A Nigger No Longer Caged
I taught myself to read when I was twenty years old. The book I started with was I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou.
I was raised in Huntington, West Virginia. Living in Huntington was like living at the bottom of a bottomless pit. The hills defining our valley town were four insurmountable walls, imprisoning me in that special hell reserved for children of miscegenation. My mother had broken one of Huntington's greatest taboos - she had mothered three children by a black man. After three kids and numerous beatings, my mother bravely left him. Disowned by her family and ostracized by the larger white community, her strength did not last long; she started on the long road to alcohol and drug dependency.
My mother did not suffer in silence; instead, she passed on to us the tainted wisdom that her parents gave to her. Her most frequent reminder to us was, "You're not worth anything, you will never be worth anything, because you're niggers!" We rarely had food, and many winters we had no working gas for heat or hot water. My mother would conveniently go stay at her boyfriend's for weeks at a time. Sometimes she would leave me ten or fifteen dollars, and I would buy a week's worth of food: cereal and milk, hamburger, bread, and potato chips, and Little Debbie snack cakes. When that ran out, my brothers and I had some pretty crafty ways of finding more: talking my father out of some money, begging, or stealing.
My mother had a house in the white part of town, about a block from the geographic dividing line, so we went to the white school. I was one of three blacks in the entire high school. I remember my welcome sign the first day of school: "GO TO HERSHEY HIGH NIGGER" spray painted on my locker, signed in red by the KKK. In my junior year the school decided to celebrate Black History Month by devoting one afternoon's history class to a discussion of Black achievements. I was so anxious and excited. I was hoping to learn something more than the words of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech. My excitement was quickly shot down as my teacher turned to the only Black in the class - me - and asked if I had anything to offer.
Although there were numerous efforts to attain full equality between blacks and whites during the Civil Rights Movement, many of them were in vain because of racial distinctions, white oppression, and prejudice. Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi recounts her experiences as a child growing up in Centreville, Mississippi. She describes how growing up in Mississippi in a poor black family changed her views of race and equality, and the events that took place that changed her life forever. She begins her story at the tender age of 4, and describes how her home life changed drastically with the divorce of her parents, the loss of her home, and the constant shuffle from shack to shack as her mother tried to keep food on the table with the meager pay she earned from the numerous, mostly domestic, jobs she took. On most days, life was hard for Anne, and as she got older she struggled to understand why they were living in such poverty when the white people her mother worked for had so many nice things, and could eat more than bread and beans for dinner. It was because of this excessive poverty that Anne had to go into the workforce at such an early age, and learn what it meant to have and hold a job in order to provide her family. Anne learned very young that survival was all about working hard, though she didn’t understand the imbalance between the work she was doing and the compensation she received in return.
Florida International University recognizes its contribution to the accumulation of waste considering that it produces about seven million pounds of waste each year (Figueroa, 2010). Unlike other universities that still remain adamant in investing on green practices, FIU has, “governed by the State of Florida under Florida Statute 403.714 and The Florida Solid Waste Management Act of 1988” (FIU, 2011), established its own internal ‘green machine’ or solid waste and environmental protection system via the FIU Custodial Services Office. The university’s efforts in ensuring efficient solid waste management even “far exceeds the minimum standards” (FIU, 2011) required by law. What makes the solid waste management efforts of the university one-of-a kind is the establishment of a “single stream recycling program which means that all recyclable items can be placed into one bin and do not have to be sorted” (FIU, 2011). Nevertheless, despite the use of single recycle bins, proper labeling has to accompany each bin to ensure that only materials that are recyclable are placed in the bins. There are also different sized of bins which are placed stra...
The twentieth century was a time of tremendous change that commenced with WWI and the Great Depression. While WWI brought countless deaths, the Great Depression affected both urban and rural Americans. Yet, underlying these devastating events was the abuse of black Americans. Both whites and blacks had to cope with the major occurrences of the time, but blacks also faced strife from whites themselves. During the early part of the twentieth century, white Americans Russell Baker and Mildred Armstrong Kalish gained kindred attributes from their families, especially in comparison to that of Richard Wright, a black American. The key differences between the experience of whites and blacks can be found within the mentality of the family, the extent to which they were influenced by their families in their respective lives, and the shielding from the outside world, or lack thereof, by their families. Through the compelling narrations of these three authors, readers can glimpse into this racially divided world from the perspective of individuals who actually lived through it.
The water moves at a faster rate since there is nothing to absorb the water, which could cause flooding.
