Names and Titles in Gloria Naylor's novel, Mommy, What Does Nigger Mean
"Words themselves are innocuous; it is the consensus that gives them true power." (Naylor 344)
A name is a mark of classification, a basis for self identity. Able to elevate or annihilate a persons' perception of herself and the surrounding society, these designations can uplift, joke, chide, mock, insult, degrade. "Society" implies the people and the atmosphere encompassing an individual in her daily life. "Culture" is closely tied to the society of a person--it is the aspects of her life which are directly influenced by such issues as race, color, nationality, religion, sexuality, and any other number of things that mark a person as distinct. Culture, though an integral part of everyone's lives, is frequently misunderstood or seen as threatening by people outside of the group in question. This ignorance of other people leads to judgments and assumptions, which frequently cloud daily issues. The most ignorant people stoop to name-calling, a painful slap of hatred. Stereotypical, racist, religious, and sexist name calling, especially, can affect the victim's views and opinions for life. Most vulnerable to these taunts are children, innocent and uncallused, who hear these names and know neither their true meanings nor the depth of senseless hatred behind them. As shown by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Gloria Naylor, these labels can be taken in and their meanings rendered harmless. By seizing and possessing these hateful words, a group can reshape the meaning of the slurs once wielded so forcefully against them.
In Gloria Naylor's novel, "Mommy, What Does Nigger Mean?" she tells of her experience as a young child called a "ni...
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...round the family. While terms such as "nigger" remain excruciatingly prevalent in today's society, victims of racist slurs have found healthy ways of dealing with the abuse. By projecting new meanings onto old words and focusing on the ever-changing names for African Americans for reassurance, the victims' strengths allow them to reroute hate, instead creating a more positive recognition of intelligence, beauty, and individuality.
Works Cited
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. " 'What's in a Name?' Some Meanings of Blackness." American Mosaics: Multicultural Readings in Context. Eds. Barabara Roche and Sandra Mano. Boston: Houghton Milfflin. 1996. 424-38.
Naylor, Gloria. "Mommy, What Does 'Nigger' Mean?" New World of Literature: Writings from America's Many Cultures, second edition. Eds. Jerome Beatty and J. Paul Hunter. New York: Norton. 1994. 344-7.
After all, many believe that war with Britain would end the troubles Americans were having with Indians on the frontier. These critics might bring up that the British were arming and inciting the Native American Indians to attack American settlers. It It is true that the British supplied the Native Americans with weapons and incited them to fight Americans was a cause for the war of 1812. However, what these critics don't yet understand is that it wasn't the MAIN cause for the war of 1812. There were many minor causes that led Americans to declare war on Britain in 1812 such as the troubles with the Indians on the frontier ,but the main causes were the impressment of American soldiers and ships and expansion of United States into
In "The Meaning of a Word" and "Being a Chink", Gloria Naylor and Christine Leong examine words of hatred that are meant to scorn, hurt and disgrace people. But these same words could also be used without harmful intentions and in a fashion of endearment amongst the people those words were created for. They each had a different word to discriminate their different culture and ethnicity. These writers discuss the words "nigger" and "chink", which are words in our language mostly ignorant people use. Naylor and Leong are also both minorities who were raised in America. They talk about how discrimination and hatred towards minorities is almost always inevitable in America, which is mostly populated by Caucasians. Naylor and Leong observe how these racial acts of discrimination can unify a group of people even closer together. Naylor didn't know the true meaning of the hate word nigger until it was used against her in a degrading manner. On the other hand Leong already knew what chink meant but wasn't traumatized until she found out her father discovered it.
The thesis of this book is that George Whitefield (1714-1770) changed the nature of Christianity by promoting and conducting mass revivals that exploited the weaknesses of institutional Christianity.
Since 1945, in what is defined by literary scholars as the Contemporary Period, it appears that the "refracted public image"(xx) whites hold of blacks continues to necessitate ...
Turner, Darwin T. "Visions of Love and Manliness in a Blackening World: Dramas of Black Life Since 1953." Black Scholar 25.2 (1995): 2-13. EBSCO. Wake Co. Public Lib. 5 Jan. 2001 <http://www.ebscohost.com>.
Trilling, Lionel. "Review of Black Boy." Richard Wright: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. Eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and K. A. Appiah. New York : Amistad, 1993.
Gloria Naylor, as an African American, has deep connection with her southern roots and heritage. The element from her life that has been most influential on her novels is her southern heritage. Understanding that southern life in many ways defines the African American experience, Naylor feels obligated to capture this essence in all of her works. Though she knows that every black experience is not southern or working class, she affirms the southern space as an inescapable foundation. According to her-
Lawrence, L. (2007). Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom. London: Sage Publishers.
The above-mentioned essays are: Nihilism in Black America, The Pitfalls of Racial Reasoning, The Crisis of Black Leadership, Demystifying the Black Conservatism, Beyond Affirmative Action: Equality and Identity, On Black-Jewish Relations, Black Sexuality: T...
The War of 1812 has always been a part of American history not very exiting to learn about for most Americans. It was a tumultuous time for the New Republic and some of the battles of the war shamed the new nation. The War of 1812 did not have the same glorious, honorable, and just cause of the American Revolution. The British made fools of the American people and even burned the Capitol and the White House, the centers of American politics, to the ground. However as shameful as the war was, it also had some good benefits and it demonstrated to Great Britain and the rest of the world that the United States of America was its own sovereign nation, and not some British Sphere of Influence. Although the treaty of Ghent failed to address the important issues that brought the United States to war, the War of 1812 helped the country improve itself internally by way of increased nationalism, greater industrialization and a more stable economy, and an overall safer nation.
"After 1815 Americans transformed the republic of the Founding Fathers into a democracy. State after state revoked property qualifications for voting and holding officethus transforming Jefferson's republic of property holders into Andrew Jackson's mass democracy. Democracy, however, was not for everyone. While states extended political rights to all white men, they often withdrew or limited such rights for blacks. As part of the same trend, the state of New Jersey took the vote away from propertied women, who formerly had possessed that right. Thus the democratization of citizenship applied exclusively to white men. In the mid19th century, these men went to the polls in record numbers. The election of 1828 attracted 1.2 million voters; that number jumped to 1.5 million in 1836 and to 2.4 million in 1840. Turnout of eligible voters by 1840 was well over 60 percenthigher than it had ever been, and much higher than it is now." (Remini, 1998)
Rose, Arnold. “The Negro in America”. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Incorporated, 1964. Print
Karenga, Malauna. Introduction to Black Studies. Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press Third Edition, 2002.
Gloria Naylor begins her essay “The Meanings of a Word” with an analysis of words, their meaning, and why the power placed behind a word is more important than the word itself. This entire essay seemed to be about the weight a word can carry, and how no matter the permanent structure of the word itself, the weight can be shifted and transformed into something completely different. Specifically, the essay is about the word nigger, which feels as though it’s italicized constantly as some sort of defense mechanism for the writer. She goes on to describe the first time she heard the word, but by the end of the essay, we understand that this is only the first time that she recognized a hint of the cruel meaning behind it, because it is likely she heard the word many times before. This solidifies the idea that it is not actually the word that contains the power, nor the definition, but the connotation that the word
Parental figures in Toni Morrison's "Recitatif" and Flannery O'Connor's "The Artificial Nigger" use indoctrination in an attempt to uphold tradition and reinforce racial boundaries. While one adult influence fulfills the mission entirely, the other must settle for inconstant, recurrent success and ultimate failure.