Reaching the Limits of Empathy by Understanding Institutionalized Racism The implications and issues that arise from a history of institutionalized racism are not comprehensible to every member of our society. More specifically, the experience of an African American person living in the United States differs vastly from the experience of a white person living in the United States due to institutionalized racism and appropriation of African American culture. In her essay “Respectability Will Not Save Us,” Carol Anderson discusses the term “respectability politics,” its relation to African American history, and how and why it has not worked in our society. Anderson claims that “respectability politics were always too flawed to be fully viable” …show more content…
Both authors do their best to not exclude their work from a prospective white audience, as the inclusiveness of their messages opens the accessibility of their respective points. By hooking their white audiences, Anderson and Lamar have an opportunity to speak implicitly to their white audiences, which are arguably difficult for Anderson and Lamar to reach due to the aforementioned sense of guilt held by a typical white audience member. Anderson discusses the death of Trayvon Martin in depth, provides multiple hyperlinks focused specifically on this event, and states, “The traumatized teen became the scapegoat for the way that her inability to model respectability had failed the black community and, with it, any real chance at justice for Trayvon Martin’s death” (Anderson). In regards to Anderson’s purpose, her essay contains many examples of police brutality toward people of color from the past hundred years in order to bring attention to the corruption and violence within our legal systems. Likewise, Lamar provides an important soundbite from an outside source who counters his argument in “DNA:” “This is why I say that hip hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism in recent years” (Lamar 2:57-3:03). The soundbite was taken from Fox News reporter Geraldo Rivera’s comments about …show more content…
This renders a negative connotation that counters previous validity of the implementation of respectability politics. Likewise, Lamar sets up an abstract definition for his main term, “DNA,” aiding audience comprehension of his argument. In doing this, both authors distinguish their interpretation of the term or idea that drives the entirety of their respective arguments, which overlap to convey that white audiences have a responsibility to recognize their racial privilege. Throughout her essay, Carol Anderson uses the term respectability politics to define attempts by the marginalized African American community to essentially advance their social standings by ‘proving’ to the white community that they are equal through social presentation. Anderson’s essay demonstrates to her audience how racism still exists, even though it may not be as obvious as it was a few decades ago; thus, respectability politics continues to be defective in our society. For example, Anderson begins her discussion of the implications of respectability politics, writing, “African Americans had long been well aware of the U.S.’s “mocking paradoxes” …it was blacks’ vulnerability to legal and extralegal domestic terrorism that defined how tenuous their existence actually
The hypocrisy and double standard that allowed whites to bring harm to blacks without fear of any repercussions had existed for years before the murder Tyson wrote about occurred in May of 1970 (Tyson 2004, 1). Lynching of black men was common place in the south as Billie Holiday sang her song “Strange Fruit” and the eyes of justice looked the other way. On the other side of the coin, justice was brought swiftly to those blacks who stepped out of line and brought harm to the white race. Take for instance Nate Turner, the slave who led a rebellion against whites. Even the Teel’s brought their own form of justice to Henry Marrow because he “said something” to one of their white wives (1).
In one incident when a white teenager Deryl Dedman ran over his truck over Black guy James Craig Anderson by passing a racial slur, “ I ran that nigger over” (Rankine 94)(10). This shows the white’s extra ordinary powers to oppress the black community and the failure of legal system
Carter is a professor of law at Yale University who has written a number of books and articles which are, for lack of any better terminology, criticisms of American culture. “Just Be Nice” is actually part of a much larger effort by Carter that includes his non-fiction books The Culture of Disbelief, Integrity, and the work for which the article may have been taken from, Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy. Hence, it is obvious that Carter is no stranger to the issues detailed in his article, so much so that his body of work points to someone who is arguably obsessed with issues which are related in the article. However, the article at hand opines for a return of etiquette and civility within the national fabric, and how he frames his argument is by using examples that, as an African American, he...
America have a long history of black’s relationship with their fellow white citizens, there’s two authors that dedicated their whole life, fighting for equality for blacks in America. – Audre Lorde and Brent Staples. They both devoted their professional careers outlying their opinions, on how to reduce the hatred towards blacks and other colored. From their contributions they left a huge impression on many academic studies and Americans about the lack of awareness, on race issues that are towards African-American. There’s been countless, of critical evidence that these two prolific writers will always be synonymous to writing great academic papers, after reading and learning about their life experience, from their memoirs.
