Directions: 1) Post your concept. This may be your freewriting ideas, your working thesis statements, whatever would give your classmates enough info to follow your working argument. Add your first 2-3 quotations to help us see the moves you want to make in the opening body paragraphs. Finally, explain where you want to end. What's your point? If you do not have an answer to any of the above, let us know so we can help you. 3) Read each other's responses and give helpful feedback. Let's see if we can divide an conquer. Everyone pair up and help. When you finish, choose another to add feedback.
Homework: Post your first body paragraph. We will work on grammar and style.
“You can leave home all you want, but home will never leave you.”
ReplyDelete—Sonsyrea Tate
Thesis: You carry your “home” with you everywhere you go. This society which you grow up in shapes your ideas and actions. In the works of Toni Morrison and James Baldwin, the uncomfortability of talking about racism creates confusion and breeds these ideas, sometimes to the point that the offenders may not realize just how racist they are because it becomes the norm and you are a product of your surroundings.
-I am going to talk analyze how Jesse’s childhood shaped his ideas and actions as an adult and apply this same concept to Recitatif through the lense of you “Home” being the society you grew up with.
”At that moment Jesse loved his father more than he had ever loved him. He felt that his father had carried him through a mighty test, had revealed to him a great secret which would be the key to his life forever.”
”He tried to be a good person and treat everybody right...He was only doing his duty: Protecting white people from the niggers and the niggers from themselves.”
”Men much older than he...were now much quieter than they had been, and the tone of their jokes...had changed…”
Hi Kathleen, Look at the post above yours. Alex has some interesting information she is using to build on "Going to Meet the Man" which may prove to be helpful. That first quotation about Jesse and his father is the key to your whole essay. The second quotation is also very important, because he was trained to think this way. Well done! Also, think about how Jesse's anger in the present directly correlates to what happened in the past. Even his inability to be with his wife is connected to the "event." Baldwin is showing that there is a reason why Jesse thinks about that day while he lies in bed reflecting on that night at the police station, for example.
DeleteI think it's interesting to think about how "home" affects everyone, especially how growing up in Andover affects all those who do. Childhoods like Jesse's are something you can't forget even though you would most likely want to, I think it would important to analyze the effect of parental figures in that situation and maybe also generational differences too. Most if not all of our grandparents, and some of our parents even, grew up in a time where everything was still segregated, which affects their beliefs and the beliefs they pass onto their children. When we watched I Am Not Your Negro, the events from the 60s and around that time really weren't that long ago. I really like your essay topic and I think it has good direction.
DeleteKathleen, I love your ideas. I think that your thought process in how you are incorporating each text is quite similar to mine; I am also discussing how the setting or 'home' of an area affects an individual. Particularly in Going to Meet the Man and Recitatif, the setting plays a large role in the characters, for example, of Twyla and Roberta, and it also transforms the path of the story as a whole. I think that a potential quote for your essay that I am also using could be, "His father had...revealed to him a great secret which would be the key to his life forever,” -Going to Meet the Man
DeleteI really like the stories that you are using to support your prompt. I can tell you put a lot of thought into it and am excited to see where it will take you
DeleteAlso I don't know if my point about education is too obvious and I should restructure
ReplyDeleteToni Morrison and James Baldwin showcase the factors in determining who a character grows up to be. Characters will start off to be similar and innocent, but it is with their childhood influences that affect who they grow up to be. Although it is the people that they are surrounded by, everything is skewed by the single story. The single story will spread until it becomes the only story known. The danger of a single story is a big factor in defining who someone is because it affects their surroundings which will shape and influence them the most.
ReplyDelete- “We got along all right, Roberta and me. Changed beds every night, got F's in civics and communication skills and gym. The Bozo was disappointed in us, she said. Out of 130 of us state cases, 90 were under twelve. Almost all were real orphans with beautiful dead parents in the sky. We were the only ones dumped and the only ones with F's in three classes including gym. So we got along-what with her leaving whole pieces of things on her plate and being nice about not asking questions” (3).
- “She was sitting in a booth smoking a cigarette with two guys smothered in head and facial hair. Her own hair was so big and wild I could hardly see her face. But the eyes. I would know them anywhere. She had on a powder-blue halter and shorts outfit and earrings the size of bracelets. Talk about lipstick and eyebrow pencil. She made the big girls look like nuns” (6).
- “every white man he saw was the man that killed his brother” (8)
Hi Michelle, I like where is is going. I would review "The Danger of the Single Story" and use some of Adichie's reflections to help structure your argument. Next, both "Sonny's Blues" and "Recitatif" have great paths to explore for the characters: Sonny, the narrator, Twyla and Roberta all have distinctly different lives, yet all end up with similar difficulties. Also check out the comments I gave to Alexandra, above. There is some good info in the documentary "13th" that will help your argument, too.
DeleteI really like your idea of applying the single story to Toni Morrison and James Baldwin. I think that it will be really helpful to focus on that loss of innocence and the cause behind it.
