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Native american cultural differences
Native american culture compared to another
Native americans treated unfairly
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Sharon olds in the passage “on the subway” is trying to write the similarities and differences between the way people are with a Caucasian and an African American. Sharon attempts this by using literary techniques like imagery, simile, and tone. Imagery is used to see the differences between a white women and a black boy, the the first part of the passage. The narrator is the white woman and the black boy is the observer; the the shoes that he is wearing are black with “white laces on them”.
In Terrance Hayes’s poem “Mr. T-,” the speaker presents the actor Laurence Tureaud, also known as Mr. T, as a sellout and an unfavorable role model for the African American youth for constantly playing negative, stereotypical roles for a black man in order to achieve success in Hollywood. The speaker also characterizes Mr. T as enormous and simple-minded with a demeanor similar to an animal’s to further his mockery of Mr. T’s career. The speaker begins his commentary on the actor’s career by suggesting that The A-Team, the show Mr. T stars in, is racist by mentioning how he is “Sometimes drugged / & duffled (by white men) in a cockpit,” which seems to draw illusions to white men capturing and transporting slaves to new territories during the time of the slave trade (4-5).
The books A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines and Kindred by Octavia E. Butler are set in different time periods but you can see the theme of society and setting playing a huge role on a person’s identity. The book Kindred is set over many years in the eighteen hundreds and in nineteen seventy six. The book A Lesson Before Dying is set in the nineteen forties. In both of these books you can see how the character’s setting affects how they act. Two main motifs that show through during these time periods in that of slavery and racism.
The detrimental and unfair categorization of people by race, gender and more, commonly known as discrimination, affects many in society both mentally and emotionally. Many instances of this act of hatred occurred among Aboriginal and Native Canadians in the 20th century. However, for a little Native Indian boy stepping onto the rink, this is the norm that surrounds him. Saul Indian Horse, in Richard Wagamese’s “Indian Horse”, faces discrimination head on, where his strengths for hockey are limited by the racial discrimination from the surrounding white ethnicity. Consequently, this racism draws him into a mentally unstable state, where he suffers heavy consequences.
The book focuses on a young boy named Arnold Spirit who shows persistence and bravery as he defies all odds and strides towards a happier more successful life than his parents and ancestors before him. Arnold is a bright, inspiring young boy who grows up with little fortune and is destined to continue down the path of a poor, misunderstood Indian. However, his fate changes for the better when a spark lights the fire inside of him to strive to pursue a better, more flourishing life as he makes an extraordinary decision to transfer to an all-white school for a worthier education. However, the drastic change of schools puts a burden on his family to get him to school as well as leads to extreme bullying from not just kids at his new school but also from his fellow Indians in his hometown. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, I learned that it doesn 't matter what your situation is and what you are expected to accomplish in your lifetime or what standards have already been set for you because you can be whoever you want to be with hard work, ambition, and confidence.
His ranting about ethnic pride leaves one with pride and reflects the liberal education he had at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he majored in Asian American studies. I empathize with him when I notice that Benjamin’s last name and his ethnic identity are the products of his adoption as an infant into an Asian American family. There is a similarity of character between his and mine ,this happened when few of my cousins took a trip to Calabar a state in Nigeria to go find the grave of my maternal great grandfather who was sent on exile for mix communication,he died and was buried there,a thing that never happened in the Benin kingdom a to a king. We experience the same attitude Benjamin character got from Ronnie. The first person we met as we enter the city misdirected us,after all said and done we find where he was buried we were filled with joy and we paid homage.furthermore the reason for Benjamin’s visit to New York City is a kind of pilgrimage during which he wants to pay homage to his recently deceased father.
In his book the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie portrays a teenage boy, Arnold Spirit (junior) living in white man’s world, and he must struggle to overcome racism and stereotypes if he must achieve his dreams. In the book, Junior faces a myriad of misfortunes at his former school in ‘the rez’ (reservation), which occurs as he struggles to escape from racial and stereotypical expectations about Indians. For Junior he must weigh between accepting what is expected of him as an Indian or fight against those forces and proof his peers and teachers wrong. Therefore, from the time Junior is in school at reservation up to the time he decides to attend a neighboring school in Rearden, we see a teenager who is facing tough consequences for attempting to go against the racial stereotypes.
