Embodied Suffering Analysis

901 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Racism and Religion

Honestly, this weeks lecture for Senior Symposium was kind of disappointing. After a two week dearth of stimulating speeches, students piled once again into the Hall Campus Center’s Ballroom only to be told they would not be hearing a well thought speech crafted specifically for them. Instead, they were told that they would be viewing a prerecorded Ted Talk that was only tangentially relevant to the reading and only moderately relatable to life as a college student in Lynchburg. The real life professors who introduced the video and answered questions did a fantastic job but the whole exercise felt a bit cheap after four solid weeks of excellent lectures in the flesh. None of this, however, means that the topics discussed in this youtube video …show more content…

Embodied suffering is not sympathy, but rather it is being to directly relate to the suffering of a person, it is placing yourself into a realm of their suffering. By wearing this controversial head garment Hawkins (2016) was able to literally step into the shoes of women who experience intolerance everyday. She was able to experience hate from strangers that she, as a christian women, would have never received outside of wearing the head covering. She left her life of predictable safety and presumed protection by dawning this head garb. This act of going against the common human instinct of actively avoiding danger illustrates beautiful one of the points Peck (1983) makes on the second page of our assigned reading. Peck (1983) states that humans have a special ability, he says that unlike animals humans “are even free to reject what we have been taught and what is normal for our society. We may even reject the few instincts we have, as do those who rationally choose celibacy or submit themselves to death by martyrdom” (Peck 1983). Hawkins attempt at achieving embodied solidarity with oppressed Muslim women may not have been a perfect simulation of what oppression feels like but it was certainly the perfect example of the human ability to ignore …show more content…

The core of this summation was basically stating that oppression comes from when you start thinking about other people not as living breathing humans but as zombies. Donning the hijab made Hawkins (2016) realize that the people who would show her or those suffering from genocide hatred where those who did not relate her, or them, with being fully human. Her haters didn't recognize or relate to the reasons for which she was wearing the piece covering and thusly they reduced her to nothing more then a walking zombie in a weird hat, not a person equal to themselves. Much in the same way that the Hutus reduction of the Tutsi into zombies was necessary for them to continue feeling justified in attempting to eradicated them. Peck (2016) explains this by stating that it is very hard to unabashedly be mean to someone to whom you can relate and deeply understand. He said it was, in his time, uncommon for white people to attack each other unprovoked, but it was much common for a white man to attack a black man out of the blue, because the white man didn't fully see that black man as human. In the words of Hawkins, the white man in this scenario saw the black man not as a human but rather a zombie, a body separate from it soul. “It’s easier for a white man to lynch a “nigger” than

Show More
Related

  • Comparing Grover's Growing Up White In America and McBride's Work, What Color Is Jesus?

    600 Words  | 2 Pages

    Bonnie Kae Grover is a white female who believes that race has been used as a weapon. Specifically, she focuses on how white people use their color of skin to be controlling of other people. Her gripe is on the notion of “white culture.” She questions the validity of the statement and believes it is simply just American culture and those who think of it as white culture “just moved in like they’ve discovered it” (Grover 377).

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of 'Why 30 Is Not The New 20'

    1166 Words  | 3 Pages

    The TED Talk “Why 30 is not the new 20” by Meg Jay, was a powerful and successful speech. Jay delivers an inspirational message to twenty-year-olds to not waste away important years of their life in an unmeaningful relationship or career. Instead she stresses the importance of searching for a life-long partner sooner rather than later in life. She also talked about taking career risks while still young, because these opportunities will likely be indefeasible later in life. Jay 's main points were very effective in persuading one to consider living by this set of social standards. It is clear that Meg Jay is an experienced public speaker, because of how well the overall presentation was. She does all of the basics perfectly, such as standing

    Read More

  • Baldwin's Fire Next Time

    589 Words  | 2 Pages

      Because Blacks are stereotyped to be "uncivilized", whites have the "private fears to be projected onto the Negro."   (96)   Fear only promotes further racism, and the labyrinth of attitudes.   He states that the problem with racial oppression will never be resolved unless the white man gives up his power.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Proqol Manual

    716 Words  | 2 Pages

    One fact that is interesting is how Joan Halifax explains those previously mentioned “those eyes and hands” which were fierce and wrathful were used tenderly and wisely as well. She describes of people who have those characteristics would “touch” other’s lives for the better when she gave many emotionally touching examples. She mentions stories of kindness or how women, an old man, etc. kindly care for ugly people who others would run away from due to victim’s disgusting appearance. The reason why Joan Halifax mentioned this is because those caretakers are able to see clearly in to victim’s nature of suffering as their own. That is why those kind people can’t be helped to be close to poor souls as they feel familiar with. That is why people

    Read More

  • How To Write An Informative Speech On Happy Fries

    451 Words  | 1 Pages

    The only con I have is that the video could have been extended. I thought the speaker appeared to be intelligent while explaining the material, and he delivered the message very well to beginners. Lastly, the important aspects in delivering a good speech is engaging with your audience, breaking down the material for better understanding, and have

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Eula Biss's Essay White Debt

    1779 Words  | 4 Pages

    She states “whiteness is not a kinship or a culture,” and that “whiteness is not who you are.” (5). She states that whiteness “is not an identity but a moral problem” (6) and that changing your skin tone from white is not the answer to the problems of whiteness. Biss accomplishes her point of what whiteness is not and now uses this to give us now a sense of what whiteness is and it being an illusion that is harming to those around us. Biss also describes that she has found “refusing to collude in injustice is easier said than done” (6), which means that saying you are not going to participate in the act of injustice acts is easier than actually putting that movement forward. You never really have to think about being white because the things nonwhites go through does not apply to them. She believes whiteness is costing her, her moral life, her community and has driven a wedge between her neighbors and herself. Biss explains of the uncomfortable uncertainty she had with life and it being good. She was “pestered by the possibility that all” of everything she knew “was built on a bedrock of evil and that evil was running through our groundwater” (7). Biss was pestered by the idea of what the lives of whites and the American dream were mainly built on, the oppression of