DeleteI really like the quotes you chose as evidence of the single story. Some are more literal than others, but they all show different stages in the development of the single story. I think you can go a lot of directions with the idea that the single story is not assumed by an individual all at once, but that it is a gradual change affected by their environment.
DeleteHi Michelle, I really like the ideas you have brought forth in your essay topic. I believe we are doing the same prompt and I really like how you are bringing up the effects of one's childhood in particular; I think that a good story you could use where there is a profound case of the effects of childhood is Going to Meet the Man. I also like how you brought up The Danger of a Single Story as well - I think that will be a great source for your essay.
DeleteThesis: Baldwin’s dialogue on racial conflict suggests that it is not so much a natural state of animosity towards another group, but is rather perpetuated by the structure and experience of “home” in America.
ReplyDeleteConcept 1- Separation, private v. public selves
“The singing came from far away, across the dark fields.” - disconnected from it, separation between homes- fields, history of labor (1755)
“Otis can’t do nothing, he’s too little…We just want to make sure Otis don’t do nothing” (1756)
Otis is Jesse and his parents' "private life"- friend, story of one
"I have always been struck, in America, by an emotional poverty so bottomless, and a terror of human life, of human touch, so deep that virtually no American appears able to achieve any viable, organic connection between his public stance
and his private life. -Baldwin
"If Americans were not so terrified of their private selves, they would never have become so dependent on what they call
'The Negro Problem.'" -Baldwin
- Emma
DeleteI think we have the same prompt, and I really like your idea of the separate experiences of "home" in America. On thing that might be interesting to explore within this theme as well is how a white persons home in America compares to that of a black person, highlighting the fact that the system in in favor of white people. Baldwin has a really interesting quote toward the end of the documentary about how he knows more about white people than they know about black people because white people have not had to observe black people. I feel like this could tie into your concept.
DeleteThesis statement of purpose:
ReplyDeleteThe home one leave’s is the home one cannot return to. In “Sonny’s Blues” and “Recitatif,” the shared homes of individuals define their changing understanding one another as they grow while illuminating truths about white supremacy's relationship with America.
Order quotes
“But what about if somebody tries to kill her?" I used to wonder about that. "Or what if she wants to cry? Can she cry?" "Sure," Roberta said. "But just tears. No sounds come out."
"Listen to me. I really did think she was black. I didn't make that up. I really thought so. But now I can't be sure. I just remember her as old, so old. And because she couldn't talk- well, you know, I thought she was crazy. She'd been brought up in an institution like my mother was and like I thought I would be too. And you were right. We didn't kick her. It was the gar girls. Only them. But, well, I wanted to. I really wanted them to hurt her. I said we did it, too. You and me, but that's not true. And I don't want you to carry that around. It was just that I wanted to do it so bad that day-wanting to is doing it."
“Roberta coughed on her cigarette and the two guys rolled their eyes up at the ceiling." Hendrix. Jimi Hendrix, asshole. He's only the biggest-Oh, wow. Forget it." I was dismissed without anyone saying goodbye, so I thought I would do it for her. "How's your mother?" I asked. Her grin cracked her whole face. She swallowed. "Fine," she said. "How's yours?" "Pretty as a picture," I said and turned away. The backs of my knees were damp. Howard Johnson's really was a dump in the sunlight.”
(these quotes are from "Recitatif" but quotes about "Sonny's Blues" are later on)
Concepts from freewriting:
If America is home to millions, and white supremacy defines American culture, it is nearly impossible, to “leave” this culture, and ignoring its presence does nothing to get rid of it. How does white supremacy play into American culture and how does ignoring it allow someone to play into the standards of white supremacy? I also want to look at how the idea of home and returning to a common point plays into “Sonny’s Blues” and “Recitatif.” In these works I pictured the 2 opposing characters moving in a diamond shape: starting from a common point, diverging from this path and then returning at the end, even if just for the briefest time. In Recitatif I can look at the innocence of the childhood relationship, of the idea of finding this brief home in one another, and how this innocence is tarnished by the memory of Maggie they can’t understand. Home cannot just be an innocent memory able to be forgotten if it has this idea woven in. The fact that they can’t return home then becomes important. I also want to look at Sonny's Blues. The narrator and Sonny return to one another, finally understand one another (unlike the two women) and in this way home is changed for them. Their relationship is changed and the way they look at their homes and their pasts with one another changes as well. They achieve returning home in a sense, yet it is not the same home they believed they once knew.
I'm not totally sure where I want the essay to end. I want larger themes of white supremacy and America to tie into the ideas from the short stories later on so I might look into quotes and ideas from the documentary like this, “It is not a negro problem, it is a problem of looking at your life, being responsible for it, and then beginning to change it”
Your idea seems really good regarding how home is often intertwined with these negative past events. I think you could definitely tie the latter ideas into this topic by detailing how they are a large part of defining one's home or history despite being negative. I'm not too certain myself, but I might try to focus more on elaborating on the idea of returning to a different home as it's a bit tricky to grasp. Other than that, your overall ideas seem really interesting and strongly supported.
