversial novel, which many people found to be very offensive. It is basically the struggle for one woman’s independence. The main character in The Color Purple is Celie a coloured woman with little or no education at all. She is one who has been used and abused by all the men in her life, and because of these men, she has very little courage or ambition in her life. She has so little courage, that all she wants to do is just survive. Through the various women she meets throughout here life like: Shug, her sister, and Harpo’s wife, she learns how to enjoy herself, gain courage and happiness. She finally learns enough and with the final straw she could no longer bare, she leaves her husband

In the story “Blue against White”, the author, Jeannette C. Armstrong, writes about a native girl coming home to her reserve after spending time in the city. The topic of memories is very apparent throughout the story as the main character, Lena, is reminiscing through most of it. Whether we like it or not, life always goes on and sometimes, there are things we don’t really pay attention to until it’s too late. Memories can help to keep the past alive and get us through some pretty tough situations. In the story, Lena thinks about her time in the city and how she got through it with her memories of the place she grew up in. Armstrong represents her idea of memory of the past in her text with the use of the blue door as a symbol, comparing

When some think about the word nigger they immediately think about negativity and some might even venture to say that it is a "bad" word. It takes you back to a time when blacks were oppressed and demoralized. When blacks were looked at as inferior and not worthy to obtain equal rights in America. But that was decades ago and it is now the 21st century. Not only have we changed the spelling of the word, by dropping the er and adding a, but the definition has changed also. According to Gloria Naylor, we have took our "past history of struggle and present survival against the odds" and transcended the word nigger into a "victorious statement of being". So a word that was used to depict

Audience- Hurston’s intended audience was a wide range of readers: “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” was aimed at both the white and black community.

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

The novel demonstrated sacrifice by elaborating how relationships between the characters changed throughout. Bodega was blinded by his childhood love, Vera, and he was willing to sacrifice his reputation by

Zora Neale Hurston is unequivocally open about her race and identity in “How It Feels to Be Colored Me.” As Hurston shares her life story, the reader is exposed to Hurston’s self-realization journey about how she “became colored.” Hurston utilizes her autobiographical short story as a vehicle to describe the “very day she became colored.” Race is particularly vital in Zora Neale Hurston’s essay, “How it Feels to Be Colored Me” as she deals with the social construct of race, racism, and sustaining one’s cultural identity.

The memoir “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston, was first published in 1928, and recounts the situation of racial discrimination and prejudice at the time in the United States. The author was born into an all-black community, but was later sent to a boarding school in Jacksonville, where she experienced “race” for the first time. Hurston not only informs the reader how she managed to stay true to herself and her race, but also inspires the reader to abandon any form of racism in their life. Especially by including Humor, Imagery, and Metaphors, the author makes her message very clear: Everyone is equal.

Before laws were passed for equality, African-Americans had a difficult time coping with being undermined by whites. This led them to build their own communities and remain among their own. The story “How it Feels to be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston was written in 1928, about her moving from a community of her own kind to neighbors who discriminated against her and her family. Though a person’s environment can affect how they see himself/herself or how others might perceive him/her, difficult times does not exactly mean that a person will become bitter or vengeful about it.

The election of Barack Obama as the 56th president of the United States raised many hopes that the “Black struggles” was finally over. For conservatives, Obama victory reassured their beliefs that there was no longer such thing as racism and that every American had equal rights and opportunity to pursue the American dream. While many people have come to believe that all races have equal rights in America, Tim Wise argues in his documentary “White Like Me” that not only does racism and unconscious racial bias still exist, but that also White Americans are unable to simply relate to the variety of forms racism and inequality Blacks experience. This is mainly because of the privileges they get as the “default.” While Wise explores the variety forms of racism and inequality today such as unconscious racism, Black poverty, unemployment, inadequate education system, and prison system, the articles by the New York Times Editorial Board, the Human Rights Watch (HRW), and Adam Liptak further explore some the disparities in the criminal justice system. Ana Swanson points out in her article, “The Stubborn Persistence of Black-White Inequality, 50 Years after Selma” that while the “U.S. has made big strides towards equal rights,” significant gaps still remains between the two races. With the Supreme Court striking down a “portion of the Voting Rights Act that stopped discriminatory voting laws from going into effect in areas of the country with histories of disenfranchisement,” civil

Likewise, another factor that assists in Trujillo’s persistent control of the Dominican Republic is his abuse of power. Rules are restrictions and too many rules lead to the entrapment of citizens. Julia Alvarez specifically utilizes the word “weakness” to portray the character trait that the majority of the citizens possess. In the word “weakness,” one thinks about not-strong and lack of courage. In essence, no one has the courage to stand up to Trujillo. For example, we see the common trait through the quote, “People who opened their big mouths didn’t live very long.”

The tone of this essay seems informational with somewhat of a disturbed feeling to it. This essay gives you a lot of information but it gives you something that you can't read as well. It gives you feeling, a feeling that made me cold. A feeling that wasn't fear, but something that made me feel like the world was gloomy. As if everything around me was a dark blue and everything, he writes about is upsetting. He gives the feeling to show what the color blue can do to someone while he is not even showing the color blue, just writing about it.

Particular situations that assess an individual’s identity often mirrors the beliefs and morals they prominently value. Due to the overwhelming significance that sacrifice plays in life, writers and artists have often displayed this theme through various forms of artwork, such as novels, plays, and paintings. Adding it as a theme within pieces of literature and art encourages individuals to reflect on their own sacrifices and how it affects their values. As a result, writers such as Arthur Miller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and William Shakespeare utilized the concept of sacrifice to emphasize the important values of reputation, unconditional love, and loyalty.

In the melodramatic novel, A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, the author uses the theme sacrifice. He shows that sacrifice is important in his story because some of his characters must give up their lives for another. Miss Pross dedicates herself to Lucie because she wants Lucie to have a brighter future than she did. Then, out of his love and devotion for Lucie Manette, Sydney Carton sacrifices his life to save a life she loves. The sacrifices Miss Pross and Sydney Carton make express that mankind will give everything for what they love and believe in.