This week we were assigned to read to different articles. The first article was written by Peggy McIntosh titled, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. Throughout the article, Peggy showed the readers what it means to have white privilege. She showed the readers 50 different types of “advantages” that whites get over other races, such as African Americans. This is the biggest theme throughout her entire piece.
Jeremy Dowsett is determined in countering the racist arguments that are prevailing in the current world. He is not happy about the “white privilege” that the blacks and other non-whites direct to the white people in the society. The author does not like hearing another person telling him about "white privilege" because of his color. Dowsett uses the bicycle formula to explain how the blacks are the minority in a particular place such as the US, hence, perceiving most of the opportunities that the whites obtain as a result of “white privilege.” In his analogy, he recounts how drivers acted aggressively towards him whenever he tries to share the road with them.
The burden of the black man is the time in the lives of the Africans where they have to defend themselves from the colonizers, or to them, the white westerners. In the poem The Black Man’s Burden, by H.T. Johnson in 1899 as a reply to The White Man’s Burden, Johnson says “Pile on the Black Man’s Burden/ His wail with laughter drown/You’ve sealed the Red Man’s problem/And will take up the Brown.” (Johnson 9-12) This excerpt shows readers exactly what the Africans were forced to go through.
Within the psychology of humans, tendencies of violence are a part of all personalities. Though, in most cases, humans are able to conceal the many negative flaws within; however, others struggle to suppress that part of their personality. In Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde, a mysterious character by the name of Mr. Hyde is introduced. In Victorian England, Mr. Hyde is feared by all of the town’s citizens, adding to the man’s ominous character.
White Privilege: Essay 1 White privilege is a systemic issue that has roots in our history as far back as the creators of our country. Searching back, we see our norms and values created into habits that have been woven into how we view and act around specific groups such as African Americans. This essay is going to explain how the average Caucasian individual experiences white privilege on a day to day basis and the solutions to insure that white privilege will stop and true equality can be handed out. This paper views the latter issues through symbolic interactionism, with supporting sub theories such as; labeling theory, looking glass self, and selective perception.
In the play A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry introduces a family trying to move up in the world but has trouble doing so because they are racially opposed by society. Starting in the 1890’s the Jim Crow Laws were used in the South as a way to oppose African-American giving them a status called, “separate but equal.” They mandated segregation of public schools, public transportation, public facilities including restaurants, bathrooms, and drinking fountains. In the 1950s African- Americans were starting to fight for equal rights and were starting to make headway.
Frederick Douglass’s “What the Black Man Wants” captures the need for change in post Civil War America. The document presses the importance for change, with the mindset of the black man being, ‘if not now then never’. Parallel to this document is the letter of Jourdon Anderson, writing to his old master. Similar to Douglas, Mr. Anderson speaks of the same change and establishes his worth as freed man to his previous slave owner. These writings both teach and remind us about the evils of slavery and the continued need for equality, change, and reform.
Kipling enforced this as his main idea in his poem .Mainly saying that it is America’s right to take the white man’s burden and use it just as others have before them, but In due time all blacks depended on the performance of these jobs and the ability to control the anger and shame they felt every waking moment at the position they had been placed in unwillingly. “The spirit can die as well as the body, and fear, anger and sadness can kill a person yet let them keep breathing and feeling.” To me the burden he spoke of was just that, sorrow, hate and a sense of injustice caused by the white man taking the very power over their own lives away, and replacing it with nothing worth living for. This Compared to what Galton and Kidd stated is very different but consisted of the same topic of racial issues that occurred because of Imperialism.
Slavery can easily be determined as one of the most blatant acts of dehumanization. In the narrative titled “Narrative Of The Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass is easily able to portray this by quoting, “I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man”, Chapter 10 page 45. The quote overall does illustrate to the reader the narrator’s reflection to slavery as a whole as he states they were deprived of not only their basic
Although slaves demonstrated some agency through rebellion, slaves were dehumanized through the labor they performed and the ways they were forced to work. Slaves spent most of their time working, and, as former slave Harry McMillan stated in an interview, the conditions under which they were forced to work were horrendous; “Q: ‘How many hours a day did you work?’ A: ‘Under the old secsh times every morning till night- beginning at daylight and continuing till 5 or 6 at night’ Q: ‘But you stopped for your meals?’ A: ‘You have to get you victuals standing at your hoe; you cooked it overnight yourself or else an old woman was assigned to cook for all the hands, and she or your children brought the food to the field.’ ‘Q: You never sat down and
Critical Whiteness Studies responds to the invisible and normative nature of whiteness in predominantly white societies, criticizing racial and ethnic attribution of non-white subjects who have to grapple with their deviation from the set norm, and opening the discussion on white privilege that results from being the unmarked norm (Kerner: 278). As Conway and Steyn elaborate, Critical Whiteness Studies aims to “redirect[...] the scholarly gaze from the margins to the centre” (283) and, more specifically, to interrogat[e][...] the centre of power and privilege from which racialization emanates but which operates more or less invisibly as it constructs itself as both the norm and ideal of what it means to be human. (ibid.) Thus, Critical Whiteness
“White isn't a race, its a state of mind”, stated by Rachael Dolezal. It could be a common question people ask you in a social or private conversation. All human beings are born a certain race depending on what their birth parents ethnicity or race is. In the US, people are saying they are a different race than they actually are which ends up blowing up in their face, especially politically and socially. Because a lady named Rachael Dolezal is falsely claiming she is black when proven white, society believes she is “mentally ill” and taking it too far as a chosen performance.
Systemic Racism in the United States Many individuals today have different point of views on how the United States of America became what it is today. For instance, point of views such as how society learned to function the way it does, the law and order in place, and ultimately, how circumstances have developed throughout history. Unfortunately, institutional/institutionalized racism, also known as systemic racism is also a concept that has settled and is grown to be quite predominant in the United States all through times past. Systemic racism continues to take place in settings such as banks, courts of law, government organizations, school systems, and the like.
A problem I would like to solve is the prevalent racial inequality in the United States today. African Americans and Hispanics are the most underserved racial groups in American society. About 45% of African Americans and 46% of Hispanics live in episodic poverty (defined as poverty lasting less than three years). Over 15% of African Americans are unemployed, and they make up 40% of the prison population in America. This is a shocking statistic, as only 13% of the United States ' population is African American.
Poetry Analyzation: Both Cowper and Poe have very distinct writing styles and techniques, as Cowper writes poetry that revolves around religion and Poe differs with essays that involve many imaginative and dark aspects, such as a theme of death. In one of his poems “The Negro’s Complaint” , Cowper demonstrates his writing skills through a controversial poem that brings god and slavery together. This poem was used as an act of conscience, because of the guilt he felt for the “sin” of using African-Americans as pawns of slavery by his people. Cowper made this poem to give those who are not heard, a voice, and to raise awareness for those who cannot riot or protest for their own freedom, hoping to result with putting reality into the conscience of slave owners.