DeleteThis is excellent, Audrey. I think your quote from Baldwin is a good one to end with. The final interview with Baldwin also includes his "solution" in the form of a question, which still remains unanswered in the larger conversation today: "If I'm not the n- here
Deleteand you invented him, you the white people invented him, then you've got to find out why.
And the future of the country depends on that, whether or not it's able to ask that question."
Concept (sort of a mess to read through):
ReplyDeleteMany of the texts we’ve dealt with covered the issue that racism, discrimination, and its underlying problem within society. On a tangible level, the physical events are covered, but the texts also manage to describe the innate predisposition towards these actions. Psychologically, we are creatures of habit. Following in our ancestor’s footsteps, we continue their habits as means of self sustenance and a feeling of safety and awareness. When these primal aspects of life are questioned, conflict typically arises. The issue of racism at the time caused many people a great deal of distress on both sides. The slave owners’ lives relied on the labour and mental attribution of slaves to be like machines in a factory. Trying to remove this from them, and making them respect them as people meant going out of personal comfort and sacrificing what they knew. Though not justification, racism is not as simple as discussing the tragic events which occurred historically, but also the mindsets of both sides and societal integration surrounding this.
Quotes:
“The story of the Negro in America is the story of America, and it is not a pretty story.”
I hoped to describe how the struggles of race in America were not merely their issue, yet instead a societal issue through which America as a whole needed to progress.
“For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness.”
“Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did.”
In these two quotes from Sonny's Blues, I aimed to cover how the societal issues were largely avoided and that the only way to address them was to face the truth about what is truly happening.
In summary, I'm planning to look into describing the psychological struggles experienced through such events beyond the physical events that occurred and how the underlying issue fueling this is a societal issue of avoidance and habit.
Interesting. You talk about slave labor and physical events and kind of failing to address the truth, which kind of reminds me of this quote from the documentary
Delete"For a very long time, America prospered. This prosperity cost millions of people their lives. Now, not even the people who are the most spectacular recipients of the benefits of this prosperity are able to endure these benefits. They can neither understand them nor do without them. Above all, they cannot imagine the price paid by their victims, or subjects, for this way of life, and so they cannot afford to know why the victims are revolting. This is the formula for a nation or a kingdom decline."
Thanks, that quote definitely seems quite pertinent. I'll try to see if I can use it somehow.
DeleteWow! The "Texas textbook" is an impressive argument. Where did you find this source? I'd love to know more about this. There is also a documentary called "13th" on Netflix that discusses the systematic, economic repercussions of slavery. This may be helpful to your piece. Tying your piece directly to "Going to Meet the Man" is a great place to start. Also, from "I am Not Your Negro," there is the moment from the Dick Cavett Show with the Yale professor. He appears to be a student of the mythology from the Texas textbook. To narrow your focus, think about beginning with the misconception taught to students and society, followed by James Baldwin's argument in "Going to Meet the Man," and so on as you described above (it is brilliant!). The place to end may be with a possible "solution" about American Education. In an ideal world, what would our history books look like? How could we get that to happen in the United States? Look at the new museum in Washington D.C. The website can be found in https://nmaahc.si.edu/ There may answers there.
ReplyDeleteThe concept for my essay focuses around the ideas of the power of music. I want to talk about social and cultural impact along with zeroing in on aspects like how it brings people together, how it can help people and how it can be used as a part of bigger issues. I would like to use outside sources like more modern music examples but I'm not sure if I'll have enough space to fit it in. The point of my essay is to help people to understand the value of music as they may not have considered it before. Many people can listen to music without thinking about the powerful meaning behind it. I hope to highlight the important events that happen-in relation to songs (for example: protests), what they can do for people and who they are affecting. I’d like to end on a positive note about the way that music can help people. Much like Sonny’s recovery through Jazz I’d like to show how people are able to do that and will continue to do that in the future.
ReplyDeleteMy working intro is:
Everyday you walk through the world you are bombarded by sounds. Whether it be from the people around you, animals, construction work, a TV channel, etc. One of the most influential things you can hear throughout your day is music, whether it happens to be elevator music or a song on the radio; music you love or music you hate. It can become a part of your life in surprising ways, for example, helping you through mental health issues, drug abuse or even disputes between friends. It has the power to connect and bring people together in mysterious ways. Music is something that has a special power over every person on this earth and can be used to bring someone up or tear them down.
