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Racial Profiling In America
Introduction about racial profiling
Racial Profiling In America
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The author describes how the behaviors and beliefs of whites in the south had an impact on how the multiple generations of the Bosket males valued their respect and their reputation. The first generation of males began in the 1890’s with Clifton (Pud) Bosket who was alive during the worst time for lynching’s and the Jim Crow era. He had no education and hated the way whites treated blacks. He worked as a sharecropper under a boss that used a whip for punishment. On this day, as the landowner lifted the whip to hit Pud he snatched the whip away from him and said “this is the last nigger you’re gonna whip”.
In the article, “Breeds of America: Coming of Age, Coming of Race,” which was first published in the Harper’s magazine, William Melvin Kelley recalls his “confusing” childhood of being a colored citizen in the United States. He begins his memoir by portraying a simple skin comparison with his friends. An Italy kid was blushed because he had a same brown skin color as Kelly does under the sun. Kelly raised a question about that blush: why would brown skin make the Italy kid embarrassing? Then Kelly introduces the unfair collision of race and culture.
Every individual is born with a specific culture and color. Respecting each and every person is society’s duty. Society fails in doing so by treating each individual based on their color. Society has two ways to see a person and that is black and white. Whites are given the higher position and well treatment whereas blacks are treated in an opposite way than whites.
In Melba Pattillo Beals’ Warriors Don’t Cry, she recalls her adolescent years as being one of the nine African American students that chose to attend an all-white high school. In this memoir, she brings to light all of the horrible attacks they underwent. As a young girl, Melba became aware of the separation between whites and blacks, and strived to rise above that. She had a very religious family and black people during this time period learned to accept that they were less-privileged because of their skin color. She went to visit some relatives in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was astonished when white people were nice, or simply even smiled at her.
In his seminal book, Honor and Violence in the Old South, historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown argues that southern society differed from the northern states in three respects, what honor truly meant in the north vs. the south, honor as it related to southern whites, and the role of the woman in the household, that, Wyatt-Brown argues, always existed. Southerners adhered to this moral code that is termed the rule of honor. In defining an ethical institution that was omnipresent among a select few individuals in the south, the author argues that northern notions of honor differed significantly from how honor was perceived in the south. In the north, “honor… became akin to respectability, a word that included freedom from licit vices that once were signals of masculinity.” Drawing on a rich source of literature that is unbiased, Wyatt-Brown contends that the system of honor in the south differed ostensibly, as honor was “an encoded system, a matter of interchanges between the individual and the community to which he or she belonged.”
With Schutte’s background in journalism, social activism, and writing, she is able to bring out emotions within the reader. Schutte understands the past events relating to racism and is able to discuss the issues with the reader, with an informed background. The wording within the article demonstrates Schutte’s passion on the subject, and uses words such as defenseless, shock and horror to express her opinions on the racism that blacks fear and encounter daily. Schutte includes personal stories of victims of racial profiling and harm to establish pathos. Schutte discusses the discrimination that blacks face daily: being judged based on the color of their skin and not their intellectual ability or personality.
Pitt began his article with a powerful anecdote, “I am thinking of a 10-year old white boy I met in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1995... disgusted, he said, “No fair you have to do this because you’re this color and you have to do that because you’re that color. No fair.” He was speaking about his personal experience with this young boy that he met on a vacation. The reason that he used this anecdote was to support his claim of “Sometimes, the directness of children is eye-opening.”
When Ruth McBride was a teenager in Suffolk, VA, all she wanted was to be like the other teenagers in her school, white Anglo Saxon protestant Americans (McBride, 2006, p 109). In other words, she would have liked to conform to norms of the society that she spent most of her time with. However, because she was a Jew in the rural south in the 1930’s and 40’s, and because she was the child of an abusive and overbearing Orthodox Jewish father, she never had a chance to try (McBride, 2006). To conform to the norms of her society, Ruth would have had to remain obedient to her father and had as little interaction as possible with non-Jews and African American people
Elijah Anderson determined that there was a “Code of the Street.” This code exists in poor inner cities where the community creates their own “code” to survive. The community lacks opportunity, education, and their foundation is built on respect (Halnon, 2001). Anderson address how these poor communities are made up mostly of African Americans who tend to reject the expectations of white society. However, this is not always the case.
This week, the readings point the spotlight at the some of the depressing hardships that the African-American population frequently experience. In “Naughty by Nature”, Ann Ferguson covers the different perceptions that society has of colored boys. David Knight’s work “Don’t tell young black males that they are endangered” seeks to explain the differents outcomes of African-American youth that arise when society constantly oppresses them. The last article by Carla O’Connor, “The Culture of Black Femininity and School Success”, focuses on the image of African-American woman that is created as a result of them attempting to preserve in a system that opposes them.
A Tapestry Of Guidance Gossip has affected society for centuries, promoting a toxic conformity from the societal acceptance of the South’s deep-rooted racist nature. Children often imitate their parents' behaviors, acting on their discriminatory teaching and standardized derogatory language. Nowadays, intervening in another’s parenting can be deemed as rude or inappropriate since it is “not their child,” and not their place to say. Though when that child copies that behavior from home to outside of their dwelling, it is not always a positive effect.
domineering, too outspoken (Wallace 215). Although it was hard to live in a world full of racism at the time, it was almost impossible to be an African woman before the 2000’s. Because of people like Michele, society was told the hard truth, forcing America as a whole to treat everyone with respect and equality. After looking at The Black Panther Party, Malcolm X, and Michele Wallace, I showed many incidents of powerful protesting or speaking. With these resilient individuals, the racial issues in America have been able to improve.
In life, there’s Sometimes individuals that want to teach one the conduct that they think is right based on past experiences that they have lived through and others want one to learn and follow the behavior that is considered right at that point in time. In the essay “Notes of a Native Son” written by James Baldwin and the play “Master Harold” and the boys by Athol Fugard, the authors, using a father-son conflicted relationship informs the readers how hatred of an individual towards another race, in this case how the fathers view other races, can have a negative impact and change the way their children act towards another race and view that race. The issue of segregation is not common in the period we live in today, but in the year both stories
The Youngers’ faced these issues when trying to move into a predominantly white neighborhood. The family was alienated by the neighborhood in multiple ways. In one particular way, the community board thought that the Youngers’ would make the predominately white, upper-class neighborhood unclean because of them being the only black family to move into the neighborhood. There were times when the Younger family received unwanted looks and unfriendly responses from their neighbors. These types of accusations are morally wrong.
After watching her father fight hard for a case he was bound to loose, hearing all the mean names her family and Tom was called and hearing the news of Tom’s death she began to understand the reality of racism. “Just what I said. Grandma says it's bad enough he lets you all run wild, but now he's turned out a nigger-lover we'll never be able to walk the streets of Maycomb agin. He's ruinin' the family, that's what he's doin'.” (Lee, 110)