In Gregory Mantsios’ “Class of America”, the author points out that even though women, racial, and minority groups have equal rights as the rest of the society, they are still being held down due to gender, race, and class. On the other hand, Langston Hughes’ poem “Democracy”, points out the speaker’s determination of wanting to have the same equality rights as the other person in the present and not wait for it to occur tomorrow or in the future. Even though Rosa Parks rode in the front of the bus, she was arrested by a white policeman for breaking the rules. Likewise, Hillary Clinton had a meeting with the members of the White House on Osana Bin Laden, but her face was taken out of the photo due to her gender as a woman. Hughes’ use of the words “seed” and “need” depicts the speaker’s strength and determination of having individual control. Both Hughes’ poem and Mantsio’s passage show how democracy is affecting our society. However, Hughes focuses on individual control, while Mantsios focuses on the specific concepts of women and race.
To begin with, in the 1950s, when Rosa Park...
...hile African Americans went through journeys to escape the restrictions of their masters, women went through similar journeys to escape the restrictions of the men around them. Immigrants further strived to fit in with the American lifestyle and receive recognition as an American. All three groups seemed to shape up an American lifestyle. Today, all three of these perceptions of freedom have made an appearance in our lives. As we can see, the transition of freedom from race equality to gender equality shows that freedom has been on a constant change. Everyone acquires their own definition of freedom but the reality of it is still unknown; people can merely have different perceptions of freedom. Nevertheless, in today’s society, African Americans live freely, women are independent, and immigrants are accepted in society. What more freedom can one possibly ask for?
In the case of Amanda America Dickson, “her personal identity was ultimately bounded by her sense of class solidarity with her father, that is, by her socialization as David Dickson’s daughter, her gender role as a lady, and her racial definition as a person to whom racial categories did not apply.”1 This may mean that her freedom was less proscribed by race because she was not a male seeking political advantage. Some people of mixed-race in the nineteenth century South managed to create a personal identity and
Beale, Frances. "Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female." An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought. New York: New, 1995. 146. Print.
Women, Race and Class is the prolific analysis of the women's rights movement in the United States as observed by celebrated author, scholar, academic and political activist. Angela Y. Davis, Ph.D. The book is written in the same spirit as Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. Davis does not merely recount the glorious deeds of history. traditional feminist icons, but rather tells the story of women's liberation from the perspective of former black slaves and wage laborers. Essential to this approach is the salient omnipresent concept known as intersectionality.
She first presented her insights with an elaborate historical background of how, a century later, the Jim Crow Laws are still present in our society. Alexander introduces us to the Cotton family who were denied their right to participate in the American electoral democracy on not only one or two occasion, but on several occasions. Alexander suggests that this denial is a generational wrong by the government, as she highlights the injustices that the Cotton family encountered as black individuals born in the United States. Jarvious Cotton’s great-great-grandfather could not vote because he was a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Ku Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was highly intimidated by the Ku Klux Klan. His father was subjected to a literacy test that prevented him from voting. Now, Jarvious Cotton cannot vote because he, like many other black men in the United States, has been labeled as a felon and is on parole (Alexander 1). According to Alexander, once one is given the title of a “felon” the old forms of discrimination arise: unemployment, housing, education, public services and denial of the right to vote the list goes on and on (Alexander
As white males continually gained suffrage in the United States’ “democratic” system, both African Americans and women were still denied the right to vote. The white males who could vote, were intensely against the two groups being able to have a say in the political processes. In the 1830s, many white males were now able to vote, either with or without property, while African Americans constantly lost this right as many states adopted laws that prevented the free black people from voting. Some states even went so far as to reinstate property laws that hadn’t been used in years. Women were seen as “inferior to the white race”, just as being African American was, so they, therefore, had an “incapacity to exercise political power”. This was seen as a natural position of women, just as they were supposed to be the home-makers, “cloistered in the private realm of the family”. In antithesis to this, women soon began to participate in reform movements, making themselves in the middle of the public eye. However, the ability to vote was soon seen as the right of the person who was the dominate figure, or head of the household, automatically striking out women from that position since they could only be a wife, daughter, or sister to that figure.
The Declaration of Independence of 1776 promised “unalienable rights.” However, these rights were targeted towards men. In the eighteenth century, the men who were provided with “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” were white males. Although liberty was fundamental to the establishment of the declaration, minorities were disregarded. Women were citizens but did not have a voice in politics. In both Vindication of the Rights of Woman and “Declaration of Sentiments,” females argue for their rights to be freed from a man’s oppression. Inequality of white males was conveyed in Cannibals All! In addition, emancipation and the voice of African Americans was argued in the “Corner Stone” Speech and “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
“There’s never been equality for me, nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.” Hughes quickly puts himself as the one being oppressed. His reader quickly discover that he is portraying himse...
