Ballad of White Supremacy Maureen O 'Hara once said “In the beginning it was all black and white.”.This reflects on an essential point: all colors-all people- might be understood within these two colors. In the poem “Ballad of Birmingham”, by Dudley Randall, a mother tries to keep her daughter out of harm 's way from cruel white racists. Failing tragically, and results in the only thing left of her daughter, a white shoe. The speakers are the mother and daughter. Randall uses fearful imagery with intention to show how cruel the racists are. The symbolism used in the poem aims to cover what is primarily the cause of fear: color. At last he uses an unforeseen synecdoche as a way to portray the daughter. The poem embarks on an eye opening journey with fearful imagery, symbolism, unforeseen synecdoche, and irony to show how white supremacy prevails over society. Symbols of attack one imagistically used to illustrate control over African-Americans. The speaker adds words like, "For the dogs our fierce and wild, and clubs and hoses, guns and jails"(Line 6-7). The speaker describes dangers that they endure especially at a freedom march. To illustrate the dangers, they included violence and a demanding obedience. Even more, the speaker admits,"I fear those guns will …show more content…
The poem itself is a giant pot of irony.The mother tries all throughout the poem to protect her daughter. The irony in that is no matter what she did her daughter still died. Randall used irony to show one was safe nowhere, not even church. He shows that white supremacy and racial issues are everywhere. Hidden throughout the poem, ironic theme was placed right there for everyone to grasp at it. As an example he uses imagery, he uses “sacred place”(22) to signify a safe place. He was referring church to be a safe place where no matter the color of their skin, they were all safe in the hands of god. That simply wasn’t the
In “Citizens: An American Lyric” by Claudia Rankine the audience is placed in a world where racism strongly affects the daily American cultural and social life. In this world we are put as the eyewitnesses and victims, the bystanders and the participants of racial encounters that happen in our daily lives and in the media, yet we have managed to ignore them for the mere fact that we are accustomed to them. Some of these encounters may be accidental slips, things that we didn’t intend to say and that we didn’t mean yet they’ve managed to make it to the surface. On the other hand we have the encounters that are intentionally offensive, things said that are
“…it is said that there are inevitable associations of white with light and therefore safety, and black with dark and therefore danger…’(hooks 49). This is a quote from an article called ‘Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination’ written by bell hooks an outstanding black female author. Racism has been a big issue ever since slavery and this paper will examine this article in particular to argue that whiteness has become a symbol of terror of the black imagination. To begin this essay I will summarize the article ‘Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination’ and discuss the main argument of the article. Furthermore we will also look at how bell hooks uses intersectionality in her work. Intersectionality is looking at one topic and
The black way has never been an easy way. By the constructions of society, by its demand that there be an innate, horribly valid separation between the black man and the white man– the black way has never been right, nor fluid, nor gorgeous, nor terribly affectionate. Not by any literary standard. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye has been no exception. This has been her message; and again, as if to suggest a chant, the black way has never been a good way.
The idea of race and the stigma and stereotypes associated with different skin colors have been a constant in our society. From our country’s founding, race has been deeply engrained into our culture—the most prominent example being slavery—and has been the main source of conflict among people. The race issue in America has been illuminated in recent years both intellectually and physically; pieces of literature have been created that explore the repercussions of race in society and the historical implications situations, and events have sparked attention through the media that depict the issues that race creates. An example of examining race in America intellectually can be seen in Toni Morrison’s essay Playing in the Dark, which discusses
With all three of these aspects of racism in consideration, race was a prevalent theme in the book that couldn’t escape the reader’s consciousness. Whether it was through showing the division of the communities, or through the feelings that each race held about the other race, the book portrays the history of racism in America.
The church is most often associated with the idea of a sanctuary for peace and tranquility, a safe home. Everyone anticipates to be capable of going to church and get away from their concerns and not have to worry about whether they are in danger or not. However danger can appear in the least expected location. Dudley Randall's “Ballad of Birmingham” gives a poetic ballad of the bombing of the Birmingham church in Alabama in 1963. Its theme is revolved around the belief that no place is safe from racial hatred if a society doesn’t offer equal protection and punishment. Her mom trusts there is a place secure from racial hatred and violence. Her naïve belief cost her daughter’s life.