Quotes:
Going To Meet The Man: “‘All that singing they do,’ he said. ‘All that singing.’ He could not remember the first time he had heard it; he had been hearing it all his life. It was the sound with which he was most familiar-though it was also the sound of which he had been least conscious- and it had always contained an obscure comfort. They were singing to God. They were singing for mercy and they hoped to go to heaven, and he had even sometimes felt, when looking into the eyes of some of the old women, a few of the very old men, that they were singing for mercy for his soul, too.” (4)
Sonny's Blues: “Then Creole stepped forward to remind them that what they were playing was the blues. He hit something in all of them, he hit something in me, myself and the music tightened and deepend, apprehension began to beat the air. Creole began to tell us what the blues were all about. They were not about anything very new.” (47)
“Sonny’s fingers filled the air with life, his life. But that life contained so many others.” (47)
“But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air. What is evoked in him, then, is of another order, more terrible because it has no words, and triumphant too, for that same reason.” (45)
The concept that I am looking at in my essay is a “character” who is in opposition of their society. I chose to pull quotes mainly from the I Am Not Your Negro documentary. I thought that this gave really strong examples of how James Baldwin was the the minority in a mainly white society, and what his struggles were. I also found examples in Sonny’s Blues. Both dealing with race, but also battling a heroin addiction puts the plot line in a very unusual place, that is not often thought of when we think of “what America is”, and certainly not what the white majority back then would think of their population.
ReplyDeleteQuotes:
Baldwin: “There are days in this country when you wonder what your role in this country is and your place in it. How precisely are you going to reconcile yourself to your situation here and how you are going to communicate to the vast, heedless, unthinking, cruel white majority that you are here?”
Baldwin: “To watch the TV screen for any length of time is to learn some really frightening things about the American sense of reality. We are cruelly trapped between what we would like to be and what we actually are. And we cannot possibly become what we would like to be until we are willing to ask ourselves just why the lives we lead on this continent are mainly so empty, so tame, and so ugly.”
Narrator (Sonny’ Blues): “I saw my mother's face again, and felt, for the first time, how the stones of the road she had walked on must have bruised her feet. I saw the moonlit road where my father's brother died. And it brought something else back to me, and carried me past it, I saw my little girl again and felt Isabel's tears again, and I felt my own tears begin to rise. And I was yet aware that this was only a moment, that the world waited outside, as hungry as a tiger, and that trouble stretched above us, longer than the sky.”
I am still working to develop my essay in a way that I can include many influential pieces, because I believe this topic is very relevant in a lot of materials that we have looked at in class
I think that you have really strong quotes that could work to make a really powerful idea. The struggle of minorities not only in the US but across the globe is something that it seems like we've only recently started beginning to focus on. I think it would be interesting if you talked about media and representation within things like TV and movies along with how often minorities are talked about in the news and how much is positively or negatively represented, if you were interested in that. The quote, "To watch the TV screen for any length of time is to learn some really frightening things about the American sense of reality..." really lends itself to that topic. Also, I think it will be interesting to see what you do with what the white majority thought of their population and its struggles, during many of the events of the past and even maybe the events of today.
DeleteI plan to use the prompt from 2010. In it, it asks you to analyze the importance of home to a character and the reasons for its influence. I will use “Sonny’s Blues” and I Am Not Your Negro to show how the city of Harlem has affected the characters. I will analyze both how other people view Harlem and how the characters themselves view Harlem. I will also use I Am Not Your Negro to talk about how James Baldwin felt when he went to France and then returned to the United States. I will analyze why his everyday life was so much easier outside of the U.S. One part of the prompt that specifically stood out to me was when it said, “Choose a novel or play in which a central character leaves home yet finds that home remains significant.” I think this connects very well to the stories we have read since we have discussed in class how the place you are from doesn’t just disappear once you leave that location. It stays with you for a majority of your life and impacts how you act and how you are perceived by others.
ReplyDeleteQuotes (so far):
“We were segregated from the schoolhouse door. Therefore, he doesn't know, he really does not know, what it was like for me to leave my house, to leave the school and go back to Harlem.
He doesn't know how Negroes live.” -I Am Not Your Negro
“You don't know what's happening on the other side of the wall, because you don't want to know.” -I Am Not Your Negro
“I said, if you was white, you'd be alright. If you was brown, stick around. But as you's black, oh, brother… I had at last come home. If there was, in this, some illusion, there was also much truth. In the years in Paris, I had never been homesick for anything American.” -I Am Not Your Negro
“Some escaped the trap, most didn't. Those who got out always left something of themselves behind, as some animals amputate a leg and leave it in the trap. It might be said, perhaps, that I had escaped, after all, I was a school teacher; or that Sonny had, he hadn't lived in Harlem for years.” -Sonny’s Blues
“It came to me that what we both were seeking through our separate cab windows was that part of ourselves which had been left behind.” -Sonny’s Blues
I still need to create my thesis and decide how I would like my essay to end.
I like the idea you're working on as it has a lot of strong supporting details you touched on. I think there's a lot of places you could go with the topics you mentioned. While I think they're all strong, I personally would narrow them down to being less broad as its often easy to lose track of where you were going with a topic. Overall, I think your idea is well developed.