Many significant figures in black history have believed in communism as a system holding the potential to alleviate the inequalities that the structure of a largely capitalism-based society has imposed on their people. Amongst those figures is Claudia Jones, an influential black activist during the mid 1900’s. Jones’ faith in socialism extended past its ability to correct longstanding traditions and habits of racial discrimination. She believed, as Angela Davis states in her analysis of the position of women in context of their race and class, “that socialism held the only promise of liberation for Black Women, for Black people as a whole and indeed for the multi-racial working class” (Davis 169). For Jones, socialism held every possibility of fulfilling that promise of equality for all peoples, enabling her to remain “a dedicated Communist” (169) for the entirety of her adult life. Jones’ adherence to Communist tenets contributed to her identity as “the radical black female subject” (Davies 1) whom Carol Boyce Davies deems crucial in the advancement of Marxist-Leninist theory to the “critique of class oppression, imperialist aggression, and gender subordination” (2). Jones saw socialism as a way that could correct all of those issues, but specifically she interested herself in the plight of the working-class black woman and in that of all women. In that light, her understanding of Marx’s socialism must be viewed as distinctly feminist.
Sojourner Truth’s speech entitled “Ain’t I A Woman?” became popular for its honest and raw confrontation on the injustices she experienced both as a woman and an African-American. The speech was given during a women’s rights convention held in Akron, Ohio in May 1851 and addressed many women’s rights activists present (Marable and Mullings, 66). Sojourner began her speech by pointing out the irrational expectations men have of women and contrasting them to her own experiences. She exclaims that a man in the corner claims women “needs to be helped into carriages and lifted ober ditches or to hab de best place everywhar,” yet no one extends that help to her (67). This is followed by her rhetorically asking “and ain’t I a woman?” (67) Here, Sojourner is calling out the social construction of gender difference that men use in order to subordinate women.
Freedom was knowledge, education and family, but “The root of oppression decided as a “tangle of pathology” created by the absence of male authority among Black people” (Davis, 15). Therefore, they enjoyed “as much autonomy as they could seize, slave men and women manifested irrepressible talent in humanizing an environment designed to convert them into a herd of subhuman labor units” (Davis). Instead of being the head of the “household”, he and the women treated each other as an equal. This thought would soon become a historical turning point that initiated the fight for gender
Stanton argues many valid points with significant impact. Throughout her speech, she uses many examples of logical appeals. She states, “The question is now: how shall we get possession of what rightfully belongs to us?” In this quote, Stanton is agitating the question of when women are going to get not only the rights they deserve, but also the equality they demand. She is disgracing the rules that they live under, and questioning when things will be set right. She also argues, “All white men in this country have the same rights, however they may differ in mind, body, or estate.” All white men in America at this time had freedom no matter what they owned or what their background. They could be rich, wealthy businessmen or poor country farmers, and as much as they differed in society standards, they all shared one common thing: their rights. She is making an emotional appeal to the women of the country, and exposing the anger of the unfair situation the women are stuck in. One of the key phrases she repeats is, “The right is ours.” Stanton repeats this short, yet powerful, phrase in order to get her message through. She believes and fights that all free women should be just as equal as all free men. The use of repeating this phrase helps others understand how dearly ...
“We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.” (“Angela Davis Quote." BrainyQuote. Xplore, n.d. Web.”) Angela Yvonne Davis was an activist, an educator, and a politician. Aside from doing this, she was a major impact on feminist rights for the African American community. This essay will include Angela Davis’ Impact on the male but mainly female African American Community, and to the everyday society. Angela Davis’ philosophical side, and her personal and background life. Will also be included.
Gloria Steinem’s “Living the Revolution” commencement speech highlights the hardships and stereotypes placed on women and men of all ethnicities in general society of the 1970’s decade, and suggests a necessary change is needed in the way we view people in general. Steinem goes on to support her ideas with numerous pieces of evidence. Foremost, she calls attention to the past and present stereotypes and prejudices and suggests that these ideas are “imbedded so deeply in our thinking” that we don’t often realize they are there (5). Secondly, she points out our society’s lack of female and African American role models and that the traditional white male leader is outdated and overdue for an upgrade (12-16). Steinem also puts for...
Looking at the historical context of each poem shows that the political movements of the time had a large effect on Hughes’s two poems. The timeline between the two poems is an interesting one to analyze. “I, Too” was written in nineteen twenty-six and “Theme for English B” was written in nineteen fifty-one (Rampersad). Many events relating to the civil rights movement happened during the years between the two poems. The nineteen twenties were filled with racism, intolerance, and