Changes in Attitude Over the Years
Imagine walking down the street one day, only to be smiled at and happily greeted by each and every person you encountered. Life in the 1930s was just like this. Towns were small and everyone knew one another. Now imagine walking down a crowded, traffic-filled street, only to be pushed aside, ignored, or ridiculed. Life in the 1980s, and today, is like this. Towering skyscrapers and large houses cover the land and no one seems to have a care in the world for another person. In Fannie Flagg's novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, the drastic change of the lifestyles and attitudes of people between the 1930s and 1980s is clearly portrayed.
Racism was an attitude that strongly affected the lives of people during the 1930s. Although slavery had been abolished over fifty years before, groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, still existed, which led people to believe African Americans were a bad race of people. African Americans were looked down upon by anyone with a light skin color, including lighter-skinned African Americans, themselves. Clarissa, Jasper's peaches-and-cream colored daughter, was so lightly colored, she was able to ride in the main white elevator, while she was downtown. Her parents would be quite angry if they were to find out "although she was encouraged to mingle only with the lighter-skinned people, passing for a white was an unpardonable sin" (296). Clarissa's parents didn't want her to pass herself off as a white person, because she shouldn't hide the fact that she's black, while at the same time, they didn't want her seen around darker-skinned African Americans, because it was believed that the darker the skin color, the worse the person was. In the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr., for example, was one of the strong leaders to change the racism that existed for so many years. By the 1980s, people of all skin colors were much more accepted. Interracial dating and marriages began to grow, there were no rules about where an African American could sit, walk, or eat, and the racism which had existed in the 1930s was nearly gone. The attitude of racism, which had affected the lives of so many in the 1930s no longer affects people quite so harshly today.
Another bad attitude people had in the 1930s was towards homosexuality. The thought of a man having relations with another man, or a woman having relations with another woman, never even came to mind then.
The forties and fifties in the United States was a period dominated by racial segregation and racism. The declaration of independence clearly stated, “All men are created equal,” which should be the fundamental belief of every citizen. America is the land of equal opportunity for every citizen to succeed and prosper through determination, hard-work and initiative. However, black citizens soon found lack of truth in these statements. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the murder of Emmett Till in 1955 rapidly captured national headlines of civil rights movement. In the book, Coming of Age in Mississippi, the author, Anne Moody describes her experiences, her thoughts, and the movements that formed her life. The events she went through prepared her to fight for the civil right.
During the early 1920s the Great Depression took place. The Great Depression affected many people's lives. The immigrants caught the worst of it. They had just come from another country and were trying to start their new lives when the depression hit. They had to struggle once more with poverty and desperation in taking care of their families, the main reason they had left their old countries was to escape the same epidemic that was now overtaking ?the land of the free?. Immigrants, such as the Jewish immigrants, had to live in poverty-stricken ghettos without the necessities they needed to live healthy lives. The 1920s was the time of rapid change, it was the time of risque fashion, it was the time of which that if you were rich and had all the latest fashions then you were ?in? but if you did not then you were an outcast.
In those Days being black was like being an animal, people would treat you different and you had no opportunities of becoming successful. As soon as we start reading the book Rebecca let us know that this was the time when black people had to go to different bathrooms, had different treatments, in less words they could not do what white people did. As stated on the book “This was the era of Jim Crow-when black people showed up at white-only hospitals, the staff was likely to send them away, even if it meant they might die in the parking lot. Even Hopkins, which did treat black patients, segregated them in colored wards and had colored-only fountains.”(p.15). People use to think, that black people were inferior to the white race. Another good examples of the society problem, is when we get to know Carrell, the mad racist scientist, who wrote a book named “Man, the
From an early age it was clear to Sandy that, the lighter a person’s skin was, the higher their social status. As the only young child in his household, he was exposed to many conversations among the adults around him that revolved around race. A primary example of this was one of the conversations between his grandmother, Aunt Hager, and her friend, Sister Whiteside. Sandy and the two elder women sat at the kitchen table together to share a meal while the two women chatted. Sandy sat quietly and absorbed their talk of everything from assuming the white ancestry of a lighter-skinned child they knew, to the difficulty of keeping “colored chillens in school” (13-15).
The dictionary defines racism as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” Racism is one of the worst things to ever come about in the history of America. What began as feelings among whites of being superior to African Americans turned into one of the worst circumstances the United States ever dealt with and is still dealing with today. Even 100 years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, many white people were still treating blacks poorly. It took several years before blacks were given truly equal rights that white Americans were given. In Anne Moody’s autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, she discusses growing up in Mississippi. She writes about her memories of transitioning between childhood, high school, college, and finally her courageous work in the civil rights movement during the 1960s.
“Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities.” In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs provides a portrayal of her life as a black slave girl in the 1800s. Though Harriet described herself as having yellowish brown skin; she was the child of a black mother and a white father. “I was born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away.” Born with one drop of black blood, regardless of the status of her white father, she inherited the classification of black and was inevitably a slave. Harriet endured years of physical and mental abuse from her master and witnessed firsthand how slaves were treated based on the color of their skin. Years of abuse can only be taken for so long, like many other southern slaves in the 1800s Harriet escaped to the North in hopes for a better life. After hiding in an attic for several years, Harriet made it to the North and assisted in the abolition of slavery. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl unmasked the brutality of how black slaves were treated, and branded less inferior than whites. Although the Thirteenth Amendment, in 1865, abolished slavery, it did not provide for racial equality. As a result, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawed discrimination based on race or color. Even today racial equality is still an issue, skin color is often the trigger on how society reacts, the laws in place substantiate the past is still relevant.