DeleteThank you Oliver. That is a good point. That may be why I am having trouble constructing my thesis statement.
DeleteYour idea for the essay was similar to mine! I think your overarching idea of the lack of education makes sense in the context, and the quotes you chose aligned nicely with this theme. Including the Texas Instruments quote may be tricky because it strays away from the main works we studied, but I think if it can be contacted back to the main poin throughly than it is an excellent addition.
ReplyDeleteI think your idea about how an education isn't an education until the whole truth is taught would work well as a main thesis for your essay, hopefully this could help you narrow your concept.
Working thesis ideas: Racism is merely a social construct, those susceptible to these ideas are vulnerable (typically the youth), just feeding off of their environment. But this hate can being scaring for not only victims but those witness to it as Jesse was in such a cruel manner. He had his innocence and right to his own ideals washed away so abruptly. This leads to his complex relationship with those in minorities later on in life.
ReplyDeleteI don’t my ideas in my thesis are clear cut enough or if i’m getting my point across in the most efficient manner
The main idea of my paper has to do with the psyche of someone like Jesse who has had racism essentially forced upon him and his evident struggles with that as he gets older. His love hate relationship with the African American race is very interesting, something that I don’t even think he understands. He has had these ideals forced upon him but I think the young boy inside of him still knows it’s wrong. In my first body paragraph I want to touch upon how he had his innocence stripped from him so suddenly.
Quotes: “What did he do Jesse wondered… but he could not ask his father”
(Need More)
I like how you're writing about how someone's environment might affect how they act, and how it can destroy one's innocence/beliefs
DeleteConcept:
ReplyDeleteI am using Prompt 2012 for my essay. The main focus is on setting. I want to delve into how setting affects the behaviors and morals of Baldwin’s characters. Not only that, but I also want to connect this to how setting has affected Baldwin himself, which will hopefully help cement my argument.
Quotes:
“Once, twelve years ago, we behaved like strangers...now we were behaving like sisters separated for much too long,” -Recitatif
“He had a black friend his age, eight, that lived nearby,” -Going to Meet the Man
“His father had...revealed to him a great secret which would be the key to his life forever,” -Going to Meet the Man
“In the years in Paris, I had never been homesick for anything American,” -I Am Not Your Negro
Thesis:
The environment of an individual has a profound effect on not only their character, but their deepest morals and values. In the works of James Baldwin as well as his own life, he frequently demonstrates just how exponentially a character’s setting affects the path of the story.
First paragraph mainly discuss effect of setting in Baldwin’s works
Talk about how Jesse is originally tolerant of black Americans, but his culture - mainly his father - completely transforms his view of them
Go into how the girls in Recitatif had completely different interactions with each other each time they crossed paths→ were best friends, then hated each other, then had a mutual respect, hated each other again, etc.
In next paragraph, go into the effects of setting on Baldwin himself
When in Paris, his focus and goals were completely transformed from those in America
In Sonny’s Blues, the fresh environment of the club where Sonny is performing gives him a new perspective on his brother’s goals and dreams, and he finally understands where his brother has been coming from this whole time
In closing, summarize the overarching effect of setting→ go into how it has the ability to transform views about race, dreams, and deep set values
I really like how you focused on society's effect on morals and behavior. Since you are using a few different settings and examples it might be helpful to narrow your focus to one or two specific morals to show the difference over time with new experiences. With a more narrow focus, you can delve deeper into your analysis effectively.
DeleteI really like your concept of looking at how the reader viewed or interpreted the particular works we read beyond just analyzing the works themselves. If you want a more concise purpose to the essay, you could fully explore this idea of the experience of reading and how our personal education/ upbringing impacts of reading of these works. I don't think the point about education is too obvious because i think there are a lot of unique and interesting ways you can explore the idea that you went into. If you do want to make narrow the works you use you might want to choose weather you want to focus on analyzing the texts or analyzing how we view the texts.
ReplyDeleteSo like my thesis: ***this is like a very rough draft kind of thing, I need to change the wording and formalize it, but you get the idea***
ReplyDeleteNo author has a desire within them to use cruelty in their writing. Cruelty is not without purpose, it is not used to make the reader feel guilty, or to shock them to a point of disbelief like so often assumed. But rather, when an author uses cruelty in their literature, like Baldwin so often did, it’s because a point must be made and this is the most effective way to do it. In Baldwin’s work, he uses cruelty to reveal to the White reader something that is so often ignored, the reality of what our country was, and still is, in regards to racism. Getting uncomfortable is okay, ignoring the things that make you uncomfortable are not.
