From the primal inauguration of human civilization to today`s modern world, racial and cultural ties have played a crucial role in determining human interactions. John`s Stahl`s Imitation of Life (1934) epitomizes this principle through its parallel accounts of two mothers: Beatrice Pullman, a white business magnate, and Delilah Johnson, a black homemaker. Although both women work together in creating a pancake empire, Delilah is always perceived as subservient to her mistress resulting in her becoming an Other. Throughout the film, there is a stark contrast in the clothing of Beatrice and Delilah. In the opening scene, Delilah, on her way to a job interview, is wearing a frumpy, old-fashioned gown, while Beatrice is style in an elegant pant …show more content…
From the beginning of their relationship, Delilah is depicted as a subservient domestic, who would do anything to please her mistress through foot rubs and nonstop cooking and cleaning. When Beatrice offers Delilah a 20% stake in the pancake mix business, she adamantly declines, fearing she will be separated from the Pullman family. Beatrice attempts to sway Delilah by tempting her with the prospect of buying her own house, but Delilah years to stay with the Pullman girls and stay their cook. Delilah`s attitude epitomizes her loyalty to the Pullmans as she rather be a dependent domestic than independent and wealthy. After ten years, Delilah and Beatrice still live in the same house but Beatrice must go down the stairs to her slave quarters in the basement while Beatrice ascends the stairs to her elegant mansion. This space regulation constitutes the social standing of the two women- Beatrice as a wealthy socialite and Delilah as a subservient homemaker. Despite living under the same roof in a large mansion, Delilah still leads a similar lifestyle resulting in an implied hierarchy in the house. She inadvertently becomes an Other as she allows continues to allow Beatrice to dictate her life regardless of her newfound
A Critical Analysis of Racism in Canadian Law and the “Unmapping” of the White Settler Society in “When Place Becomes Race” by Sherene H. Razack
The novel The Garies and their Friends is a realistic examination of the complex psychology of blacks who try to assimilate through miscegenation and crossing the color barrier by “passing as white.” Frank J. Webb critiques why blacks cannot pass as being white through the characters Mr. Winston and Clarence Jr.
What defines an individual’s racial characteristics? Does an individual have the right to discriminate against those that are “different” in a specific way? In Octavia Butler’s works, which are mostly based on themes that correlate to one another, she influences the genre and fiction in ways that bring light to the problems of societies history. Through Kindred and the Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler examines themes of community, racial identification, and racial oppression through the perspective of a black feminist. In each novel, values and historical perspective show the hardships that individuals unique to an alien world have to face. Through the use of fictional works, Butler is able to delve into historical themes and human conditions, and with majority of works under the category of science fiction, Butler is able to explore these themes through a variety of settings. This essay will discuss two of Butler’s popular works, Kindred and the Parable of Sower, and will interpret the themes of women, race, independence, and power throughout the two novels.
Historically, the job of women in society is to care for the husband, the home, and the children. As a homemaker, it has been up to the woman to support the husband and care for the house; as a mother, the role was to care for the children and pass along cultural traditions and values to the children. These roles are no different in the African-American community, except for the fact that they are magnified to even larger proportions. The image of the mother in African-American culture is one of guidance, love, and wisdom; quite often the mother is the shaping and driving force of African-American children. This is reflected in the literature of the African-American as a special bond of love and loyalty to the mother figure. Just as the role of motherhood in African-American culture is magnified and elevated, so is the role of the wife. The literature reflects this by showing the African-American man struggling to make a living for himself and his family with his wife either being emotionally or physically submissive. Understanding the role of women in the African-American community starts by examining the roles of women in African-American literature. Because literature is a reflection of the community from which it comes, the portrayal of women in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and James Baldwin's Go Tell it on the Mountain (1952) is consistent with the roles mentioned above.
“I tried to demonstrate how both the cross cultural literature and the history of African American women gave the lie to the nation that gender inequality can be attributed to biological differences” (Mullings, page xvii)
In D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation the interactions between black and white characters represent Griffith’s view of an appropriate racial construct in America. His ideological construction is white dominance and black subordination. Characters, such as the southern Cameron’s and their house maid, who interact within these boundaries, are portrayed as decent people. Whereas characters who cross the line of racial oppression; such as Austin Stoneman, Gus and Silas Lynch, are portrayed as bad. Both Lynch and Lydia Brown, the mulatto characters, are cast in a very negative light because they confuse the ideological construct the most. The mixing of races puts blacks and whites on a common ground, which, in Griffith’s view, is a big step in the wrong direction. Griffith portrays how the relationship between blacks and whites can be good only if the color line and positions of dominance and subordination are maintained. Through the mulatto characters he illustrates the danger that blurring the color line poses to American society.
Janie’s first discovery about herself comes when she is a child. She is around the age of six when she realizes that she is colored. Janie’s confusion about her race is based on the reasoning that all her peers and the kids she grows up with are white. Janie and her Nanny live in the backyard of the white people that her Nanny works for. When Janie does not recognize herself on the picture that is taken by a photographer, the others find it funny and laughs, leaving Janie feeling humiliated. This racial discovery is not “social prejudice or personal meanness but affection” (Cooke 140). Janie is often teased at school because she lives with the white people and dresses better than the other colored kids. Even though the kids that tease her were all colored, this begins Janie’s experience to racial discrimination.
