The Inequality Between Races, Lynching And Unemployment

Movies and entertainment outlets speak volumes about the current state of a nation’s culture. Cinematic creations in the United States allow small voices to be heard and controversial issues to be addressed. However, a repetitive and monumental issue continues to be addressed, yet continues to persist in our 21st century culture, racial inequalities. Since the inception of the United States, black men and women alike have been disenfranchised at the hands of the “white man” in America. Instead of continuing the conversation today, the issue is continually silenced referencing the successes and achievements of the Civil Rights Movement in the 20th century. Nonetheless, an unfortunate reality looms upon this great land; racially based systems and structures continue to exist in 2015 the in United States. This paper synthesizes three films focused on racial inequalities in different time periods. Separate but Equal (1991), Selma (2015), and Crash (2005) illustrate how influential the Civil War amendments are, while serving as an uncanny reminder of how the racial prejudices during the 20th century continue to exist in our great nation today. Needless to say our nation has made great strides, but still has a long way to go.

In the essay “What’s Your Name, Girl?” Maya Angelou explores the injustice and suffering of her childhood as a black girl living in Stamps, Arkansas. Immediately, as the essay begins, you acquire insight on how Angelou seemed to be envious of white girls: “But Negro girls in small Southern towns, whether poverty-stricken or just munching along on a few of life’s necessities, were given as extensive and irrelevant preparations for adulthood as rich white girls shown in magazines. Admittedly the training was not the same. While white girls learned to waltz and sit gracefully with a teacup balanced on their knees, we were lagging behind, learning the mid-Victorian values with very little money to indulge them.” (17-18). Angelou recognized how unfair black people were treated. They had to scrounge up money whenever they could, while white people would effortlessly “waltz and sit gracefully” whenever they wanted to. She was envious of white people’s social statuses and what little work they had to do in the world and she wanted to be one of them; she wanted to live an easy life.

Starting her second education, she was forced to drop out to care for her ailing grandmother. With Jim Crow’s Law, heavily in affect, her childhood was greatly influenced by the segregation between white people and black people in almost every part of their lives.

Anne Moody’s autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, depicts the various stages of her life from childhood, to high school, then to college, and ends with her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. In the novel, Anne tells the reader her story through events, conversations, and emotional struggles. The reader can interpret various elements of cultural knowledge that Anne Moody learned from her family and community as a child. Her understanding of the culture and race relations of the time period was shaped by many forces. Anne Moody’s family, community, education, interactions with various races, and her experiences outside of her hometown, shaped her into a devout activist for equal rights. As a child, the most important

Glenda Gilmore, in her essay “Forging Interracial Links in the Jim Crow South,” attempts to tackle the charged concepts of feminism and race relations during the infamous Jim Crow era. Her analysis focuses on both the life and character of a black woman named Charlotte Hawkins Brown, a highly influential member of the community of Greensboro, North Carolina. Brown defied the odds given her gender and race and rose to a prominent place in society through carefully calculated interracial relations. Gilmore argues that in rising above what was expected of her as a black woman, Brown was forced to diminish her own struggles as a black woman, and act to placate

Mrs. Browne was primarily influenced by the older civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Roy Wilkins while Kiswana took the ideas of pride and self-dependence from activists like Stokely Carmichael (Spangler 69). Kiswana’s attitude about what it means to be fighting for equality is shown when she tells her mother “My place was in the streets with my people, fighting for equality and a better community” (Naylor 368). This differs a great deal from her mother’s opinion of the way she fights for her social progress is shown when she states, “you kids thought you were going to turn the world upside down, and it just wasn’t so… you found yourself with a fistful of new federal laws and a country still full of obstacles for black people to fight their way over—just because they’re black. There was no revolution, Melanie, and there will be no revolution” (368). Mrs. Browne feels that the equality of African Americans will not come as a revolution as Kiswana thinks, but slowly like the legal action the NAACP had been taking since the 1930’s to abolish the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine (Spangler 56). The divide between mother and daughter represents the passing between the civil rights movement’s goal of legal equality as represented by Mrs. Browne’s opinions