Forest fires or better known as wildfires are one of the most devastating events that could happen to anyone whom reside where they may occur. The imagery of forest fires portrays them as one of the most horrific things that could happen to humanity due to all the materialistic damage that they cause. News outlets show keep us updated on how long the fire burns and how many firefighters lose their lives battling these fires. In the years, 2011, 2012, and 2013 five federal agencies spent 1.73 million,1.9 million, and 1.74 million dollars consecutively on material that would be used to suppress forest fires. (Tecle & Neary, 2015). Some fires are control burned to clear brush for construction or just to promote the growth of fresh vegetation. Other wildfires are produced from extreme drought conditions and prove to be quite an inconvenience for local firefighters. The fires burn for hours, days, and maybe even weeks. The damage is more than the charred land and burned brush that we can see with our naked eye. The effect of these fires has a much costlier tag than what we can associate to a monetary value. Wildfires damage our ecosystem and other factors of our environment. The environment of the water body itself is altered and has no bounds of the types of effects that may
My literacy journey began long before I had actually learned how to read or write. While recently going through baby pictures with my mother, we came across a photo of my father and I book shopping on the Logos boat, a boat that would come to my island every year that was filled with books for our purchasing. Upon looking at this picture, my mother was quite nostalgic and explained how they began my journey to literacy through experiences like this. My earliest memory of experiencing literature was as a small child. My parents would read bedtime stories to me each night before I went to bed. I vividly remember us sitting on the bed together with this big book of “365 bedtime stories for 365 days” and we read one story each day until we had
rains down on us from the sky which then either enters the soil or joins with a larger body
There are multiple reasons why the wetlands have continuously had a downfall. Two of the reasons are due to hydrologic alterations and urbanization along with many more reasons such as natural processes. Hydrologic alterations consist of: drainage, dredging, stream channelization, ditching, levees, and deposition of fill material, stream diversion, groundwater withdrawal, and impoundment (“Wetlands Loss and Degradation”). When these changes occur to wetlands, it also cause changes to the animals or plants living there as well as the soil that’s
Lyons, J. L., Huff, M. H., Hooper, R. G., Telfer, E. S., Schreiner, D. S., & Smith, J. K. (2000). Wildland Fire in Ecosystems: Effects of Fire on Fauna. Published by The United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. Retreived on line July 7, 2005, http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_gtr42_1.html
Growing up a black female in a black neighborhood. I went to school with not much diversity in my elementary, middle school nor high school.
Wildfires have been a major issue for many years; with the first one being recorded over four hundred and twenty million years ago the world realized they were dealing with an untamable monster. The effects that forest fires have on nature are by far extreme. Wildfire rips across the landscape tearing through and burning every living parcel in its path. If this occurs to often or burns for an excessive amount of time the natural cycle can be thrown out of balance. This equilibrium allows for the best the regeneration of the area and with this disturbance it may be slowed or even stopped. Along with plant life being thrown out of cycle the effects on nature’s creatures is also a major factor. With the loss of the majority of plant life causes the animal’s key food source is lost and many begin to migrate away from the area and into more adequate ones or some just starve to death. On top of losing a food source the anima...
As a biracial kid, an outsider may think I’ve grown up aware of racial issues. Surprisingly though I haven’t, and until recently I had been mostly ignorant of the racism that is still present in our modern day society. Looking back I can understand why. I was born in New York City but my earliest memories are from living in New Hampshire, a state where the population is about 90 percent white. Although at this age I felt strange living in a place where there were so few minorities, at the time I was young and everyone was so friendly that our differences didn’t seem to be significant. The fact that I had a darker skin tone than all of my friends didn’t faze me, and in all honesty I didn’t feel like I was black.
“What Would Happen If People Didn’t Recycle?” The Online Gargoyle. Friday 1 July 2011. University of Illinois Board of Trustees. March 21,2014. http://uni.illinois.edu/og/opinions/2011/07/what-would-happen-if-people-didn-
Recycling is important in the effort to preserve our environment for future generations. We are running out of locations to put landfills. Recycling is a simple and effective way to reduce the amount of waste stored in landfills, yet many people do not know how easy it can be. For example, whenever I go to Shoprite® and I b...
Efficient waste managing approaches help with reducing and avoiding unpleasant impact on the environment and human health, while allowing financial development and progress in the quality of people’s life. People do not even imagine what is the size and capacity of their activities and the impact they produce on the environment. Garbage is an important ecological problem. It is seems amazing that approximately all of the citizens of the world identify rubbish as a major environmental problem and yet these people still litter. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (2008), an American produces 250 million tons of garbage per year (para.2). There are different circumstances that are based on the society, environmental conditions, occupation and size of each of the different family. As Richmond (2010) stated, if no administration organizations has the responsibility or resources to concentrate their efforts on the waste disposal, then the responsibility to do that is on ...