The Emmett Till And Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

Why is it so hard to be a Black person living in America? White culture has refused to see Blacks as equal. To prevent the collective success of Black folks, Whites have constructed obstacles to impede the intellectual growth of African-Americans. Even today, in order obtain basic human rights and have their own identity, Blacks cope with White supremacy and stereotypes. This is evident in the novels and stories read in this African-American Literature course. The psychological effects of being Black in America are the following. The Younger family, in A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, is not welcomed in an all-White neighborhood. Emmett Till, in “The Emmett Till Murder Case: A Chronology” by Douglas O. Linder, is ambushed by the

However, this one-way ticket all depends on the type or rank of the job established, in which will determine if the society will respect the Blacks or not. In The Street, the protagonist, Bub is an 8-year-old African-American boy who cleans shoes in the streets of Harlem for a low pay. However, Lutie, Bub’s mother, is outraged when she catches his own son cleaning shoes when she is returning home from work. Lutie perceives it in her mind: “if he’s shining shoes at eight, he will be washing windows at sixteen and running an elevator at twenty-one, and go on doing that for the rest of his life” (Petry 67). White society views Blacks as subservient and uneducated. Cleaning shoes, for example, is seen as an unskilled job because White society believes these kinds of jobs are meant for Blacks only –– low lives, inadequate, and inferior. Lutie seeing her own son clean shoes makes her think that Bub has accepted the stereotypes projected on Blacks. If a Black man starts cleaning shoes at an early age, he may move from one unskilled job to the next, the difference only being the location and a slight rise in pay. As a result of Bub’s service being seen as a slave-like job, Lutie is angry at Bub for accepting it. Therefore, Lutie slaps Bub for diminishing his self-worth. This is another example of the psychological effects of being Black in America because jobs like cleaning shoes in the streets are society’s way of saying that Blacks will never have upward mobility. As a result, it is hard for Blacks to find ranked, qualifying jobs due to the stereotype of Blacks being inferior, subservient, and uneducated. Lutie helps Bub to overcome White racism by making him acknowledge the negative stereotypes White people project on Blacks in regards to working an unskilled job. With the efforts