In Laboring Women by Jennifer Morgan, the author talks about the transformations African Women suffer as they become slaves in America. The author explains how their race, gender and even their reproduction of African women became very important in the sex/gender system. She explains the differences of European, African and Creole and how their role was fit and fix in the sex/gender system in regards of production, body and kinship. Morgan explains the correlation of race and reproduction as well as how this affected the Atlantic World. She also explains the differences between whites and blacks and how they experience reproduction differently. Morgan also elaborates on how sex is a sexual disclosure. This gave us the conclusion on how the ideologies of race and reproduction are central to the organization of slavery.
Beatrice is an extremely crucial character in ‘Much Ado About Nothing’. She is one of the reasons that many plans and schemes fall into place to provide us with the outcome that the play finally reaches. Shakespeare depicts Beatrice as a very strong character who knows what she wants and how she wants to achieve it. Her characteristics of sharp wit and her ability to be acutely opinionated allow her to be a notable contrast from the other women in the play, whether this be in a positive or a negative way.
Ann Perkins, Jones’ character, is supposed to be an ethnically ambiguous person and in reality, Rashida is biracial (Glamour). Leslie Knope, the white protagonist of the series, frequently uses words like ‘exotic’, ‘tropical’, and ‘ethnically ambiguous’ when complimenting Ann. The ‘compliments’ also act as the only instances where race is spoken about in reference to Ann’s character. One would believe that Leslie’s constant complimenting of Ann is beneficial to viewers with a biracial identity, but there are some serious problems with Leslie’s behavior. There has been an historical and recent fascination with ‘mixed’ children. This fascination has crossed over into fetishizatoin of biracial or mixed children and people. Biracial people are seen less as people and more as a kind of spice that bell hooks mentions in her work “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance” (21). They are something that helps liven up the blandness of the pervasive white culture. Another harmful aspect of Ann’s depiction relates to her class. In Edison’s work, she notes that “biracial individuals living in a middle- and upper-class environments are more likely to be perceived as biracial (rather than black) than those living in working- and lower-class environments” and that “‘color blind’ portrayals of middle- and upper-class Black and biracial characters support the notion that race no longer matters (at least for middle- and upper-class people)” (Edison, 302; 304). Ann’s character is a successful college-educated nurse which is not problematic until one realizes that her race is never truly discussed. This feeds into the stereotype that race does not matter and that all people in the U.S. have the same opportunities. Again, the lack of racial representation leaves one character the duty of depicting a whole group of
Sollors, Werner. I Interracialism: Black-White Intermarriage in American History, Literature, and Law. New York: University Press, 2000.
I was late for school, and my father had to walk me in to class so that my teacher would know the reason for my tardiness. My dad opened the door to my classroom, and there was a hush of silence. Everyone's eyes were fixed on my father and me. He told the teacher why I was late, gave me a kiss goodbye and left for work. As I sat down at my seat, all of my so-called friends called me names and teased me. The students teased me not because I was late, but because my father was black. They were too young to understand. All of this time, they thought that I was white, because I had fare skin like them, therefore I had to be white. Growing up having a white mother and a black father was tough. To some people, being black and white is a contradiction in itself. People thought that I had to be one or the other, but not both. I thought that I was fine the way I was. But like myself, Shelby Steele was stuck in between two opposite forces of his double bind. He was black and middle class, both having significant roles in his life. "Race, he insisted, blurred class distinctions among blacks. If you were black, you were just black and that was that" (Steele 211).
Appearing in the 1903, The Souls of Black folk had emerged, a collection of 14 proses, written by one of the single most intellectual blacks in America, W. E.B. DuBois (Oxford Companion). This dynamic collection of essays reflect on African American history, sociology, religion, politics, and music. DuBois begins saying “The problem of the 20th century is the color line (5). This quote pronounces DuBois bases for his collection, that is being different form the others (Whites) makes you feel like you are being shut out from their world by a vast veil; hence the color line(8). On the other had we have Birth of a Nation, which comes out later in 1915 (TCM). Ironically it becomes the top selling film in White America during that time, but degrades everything that DuBois and another activist stood for. While DuBois hopes to educate White and Black America on their boundaries, the color line, the film’s director, D.W. Griffith, undermines these ideas. Defiling images of African Americans by distorting the perception of Blacks using stereotypical examples such as the mammies, mulattos, and bucks, Griffith tries to justify that blacks were inferior to Whites. In spite of the many controversies that are expressed in the film, it had become a known as the most innovative, American Epics and was a top seller during its time because of Griffith’s technical breakthrough and format. While comparing and contrasting these two pieces I hope to reveal to you this why this ‘double consciousness’ exist, even todays society as a result of these stereotypes displayed in “The Birth of a Nation.”
Racism is often considered a thing of the past, with its manifestation rarely being acknowledged in the United States today. Race: The Power of an Illusion, is a documentary that addresses the legacy of racism through its significance in the past, and its presence in society today. To understand racism, it is vital to understand the concept of race. Race is a social invention, not a biological truth. This can be observed through the varying classifications of race in different cultures and time periods. For instance, in the United States, race has long been distinguished by skin color. In nineteenth century China, however, race was determined by the amount of body hair an individual had. Someone with a large amount of facial hair, for example,
It is that connection which we are seeking. We have the stories of Black women who healed each other’s wounds, raised each other’s children, fought each other’s battles, tilled each other’s earth, and eased each other’s passages into life and into death. We know the possibilities of support and connection for which we all yearn, and about which we dream so often” (Sister Outsider, 152-153).