Some Quotes from Sources We’ve Used:
**These quotes are going to be some of the more graphic ones that Baldwin uses, because that’s the whole point of my essay.**
“Jesse wanted to go over to him and pick him up and pistol whip him until the boy's head burst open like a melon. He began to tremble with what he believed was rage, sweat, both cold and hot, raced down his body, the singing filled him as though it were a weird, uncontrollable, monstrous howling rumbling up from the depths of his own belly”
“he kept prodding the boy, sweat pouring from beneath the helmet he had not yet taken off. The boy rolled around in his own dirt and water and blood and tried to scream again as the prod hit his testicles, but the scream did not come out, only a kind of rattle and a moan. He stopped. He was not supposed to kill the ni****.”
“good Christ, they were ugly! and never have to enter that jailhouse again and smell that smell and hear that singing; never again feel that filthy, kinky, greasy hair under his hand, never again watch those black breasts leap against the leaping cattle prod, never hear those moans again or watch that blood run down or the fat lips split or the sealed eyes struggle open. They were animals,. they were no better than animals, what could be done with people like that?”
Outside Quotes:
“But all our phrasing—race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy—serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. You must never look away from this. You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body.”
This quote is probably my favorite one. It’s by Ta-Nehisi Coates who kind of reminds me of a modern day Baldwin. I feel like it really fits into the concept I’m trying to get across in my essay. This is what Baldwin was trying to get across ----all the works of literature that attempts to tackle race cannot be filled with politically correct, progressive and liberal language. Because it dehumanizes the whole struggle. People need a reality check.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThesis: There are countless misconceptions of race, religion, genders, sexualities, and more that the media captures.
ReplyDeleteFree-writing:
In many of these instances, people may think they are doing someone justice with their narrow representations. For example, a filmmaker might believe he is opposing racism by having a black actor star in his movie, while the character may act as a complete racial stereotype. Even today, a majority of the black characters in film/TV seem to be representations of one of two stereotypes. Either the African American character is a minor role, shown to be foolish and obedient to their white “masters”, or they’re a one-dimensional hero, sacrificing their happiness for the safety of a white man. I Am Not Your Negro demonstrates both of these stereotypes. First, consider (name of the movie where someone’s in bed). Most white protagonists are depicted as heroic, noble, and courageous; here, the African American protagonist is only characterized as lazy. This idea also applies to the film “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” Although this movie is supposedly progressive, showing an interracial couple, it is restrained. Unlike other romantic films starring white couples, Sidney Poitier’s character is unable to display any affection to his partner. Despite the filmmaker’s intentions, this lack of intimacy on screen highlights how black “sex symbol” actors are kept from doing what white “sex symbol” actors do. Because filmmakers fear it will make their audiences uncomfortable seeing African American men physically love a white woman, they don’t include it in their movies.
What I want to write about: In my essay, I'm going to discuss the misrepresentation of African American people in film/TV from 1940s-1960s to today. I plan to focus on the two stereotypes that the documentary discussed, where African American characters were either poor and lazy or self-sacrificing for the happiness of the white character. In addition, I'm going to compare the cliched white characters to the black characters. For instance, Baldwin mentions in the documentary him rooting for Gary Cooper because he was presented as heroic and courageous, while the Native Americans were shown in a negative light. In my final paragraph, I'll write about different reactions to these misrepresentations, such as Baldwin saying no movie characters looked like his father and so on.
“Black men are still used, in the popular culture, as though they had no sexual equipment at all.”
“The black man jumps off the train in order to reassure white people…”
“It comes as a great shock around the age of five, or six, or seven, to discover that Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, when you were rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians were you.”
By the way, I'm basing this off of the prompt from 1970. Instead of focusing on one character, I was going to describe how African American audiences were affected by the negative and dishonest portrayals in movies.
DeleteJill, I really like the topic of your essay. I think that exploring the idea of stereotypes/misconceptions is a relevant topic. If you wanted to use outside sources you could talk about "The Danger of the Single Story" TED Talk because that would have a lot of information supporting your argument. In your thesis I think you should be a little more specific than just "countless misconceptions." Maybe you could mention an example of a misconception from one of the works you are using in your essay?
DeleteThe point I want to get across in my essay is that racism is a cycle that keeps going on because of common standards and beliefs in society. I want to dig deep into Recitatif and, in particular, compare Twyla and Roberta’s friendship in the orphanage to how they treated each other when they were exposed to the views and values of the outside world.
ReplyDeleteRight now my working thesis is “Racism is a cycle and, although it has many direct consequences, it allows for indirect consequences as well. In particular, people let society and its standards shape who they are friends with or who they associate themselves with. In Recitatif, the author, Toni Morrison, exposes this through Twyla and Roberta as, throughout their time in the orphanage and then their exposure to society, she demonstrates the necessity of human nature to conform to society's standards and beliefs by showing how the two characters ideals change depending on their surroundings.” However, I definitely think it needs to be refined a lot before I consider it my final thesis. It gets my ideas across, but I feel like it’s definitely too formulaic and also seems a little bit cluttered.
