"True Colors" Reflection

I give this movie a six out of five-star rating. How it managed to keep me on the edge of my seat the entire time is beyond me; I am still in disbelief that I was fully engaged for the entire two hours and twenty-six minutes. Although I had heard many great things about the novel, the film exceeded all of my expectations. The Natural teaches many valuable lessons about perseverance, determination, commitment, karma, relationships, and staying young at heart.

It is evident that no matter how hard we try to avoid it race plays a major role in today’s society. Your race and/or nationality and skin color plays a lot in how you are seen and perceived by the world. The first thing you see when you look at a person is their skin color, which just

Prior to beginning my readings on white racial identity, I did not pay much attention to my white race. If someone had asked me to describe my appearance I would have said short blond hair, blue eyes, average stature, etc. One of the last things I would have noted was the color of my skin. Growing up in overwhelmingly white communities, I never thought to use the color of my skin to differentiate myself from others. Over the course of this dialogue I have learned that my white racial identity is one of the most defining aspects of my appearance in this society. There is a certain level of privilege that I am afforded based solely on the color of my skin. According to Peggy McIntosh, “White privilege is like an invisible weightless

Racism is a word that sparks a nerve in many individuals today. As hard as it is to believe, racism is still a big factor in what we as a society know as a unified America. Although, it is not as obvious as it was in the past, it still goes on, just in ways that are less noticeable. We ask the question, is the emphasis on a color-blind society an answer to racism. Ward Connerly claims it is a way to stop the segregation and make America a whole as it has been striving to be for the longest. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva believes color-blind racism is the new racial ideology and still brings about racial inequality. As the solution to the question progresses, we ask ourselves, will a

Oppression starts in the home. Despite its omnipresence, we don’t even notice its influence. And how could we? It is normal. It is all we know. We were raised, quite literally, in the domestic lair of oppression. People of color, in particular, face a particularly insidious type of oppression, one that is rationalized, one that forces households to strive endlessly to reach an ideal that is unattainable. Queer of color theory and intersectionality serve as frameworks through which to discuss the relationship between domesticity and gender, race, and sexuality for people of color.

Many times blacks who are of a lighter complexion are seen as “prettier or more desireable” towards other blacks today, and as stated previously, were offered better employment opportunities. However sometimes they are shunned by whites and blacks alike and are treated as outcasts by the community due to their inability to conform to a certain ethnicity. In the book “The Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man,” James Weldon Johnson depicts the fictional life of a biracial man living in the post-reconstruction era of America in the nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. In his early childhood days, the narrator frequently struggled with his personal identity after he was told to stand with the rest of his African American classmates during somewhat of an analyzation of the gender percentages by a certain staff member. “I wish all of the white scholars to stand for a moment. ‘I rose with the others, the teacher looked down at me and said ‘ You sit down for the present, and rise with the others. ‘I sat down dazed… A few of the white boys jeered me saying:’ Oh you’re a nigger too! ‘I heard some of the black children say,’ Oh, we knew he was colored, Shiny would say; ‘Come along don’t tease him, and thereby winning my undying gratitude.’” (Weldon 11) Before he was seemingly outed

The struggle for equality has existed throughout history. The color of a person’s skin seems to depict everything about them. Not only was this an issue in earlier times, but the present as well. The battle to overcome inequity was made significantly more troublesome in the Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896.

Furthermore, Christina Judith Hein, in Color-Blindness vs. Race Matters claims that a common goal cannot be that every individual is treated the same, regardless of their race, gender, or age, but rather, these differences require different responses within the social framework with certain norms and values. Reactions to an individual must be specific to that individual’s needs.

Sophomore Iman Hearing swings her flags gracefully over her shoulder and takes her place in line. As one of six, she marches down to the football field in front of the band, chin lifted and smiling big.

The misinterpretation of African Americans is very prominent in society. Claudia Rankine’s Citizen sheds light on the hyper-visibility of the African-Americans through stereotypes and invisibility of the Black body itself in an attempt to get readers to understand the inner conflicts of Black citizens. Citizen is composed of seven sections, which vary in length and content. The book is interspersed with photographs, sculpture, paintings, and other types of media. Rankine also draws from film and video, and various news media. Her descriptions of encounters between people of different races show how disconcerting words are and how they affect people. Though we often hear about deep-rooted institutional and cultural forces that contribute to racism, it appears that we less often hear about the psychological processes involved. Many would like to believe that racism is over, but society actions are a constant reminder of their true feeling about Blacks. Racial bias is prominent at all levels of the institution and it paralyzes the race as a whole. Rankine uses pronouns, anecdotes, and visual art to uncover the unconscious nature of racism and extend the conversation. The audience is both the eyewitness and the victim in this “post-racial” society that fails to teach us how to be a citizen. In allowing us, the readers and audience, to subject ourselves to this hurt, we experience, an understanding of true citizenship by identifying the wrongs and understanding the difference.

Back in the early 1800’s, the color of one’s skin mattered amongst African Americans and Caucasian people. There was infidelity between the Caucasian slave owners and the African American slaves. Of course, the outcome of that produced a fairer toned child. In most cases the child could pass as white. The mixed toned kids got to be inside doing housework, while the dark Negroes worked in the fields, under extraneous work conditions,”their dark-toned peers toiled in the fields”(Maxwell). From the early 1800’s to modern day, there is controversy that light or bi-racial African Americans are better than dark colored African Americans. African Americans had to go through tests to see if they were able to receive priviledges

Today the dominate etiquette around race is colorblindness. It has a strong moral appeal, for it laudably envisions an ideal world in which race is no longer relevant to how we perceive or treat each other. (77)

Many are unaware of the effects that race has played in their lives over the years. Some may not understand its implications, but are very oblivious to it. Race can influence such things like attitude and behavior. Nowadays being white or black means something more than just a Crayola color. No longer are they just colors, they are races with their own rules and regulations. People of color have been inferior to the white race for centuries. In their own way Zora Neale Hurston shows this concept in her story “How it feels to be Colored Me” as does Richard Wright in his autobiographical sketch “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”.

This semester I learned a lot about writing in English 151. It has been a roller coaster ride with these essays for me this semester. I learned step by step how to write a good essay and how to have your readers be engaged in what you’re trying to tell them. Each essay I did has taught me something valuable I can take to the next level of English. I feel as if as the semester went by I did not take my writing that seriously and that reflected in my grades I received in each essay. It made me a better student and writer and it will reflect next semester. In this essay, I will reflect on what I learned throughout this semester that you should apply in your writing when you begin English 151.

Through history, humanity had to deal with the same constant problem: racism. As a matter of fact, there is more than one type of racism. For example, there is racism by religion, by language, by country, by genre, and also by race. Apparently, society has a global idea of what is acceptable and what is politically correct. The story “Effigies” by Lucinda Roy, develop around Samuel Bernard Monroe, who always identify himself with, he believed, the right racial group, indeed he made a career out of “being black”. After all, the credibility of his identity is then in judgment after his nemesis Seraye Underwood, who was a “true black person” with strong skills and knowledgment about African-American studies, based her argument against him in the fact that he didn’t look “black”. The term of what counts is quality, not quantity, is globally known, as well as the achievements of a person do not have a color. As result, not having a specific cultural background nor physical characteristic should be part in the judgment of someone’s ability, moreover it shouldn't be a reason to hire or fire a person.