    Read More

  • Suffering as a Common Denominator

    1273 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Sonny’s Blues” is a short story in which James Baldwin, the author, presents an existential world where suffering characterizes a man’s basic state. The theme of tragedy and suffering can be transformed into a communal art form such as blues music. Blues music serves as a catalyst for change because the narrator starts to understand that not only the music but also himself and his relationship with Sonny. The narrator’s view of his brother begins to change; he understands that Sonny uses music as an exit of his suffering and pain. This story illustrates a wide critical examination. Richard N. Albert is one critic that explores and analyzes the world of “Sonny’s Blues”. His analysis, “The Jazz-Blues Motif in James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”” is an example of how one can discover plot, characterization and jazz motif that builds this theme of suffering.

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass Response Paper

    659 Words  | 2 Pages

    Douglass uses an admonitory tone to assert “...that killing...any colored person...is not treated as a crime,either by the courts or the community ” (Douglass) to emphasize the sense of invisibility Caucasians had because the justice system did not hold them accountable for their actions thus implying Caucasians did not have to fear the ramifications of their actions.

    Read More

  • The American Dream Is Unfair

    1437 Words  | 3 Pages

    Paul, Annie Murphy. “Are College Lectures Unfair?” New York Times 13 Sept. 2015: 12(L). Academic OneFile. Web. 1 Oct. 2015.

    Read More

  • Discrimination In Black Metropolis

    480 Words  | 1 Pages

    Authors had done many interviews with whites. They ask about their views towards colored. Some of the interviewees were very extreme, for example: “’I’m not prejudiced, but I’d burn this building down before I’d sell it to any damned nigger’” (188) “’The way I feel right now I could grab one by the ass of the pants and throw him out on the street…’” (191) Their hate on colored neighborhoods were expressed through their answers. Most of the public had prejudice on colored families, leading them being segregated from the society. Those who were willing to interact with blacks mostly because of economic reason, as they could make good money from them “’…We can make good money by dealing with Negroes.’” (188) Even the government had prejudiced on them. When the black fought about covenants, government offered no help in the beginning, this result in twenty years fight but they still kept

    Read More

  • The Central Theme of Southern History by Ulrich B. Phillips

    1616 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...icit in the cause of white supremacists, and is in fact as personally involved with the subject of his scholarly article as Wright is with his own less academic essay. Phillips’s evidentiary support is subject to a striking caveat, one which puts almost any source to work for his purposes, “When…slavery was attacked it was defended not only as a vested interest, but…as a guarantee of white supremacy and civilization. Its defenders did not always take pains to say that this was what they chiefly meant, but it may nearly always be read between their lines.” This has the effect of providing an assumed motive for all of his sources; Phillips’s reader also begins to ‘read between the lines.’ The most troubling aspect of his article is that, in the guise of a serious historian, he twists historical fact to suit his thesis, rather than suiting his thesis to the facts.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Klu Klux Klan

    1374 Words  | 3 Pages

    The ““old” Jim Crow (a rigid pattern of racial segregation), lynching, disenfranchisement...that left little room for ambition or hope” (Graff) are examples of what African-Americans in the South went through after the war ended. Both the phrase “Worse than Slavery” and the image of a man being lynched in the background of the shield are elaborated in the article because “in the late 19th and early 20th century, some two or three black Southerners were hanged, burned at the stake, or quietly murdered every week…generated by a belief system that defined a people not only as inferior but as less than human.” Rather than the image of a united, peaceful America, the reality as shown in the shield in the cartoon was devastation, destruction, and death. As Nast wrote, “This is a white man’s government.” The enslaved people who had been freed were still subject to such brutality and made to be treated “less than human.” A giant skull and crossbones are shown in the cartoon and that shows the prevalence of death and despair that existed a decade after the war for freedom had ended. Thousands of people died in the name of equality for enslaved people, but this group of people continued to be vulnerable to attack even after such a big effort. These people were still made out to be animals whose deaths made little to no impact on the

    Read More

  • Black Women's Oppression Analysis

    471 Words  | 1 Pages

    : “The significance of seeing race, class and gender as interlocking systems of oppression is that such an approach fosters a paradigmatic shift of thinking inclusively about other oppression, such as age, sexual orientation, religion and ethnicity” (Donna Haraway, 405).

    Read More

  • Traditional Learning Environment for Adults Learners

    1072 Words  | 3 Pages

    This particular history class, History of Kentucky was being taught out of Eastern Kentucky University and had two, one hour required live seminars weekly. During the live seminars the instructor would lecture continuously, there was no interaction between student and instructor, and no visual aids of any kind. For a solid hour I was required to sit and listen to an even-keel drone speech from an instructor that had a thick southern accent. The true purpose of the lectures were never clear to me...

    Read More

  • A Secret Sorrow Analysis

    285 Words  | 1 Pages

    Karen Van der Zee the author of “ A Secret Sorrow” talks about a woman name Faye have been part of a road crash which she find herself depress and her dreams fall down when she hear the news that she can’t have babies. But during a difficult time her fiancé give her all the encouragement that she need it and give her all the strength by being by her side.

    Read More

More about Embodied Suffering Analysis

Open Document