This paper will first incorporate a summary of the author 's argument discussing how the experiences the two leading male character in Richard Wright 's "Down by the Riverside" and "Long Black Song" highlights racial oppression and alienation. Hakutani comparing and contrasting their shortcomings leads the audience to focus on the idea that during the Jim Crow conditions the results remain that African-Americans will always be inferior to Caucasians. Therefore, their suicidal actions gave them purpose and the ability to define their existence. Then, one will provide a sum up discussing one strength and one weakness of the article and what can be utilized from this piece of work. Overall, this article can be valued as a credible document for scholars seeking a summary of these two pieces of work.
The film Dances With Wolves is a moving, culturally significant American western film produced in 1990 and directed by Kevin Costner, who also plays the lead role of John J. Dunbar. It portrays a fictional account of the relationship between a soldier and a tribe of Sioux indians. In the beginning, Dunbar is an injured soldier who accidentally makes himself a hero while trying to commit suicide by riding his horse in front of the enemy. When given a choice for where he wants to be stationed he requests the frontier, because he wants to see it “before it’s gone. ”While stationed alone at Fort Sedgwick in Dakota territory, he befriends the people of a nearby Lakota tribe.
Guy Vanderhaeghe, author of “Dancing Bear”, explores both internal and external conflicts that man faces within society and within himself. Vanderhaeghe’s writing is intended to point out the importance and struggle of survival in literature. His work also presents the lives of those living troubled or dealing with a disability (Heath). The struggles of man versus man and man versus society are strongly spoken of within “Dancing Bear”. Vanderhaeghe describes a story of emotional battles of survival.
When his second grade teacher calls him “indian, indian, indian,” Victor says, “Yes, I am. I am Indian. Indian, I am” (Alexei 173). The conversation portrays parallelism in that Victor’s repetition echoes the way his teacher repeats “Indian”. Alexei’s use of a capitalization change portrays Victor’s desire to identify as Indian while the white community tries to assimilate him.
Morrison presents African Americans as conforming to the principles of society and utilizes Helene’s behavior towards Nel to exemplify it. Helene constantly reminds Nel to “pull her nose” so she could “grow up” with a “[nicer] nose” (55) and uses a “hot comb” (55) each week to have “smooth hair” (55). The act of altering Nel’s appearance displays Helene’s belief of Nel’s physicality to not be up to par with society’s standards, therefore discriminating against her African American heritage. The characteristics that Helene chooses to change make Nel unique to her African American heritage; therefore, by altering Nel’s image to that more of the white race, Morrison exemplifies the way discrimination influences African Americans to assimilate into the racist American society. Illustrated by the self-degradation of African Americans, Morrison displays the submissiveness and stupidity of racism.
In the passage on pages 76 and 77, in chapter 10, of Ragtime, Doctorow uses characterization, diction, symbolism and imagery to illustrate the dreary racism of the early 1900s and to foreshadow the less racist days to come. In the early 1900s, racism was abound, and Doctorow displays this using characterization and diction. Father, the archetypal middle class white man, struggles with life in the Arctic. However, Matthew Henson, the first African-American Arctic explorer, is thoroughly competent, “He [Henson] knew how to drive the dogs almost as well as an Esquimo,”(Doctorow 77).
In this novel the reader can see the inner turmoil within literature and its characters. There is a major shift present from supernatural and religious happiness, into individual driven happiness. Due to this newly valued individual independence, social boundaries in race and gender started to appear, thus causing the transition into the Harlem Renaissance, a movement that celebrated African American culture through artwork, literature, and music. Throughout this era elements of new identity, political challenging, and gender and racial improvements were all addressed and examined in the associated literature. The poem Legal Alien is a good example of the ideals encompassed in the era.
Though, this piece could not be published as it is deemed controversial. But for Cheryl, she knows it by heart, and it outlines the problem both the Metis and Indian people are going through. On the other hand, April despises her Metis culture and heritage. “‘… so anything to do with the Indians, I despised’” (40). April dreams of living similarly to a white person.