The first few quotes I want to use are:
“The minute I walked in and the Big Bozo introduced us, I got sick to my stomach. It was one thing to be taken out of your own bed early in the morning-it was something else to be stuck in a strange place with a girl from a whole other race.” P1
“All kinds of kids were in there, black ones, white ones, even two Koreans.” p2
“We got along all right, Roberta and me. Changed beds every night, got F's in civics and communication skills and gym.” p3
“Mary, simple-minded as ever, grinned and tried to yank her hand out of the pocket with the raggedy lining-to shake hands, I guess. Roberta's mother looked down at me and then looked down at Mary too. She didn't say anything, just grabbed Roberta with her Bible-free hand and stepped out of line, walking quickly to the rear of it.” p5
Outline: I was hoping to work with the 2002 prompt that deals with morally ambiguous characters. I will be focusing on Sonny and how his continuing struggles with addiction make him a morally ambiguous character. From there I would try to transition it into commentary on how one’s environment can taint an otherwise good person, as with the case of Sunny, and how systemic racism, oppression, and poverty have provided a greater disadvantage in this regard for african americans. This would encompass the first two body paragraphs, the first one being more focused on Sonny, and the second making more generalized statements. The Maggie incident from Recitatif could be used as further evidence of how separation and a failing orphanage system soured Twyla and Roberta when they were children. To bring things back together, I would try to argue that you need to take morals in context; it is easy to act righouse when everything around you is alright, and much more difficult when you must begin to make sacrifices for your morals. To conclude, I would bring it back to Sonny, saying that he is not a bad person, he simply did the best with the life he was born into.
ReplyDeleteThesis: Whether or not a person is good is not solely dependant upon the person. It is often the case that people have sacrificed tremendously for their morals, due to external hardships they had no control over, yet are judged on their worst actions the same as people who have confronted no challenge or sacrifice. This does not excuse evil actions, it simply means the underlying person may still be good.
Quotes:
“I told myself that Sonny was wild, but he wasn’t crazy. And he’d always been a good boy, he hadn’t ever turned hard or evil or disrespectful, the way kids can, so quick, so quick, especially in Harlem.” Page (18) Sonny’s Blues
“And I don’t know how I played, thinking about it now, but I know I did awful things, those times, sometimes, to people. Or it wasn't that I did anything to them - it was that they weren't real.” Page (43) Sonny’s Blues
“All your buried corpses now begin to speak. I say violence is necessary. Violence is a part of America's culture. It is as American as cherry pie.” Baldwin
“ I wanted to write you many a time but I dug how much I must have hurt you and so I didn’t write. But now I feel like a man who’s been trying to climb out of some deep, real deep and funky hole and just saw the sun up there outside. I got to get outside. I can’t tell you much about how I got here… I guess I was afraid of something or I was trying to escape from something and you know I have never been very strong in the head… I tell you one thing though, I’d rather blow my brains out than go through this again. But that’s what they all say so they tell me.” Pages (22,23) Sonny’s Blues
What are you born to believe? To me that's the most interesting part of your essay, I think it's very eye catching and something I never really hear anyone talk about. You have very strong quotes for your essay, and I think talking about this topic as a whole in relation to Jesse in his childhood will be very interesting. He's a good example about how the things you see when you're growing up and how the society around you affects you.
ReplyDeleteConcept: The concept of my essay focuses on the importance of another perspective in solving conflicts, specifically internal conflicts. I hope to cover the importance of an open mind when trying to resolve the internal conflict and the consequences of being ignorant to others opinions. This can connect to the other short stories on how much a different person’s point of view can impact oneself, whether that be positively or negatively. I chose to mainly focus on the documentary “I am not your Negro” and “Sonny’s Blues”.
ReplyDeleteQuotes: “It doesn't do any good to fight with Sonny. Sonny just moves back, inside himself, where he can't be reached.” -Sonny’s Blues
As concerns Malcolm and Martin, I watched two men coming from unimaginably different backgrounds, whose positions, originally, were poles apart, driven closer and closer together. By the time each died, their positions had become, virtually, the same position. -I am not your Negro
“...he could help us be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did.” -SB.
Problems: I’m having trouble wrapping it all up and not knowing what my end point would be. I was hoping to find a few quotes from Recitatif but I still need to look into that.
Thesis: In literature, authors often create characters in situations in which they are caught between conflicting ideas or influences. James Baldwin uses Jesse from “Going to Meet the Man” and creates a conflict within his mind between his initial instinct to treat people equally and the racist lessons taught to him by his parents and authority figures. Jesse’s internalized conflict is used as a tool to express Baldwin’s message that racism is not something people are born with, but rather something that is perpetuated through an ongoing cycle.
ReplyDeleteQuotes:
“Going to Meet the Man”
“The head went back, the mouth wide open, blood bubbling from the mouth; the veins of the neck jumped out, Jesse clung to his father’s neck in terror as the cry rolled over the crowd.” “What did he do? Jesse wondered. What did the man do? What did he do?” (1760).