Black Power, the seemingly omnipresent term that is ever-so-often referenced when one deals with the topic of Black equality in the U.S. While progress, or at least the illusion of progress, has occurred over the past century, many of the issues that continue to plague the Black (as well as other minority) communities have yet to be truly addressed. The dark cloud of rampant individual racism may have passed from a general perspective, but many sociologists, including Stokely Carmichael; the author of “Black Power: the Politics of Liberation in America”, have and continue to argue that the oppressive hand of “institutional racism” still holds down the Black community from making any true progress.
Although an effort is made in connecting with the blacks, the idea behind it is not in understanding the blacks and their culture but rather is an exploitative one. It had an adverse impact on the black community by degrading their esteem and status in the community. For many years, the political process also had been influenced by the same ideas and had ignored the black population in the political process (Belk, 1990). America loves appropriating black culture — even when black people themselves, at times, don’t receive much love from America.
Following the shooting of Trayvon Martin, I began to understand the effect that systemic racism could have on the lives of Black people, and how it had already been affecting me.
Today there are many controversial subjects discussed throughout the media. One of the most discussed is race and the Black Lives Matter movement. Recently, I came across an article titled “The Truth of ‘Black Lives Matter’”, written by The Editorial Board. The article was published on September 3, 2015, to the New York Times. In the article, The Editorial Board writes about what they believe African Americans are facing as challenges in society today, including the all-too-common police killings of unarmed African-Americans across the country. The Editorial Board is right that some African Americans have been treated unfairly, but all ethnicities have been. Life is a precious thing that comprises all ethnicities. This brings us to ask; why
Part l: In these two lectures, Dr. Jendian talked about prejudice and discrimination that has happened recently and how it continues even today. We were required to watch the documentary “Back to the Hood” and write a discussion online and then we had a discussion in class. Dr. Jendian stated in regard to this documentary that prejudice has became an excuse for others actions just like when the Korean store owner shot and killed fifteen year old Latasha Harlins. Because this Korean women was scared of African Americans robbing their stores she had the perception that all African Americans had this mindset so when Latasha walked in her store holding a bottle of juice this store owner automatically thought she was stealing when Latasha was actually
According to Arianna Huffington in the article “Empathy: What We Need Now”, during hardships and instability of society, empathy is needed to find solutions to those issues. Huffington writes about how empathy is needed in our country in order to produce a positive social change. She begins by giving an example of a movement that Martin Luther King created and how empathy was a part of this movement. King as well spoke of how empathy is the sign of living. To become involved in the situations of humanity in order to improve it, displays that empathy is the core of a human’s existence. After reading this article, I do agree with Huffington about how individuals need to fully understand and put themselves within the situation to fully comprehend the issue to solve.
Staples successfully begins by not only admitting the possible faults in his practiced race but also by understanding the perspective of the one who fear them. Black males being opened to more violence because of the environment they're raised in are labeled to be more likely to cause harm or committing crime towards women but Staples asks why that issue changes the outlook of everyday face to face contact and questions the simple actions of a black man? Staples admits, "women are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence," (Staples 384) however...
Empathy is imperative to teach kids from a young age in order to help them recognize mental states, such as thoughts and emotions, in themselves and others. Vital lessons, such as walking in another’s shoes or looking at a situation in their perspective, apprehends the significance of the feelings of another. Our point of view must continuously be altered, recognizing the emotions and background of the individual. We must not focus all of our attention on our self-interest. In the excerpt, Empathy, written by Stephen Dunn, we analyze the process of determining the sentiment of someone.
To prevent these discriminations’ from transpiring again we need to stop people’s prejudices of African Americans. Prejudice can be defined as biologically similar people who hold strong beliefs that cause them to discriminate another object (Pearson). Prejudices start from the home in which the child and raised in and continually grows until that child reaches adulthood, and then the cycle continues and is passed on from generation to generation. To stop the cycle of prejudice and go on toward the goal of equality, we can eliminate the stereotypes that destroy others perceptions of African Americans, by making it known we are all one race- the human race. African Americans should not be defined by their complexion but rather the good they have brought to the world. Letting it be known that we are all equal and should be treated in that respect.
Throughout, the documentary one can come to the conclusion that most of these African- Americans who live in this area are being judged as violent and bad people. However this is not the case, many of them are just normal people who are try...
Richardson, Jeanita W., Kim A. Scott. “Rap Music and Its Violent Progeny: America’s Culture of Violence in Context.” The Journal of Negro Education 71.3 (2002): 175 – 192. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. “Media Violence Causes Youth Violence.”