The segregation in South Carolina happens everywhere and every day. Indeed, racism is manifested through the media, the law, which legitimizes segregation, and the perceptions that white and black people have of each other. Because of the laws against colored people, Rosaleen, as a black woman, lives with constraints in her life. For example, she cannot live in a house with white people (Kidd, p.8), she cannot represent Lily at the charm school (Kidd, p.19), or even to travel with a car with white people (Kidd, p.76). The media is also influenced by racism, and constantly shows news about segregation such as the case of Martin Luther King, who is arrested because he wan...
Prejudice begins with justifying something as being different based on personal experience and how one was raised. During Moody’s childhood in Coming of Age in Mississippi, she highlights how people were taught to hate each other by judging the difference in skin color. Upon arriving at the movie theatre, Moody and her siblings followed their white friends into an area prohibited to blacks. They were not allowed to return to the movie theatre after getting caught by their mother and her white friends stopped playing in front of Moody’s house. The author states, “Now all of a sudden they were white, and their whiteness made them better me. I now realized that not only were they better than me because they were white, but everything they owned and everything connected with them was better than what was available to me” (34). Moody’s siblings and white friends did not know that they were different based on their skin color until that moment. Her autobiography demonstrates that one is not born to hate someone, it is a learned
It is already a very well known fact that African Americans went through a lot of torment through the 1920s until the later 1960s. Even as time went by, only a small amount of things changed. Racism may have died down a bit, but remains in existence. The play A Raisin in the Sun by African American female, Lorraine Hansberry, depicts the real life of African Americans between the 1920s and the 1960s. This time period for an African American was rather tough. The living situations for African Americans were made even more difficult than they would have already been due to their skin color and the government's decisions (ex. Jim Crow laws).
White individuals made it almost impossible for African Americans to live in a white society. In her story Hansberry discusses an example of institutionalized racism, "Them houses they out up for colored in them areas way out all seem to cost twice as much as other house. I did the best i could" (Hansberry 1507). Racism was everywhere and this quote shows the racist laws that made the lives of colored individuals more difficult than it already was. This should not be the factor in america at this time considering slavery was abolished in 1865. These people are are being judged off what color skin they have; automatically making African Americans irrelevant and not accepted in many parts not just south side Chicago. Because discrimination against colored people was very influenced by many, white folks did what they could to keep these different races separate. In correlation to the previous statement, Karl Linder from the "Clybourne Park Improvement Association"
Jordan attends an elite private school and an exclusive summer camp. So as much as I want to believe that our upper-middle-class status will protect my son from many of society’s social ills, it could not provide him the white privilege he seeks.” (Canedy 887 )Even though Canedy sent her child to a private school and lived in a big house, she believes that the racism wouldn’t affect him. similar to canedy, Chung worries about racism affecting her children Chung wanted to keep people with racist comments away from her kids. “I consider my children, who probably aren’t tracking this conversation — not just because they don’t watch the television show in question, but because they are still young and, for all our intra-family conversations about racism, they do not yet expect to encounter it in their everyday lives. I generally try to push back when someone says something offensive in their earshot, especially when it’s something I think they might understand.” (Chung) Canedy’s son being afraid of accepting his race is a good example of the problems racism causes the color people to want to be “white” because they have many opportunities that color people don’t if we go back to segregation the whites were able to go to good school and have nice house while “color” wasn’t able to, Many “color
In conclusion these authors did a great job of painting a picture of what times were like back in the 1920’s. I actually feel like I was there during most of these movements. The 1920’s was a powerful time frame to look back on. I don’t think I could have lived during these times due to everything that was going on. Lastly, going back into time and looking at the representation and feeling of African American during the 1920s was very informative and educating. I would say racism played a huge part in society back then. I would like to leave you with this question, is racism still alive and where do we do from here?
While the materialism of the 20’s faded into the economic depression that followed, and the glow of the 1950’s was dimmed by the onset of communist fever, both decades proved to be successful and iconic in the way that they brought about massive prosperity, and because youth found new ways of expressing themselves and inviting progress. Unfortunately, not all outcomes were good, and both eras triggered an onslaught of racial tension that would continue well into the future.
The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines racism as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” Racism is one of the deepest stains on the pages of American history. What began as feelings among whites of being superior to blacks turned into possibly the worst phenomenon the United States ever dealt with. Even 100 years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, many white people were still treating blacks atrociously. It took many decades before blacks were granted truly equal rights that white Americans were given. In Anne Moody’s autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, she discusses growing up in Mississippi. She writes about her memories of childhood, high school, college, and finally her courageous work in the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Moody offers readers a startling and remarkable story of her life. She also gives great insight into the effects of racism on the victims of it, on those who practice it, and the effects on American society.
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).