“He began to feel a joy he had never felt before. He watched the hanging, gleaming body, the most beautiful and terrible object he had ever seen til then” (1760).
When he works as a police officer he and his colleagues openly target black people and feels something “close to a very peculiar, particular joy” as he is beating a black man to death.
I Am Not Your Negro
“It is impossible to accept the premise of the story, a premise based on the profound American misunderstanding of the nature of the hatred between black and white. That time is now. The root of the black man's hatred is rage, and he does not so much hate white men as simply wants them out of his way, and more than that, out of his children's way. The root of the white man's hatred is terror. I'm gonna kill you. A bottomless and nameless terror, which focuses on this dread figure, an entity which lives only in his mind.”
Concept:
What I want to do with my essay is focus on how racism is taught and is perpetuated through an ongoing cycle. I took some quotes from “Going to Meet the Man” that I listed above that I want to use in my essay to show Jesse’s changing attitude towards black people. He initially is innocent and is too young to understand racism, but after witnessing a lynching of a Black man and numerous messages from his parents he begins to regard Black people as subhuman and cause Jesse to be deeply prejudiced when he is older. I’d like to use this example to show how racism is taught because Jesse became a hateful person when he initially was not as a child. I’m not sure if it matters that I’m using “Going to Meet the Man” for the majority of my evidence and quotes and if I should use more evidence from the works we’ve studied. I might possibly bring in outside evidence from movies, TV shows, etc.
Sarah, I think that the topic for your essay is a great pick. I loved your thesis and I think it sets the stage for a really powerful essay. I like how you presented the teaching of racism as an "ongoing cycle", I agree with that point 100%.
Delete
ReplyDeletePrompt 2012: How situations/conditions can affect people
I would like to talk about how the lack of interest from the white Americans has kept African Americans segregated in traditionally poorer neighborhoods. Indifference has helped create the single story we know about poorer African American neighborhoods filled with crime. Baldwin and other author’s have shed light on these issues and why they situations are not improving.
One of these points would be about the condition of the schools in African American neighborhoods
“I am Not Your Negro”: “I don’t know if the board of education hates black people, but I know the textbooks they give my children to read, and the schools that we have to go to”
“A well known artist was coming to teach art to them. They were going to have the newest microscopes and chemistry equipment for their laboratories”- Maya Angelou, “Graduation”
“The white kids were going to have a chance to become Galileos and Madame Curies and Edisons and Gauguins and our boys (the girls weren’t even in on it) would try to be Jesse Owenses and Joe Louises”- Maya Angelou, “Graduation”
I want to look for a few more quotes regarding education
Lead into the second body paragraph that talks about how without an education comparable to the white suburbs, opportunities will be lacking.
“These boys, now, were living as we'd been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities.”
“I am Not Your Negro”: You don't know what's happening on the other side of the wall, because you don't want to know.”
We were segregated from the schoolhouse door. Therefore, he doesn't know, he really does not know, what it was like for me to leave my house, to leave the school and go back to Harlem. He doesn't know how Negroes live.”
I don't know if the Real Estate Lobby has anything against black people, but I know the Real Estate Lobby is keeping me in the ghetto
I think your topic is a really good one because it is still relevant today because even though segregation has legally been abolished for decades, social segregation still exists which causes many Black people to be unable to escape poverty and not have access to quality education. Something that could help your argument is talking about the cycle of poverty and how it is very difficult to escape when people don't have access to quality education, and how a disproportionate amount of impoverished people are black.
DeleteThanks Sarah, that's a great suggestion and I will be sure to try and include that in my essay :)
DeleteThe concept for my essay is discussing the effect that societal racism has on interracial relationships. I am basing it off of Baldwin's idea that people are not born racist, they develop these ideas when they are exposed to the world and the influence of their parents. Roberta and Twyla's relationship is an example of this. Their perception of the other girl changed when they saw how blacks and whites were treated in America. Roberta and Twyla seemingly grew further apart the older the got, but still held onto the memory of Maggie, unable to decipher the truth. Maggie symbolizes weakness, silence, defenselessness, and anger.
ReplyDeleteThesis: Societal racism altered the relationship between Roberta and Twyla, altering their perception of each other based off of the color of their skin rather than their childhood friendship. Maggie was the faded memory that kept the girls connected through time.
Quotes:
Roberta excusing her actions in the past and present: "Oh, Twyla, you know how it was in those days: black-white. You know how everything was."
This is in reference of the pivotal pint in their relationship at the protest, "It's not about us, Twyla. Me and you. It's about our kids," clarifying that it’s nothing personal, when it is absolutely personal.
Taking anger out on Maggie, "I really wanted them to hurt her. I said we did it, too. You and me, but that's not true. And I don't want you to carry that around. It was just that I wanted to do it so bad that day-wanting to is doing it."
Hair symbolizes the distaste they had for each other, trying to erase all happy memories that they shared, "I used to curl your hair."
"I hated your hands in my hair."