Fueled by fear and ignorance, racism has corrupted the hearts of mankind throughout history. In the mid-1970’s, Brent Staples discovered such prejudice toward black men for merely being present in public. Staples wrote an essay describing how he could not even walk down the street normally, people, especially women, would stray away from him out of terror. Staples demonstrates his understanding of this fearful discrimination through his narrative structure, selection of detail, and manipulation of language.
In the poem “White Lies” by Natasha Tretheway the narrator opens the poem with vivid imagery about a bi-racial little girl who is trying to find her true identity between herself and others around her. She tells little lies about being fully white because she feels ashamed and embarrassed of her race and class and is a having a hard time accepting reality. The poem dramatizes the conflict between fitting in and reality. The narrator illustrates this by using a lot imagery, correlations and connotation to display a picture of lies. The narrator’s syntax, tone, irony and figurative language help to organize her conflict and address her mother’s disapproval.
The form of irony used in the poem allows the author to say more with less and still give a serious and hard hitting criticism of society. An example can be seen in the quote “Hell we didn’t make this mess/ it was given to us and when we’re gone,/ as our parents did, we’ll pass it on/ you see we’ve learned your lessons well.” (King lines 64-67)This section of the poem mocks and criticizes modern society and how we see things as someone else’s problem. Amongst the criticism is blame, to an oppressor that forced people to follow their ways. This Irony is called deconstructive irony. “As Canadian as Possible under the Circumstances” states that deconstructive irony is “A kind of critical ironic stance that works to distance, undermine, unmask, relativize, destabilize.” (Hutcheon page 9) Its uses in the poem are to get people to realize the issues in society and the kind of world we built. The poem is asking us to be better people, to leave the world better than when we found it. The way this irony is used helps reinforce the authors social commentary, and helps people see from the authors
Racism dates back thousands and thousands of years back to the caveman times. In the short story “Desiree’s Baby”, Kate Chopin shows how discrimination by skin color can affect people. Desiree was abandoned and raised by Madame Valmonde. Armand, the father of the baby, was a member of the most notable families in Louisiana. He falls in love with Desiree and marries her. After they have a baby, their relationship quickly corrodes. A few months later, Armand realizes the baby’s skin has a darker tint than usual. He accuses Desiree of being black. Armand tells Desiree he wants her to leave so Desiree takes the baby and “disappears among the reeds and willows that grew thick along the banks of the deep, sluggish bayou” (Chopin 91) and never returns. Armand finds out that Desiree is black when he reads a letter that her mother sent her that read “she belongs to the race which is cursed with the brand of slavery” (Chopin 92). The story’s ironic ending has a connection with the story’s setting, imagery, and Chopin’s use of similies.
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).
The tragic poem, “The Ballad of Birmingham,” begins with a young child asking an imploring question to her mother, “May I go downtown instead of out to play” (Randall, 669)?
Going to church in the ghetto in Birmingham was probably the safest place a mother could send her child. But this is where the irony takes place. The irony makes the church the warzone and place of destruction while the march was the safest place to be. The child was depicted as combed hair, freshly bathed, with white gloves, and white shoes, which is also ironic. The mother had sent an angel dressed in white to a firestorm from hell called church. The mother was completely sure that her daughter was safe until she
...s “Oh, here’s the shoe my baby wore/but baby, where are you?” The mother then realizes that the church was not a sanctuary as she was led to believe, but a place of extreme violence. The irony of the situation is that in the end, the streets of Birmingham filled with its “clubs and hoses, guns and jails,” (line 7) was a safer place for the child then her local church. The irony adds to the dramatic situation by giving the reader a false sense of hope and then quickly taking it away.
The language is also used to emphasize the feelings and emotions of Callum and Sephy. The use of descriptive writing is employed by Blackman to give the reader insight into the effects and emotions of racism. “I was talking like my mouth was full of stones – and sharp jagged ones at that.” The book is full of descriptive writing and figurative language with use of similes and metaphors to explore the feelings of Callum and Sephy. The way in which Blackman uses these language techniques influences the reader to especially pity the white race and the way they are treated in the book. Blackman has created her own world to resemble our own op...