The argument that the author is trying to prove is that there has been numerous of lynching events in America but it has progressed into different levels over the years to prevent African- Americans from getting a voice in America’s society. Such as, using lynching as punishment for people’s actions that were not accepted to the public community, a source of intimidation and protection of white women. Majority of white men and women tried every way to keep African- Americans at the bottom of society. Like, when blacks were free from slavery however were still not able to participate in politics, go to the best schools and were only able to work for the low paying jobs. Blacks

Throughout a life that stretched from slavery into her civil rights movement, Anna Julia Cooper defended the rights of all people to dignity, education, and respect. As an educated, competent, independent woman, she faced the double challenge of being African American and female in a society that was deeply racist and sexist, but with confidence and elegance, she challenged society’s assumptions about her. Her life was dedicated to the education of all people, but especially to taking care of the minds of black girls. “Throughout her activist adherence to her ideals, she provided an example of individual excellence rendered incandescent by service to the human community” (Berson, 1994).

Linda Hoyle did not seem to be bothered by any of the racial stigmas on the campus she had only protested once during her time at Virginia Tech. Scott was a part of a self-help group and Blackwell was a part of a biology pre-med club of which she was the only African America. However, these women stayed motivated. In spite of being the only African American women in each of their class and facing discrimination on a daily

Johnson, H. B. (2014). The American dream and the power of wealth: Choosing schools and inheriting inequality in the land of opportunity. Routledge.

She recalls most of the civil rights movements, “Everything that we learned was watched on TV, if you could afford one, gossip sometimes in person, but the most notorious events and horrific images came from the Deep South.”

In the summer of 1943, Dorothy jumped at the chance to head to Camp Pickett and earn extra money during the school break” (10) Dorothy worked as a teacher, it was one of the few jobs that African American women could get that paid well enough and still it wasn't much. Dorothy didn't have to take the job at camp picket but she did, she wanted to earn more money for her children and she wanted to contribute. The perspective is of a intelligent woman in the era of WWII that just wanted what was best for her family, she uses pathos here appealing to emotion and we see through her eyes as a woman and African American in this time .Dorothy got her chance in May of 1943 to work at Howard Institute, it was a job that would pay her more than double of what she was earning and her intelligence and her preparation would allow her to get the job and succeed as seen when shetterly wrote about her applying “ How soon could you be ready to start work? She knew the answer before her fingers carved it into the blank: 48 hours, she wrote.

Studies show that police are more likely to pull over and frisk blacks or Latinos than whites. In New York City, 80% of the stops made were blacks and Latinos, and 85% of those people were frisked, compared to a mere 8% of white people stopped (11 Facts about Racial Discrimination). America is known as the land of opportunity. Immigrants and people come from far and wide seeking success and achieving their dream in this land. There is a reason for that and throughout history this reason hasn’t changed. America is a melting pot. The most diverse country in the world. We have Asians, African Americans, Chinese, Indians and much more all living together as one. You go into any big business, law firm or

In a publication titled ‘Black Women in Academe’, author Yolanda Moses describes how “isolation, invisibility, hostility, indifference, and a lack of understanding of the Black women’s experiences are all too often part of the climate Black women may face on campuses” (Moses, 1989). The detrimental environment surrounding these women frequently results in sullenness, lack of social assertiveness, and belief that they are less competent than male students. Even if time spent at an academic institution is minimal, with this kind of prejudice faced at an early age, any woman- black or otherwise, would suffer the rest of their life. In response to the discrimination faced at universities, some have created programs to aid black students and other minorities; these programs tend to generalize the needs of all its black students and do not fully support black women specifically.

When in the course of life events, virtual fossils determine our future motivated by nothing but greed and a satisfaction of their own desires, to break away from this form of government becomes a duty. A duty to secure a future void of class struggle, class inequality, racism, and fascism.