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Literature and its impact on society
Literature and its impact on society
Literature and its impact on society
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Discrimination and prejudice actions in American society is prominent with no hint of extinction. In the book “Sông I Sing” by Bao Phi, he depicts and highlights racism in his poems. The poet outlines stereotypes, prejudices, discrimination along with reference to white privilege. This two time Minnesota slam champion injects his passionate feelings of his views of other people into his poems. He advocates that racism shouldn’t exist in American society. Bao Phi is semi descriptive on the stories and brings his poems alive to visualize the content through words. This poet illustrates the effects of prejudice on people in American society who do not feel freedom based on skin color. All of his poems are deemed excellent not just because Phi …show more content…
Prejudice, stereotypes, discrimination and white privilege are all forms of racism in American society. Bao Phi illustrates by using an example of his feeling being a different skin color. A quote from in his book says “When the American tongue gets a taste for hot dish, I’m going to open up my own restaurant and charge people ten times what the food is worth.” Many people don’t find any discrimination in this quote because the price stays the same for everyone and is not dependent on the color of somebody’s skin. In order for this to be a racist or discrimination statement all companies would need to charge differently based on skin color. Throughout his stories, Bao Phi gives great examples of racism based on different skin colors and the corresponding treatment. “I’m going to build garbage dumps in white neighborhoods and make sure there’s lead in the water supply. I’ll tell the cops to shake down any white guy they see wondering around for suspicious behavior.” Anecdotally, this is another example of racism by skin color what with a twist on what is actually experienced in American society. A lot of Americans have heard stories of officers following people of certain skin colors other than white even though they are doing nothing wrong. This practice serves to further segregate people rather than promote
Another thing that the cultural rule helped to benefit Hong Ulsu and Kang Pyongju was to provide them jobs that Koreans would never had before under Japan’s rule. The cultural rule not only helped in the expansion of schools which allowed Koreans more opportunities to gain advanced studies and more job options, but appointed more Koreans to civil services and judiciary, created advisory councils of carefully chosen Koreans, and nominally re-adjusted dual pay scale for bureaucrats. Again, Hong Ulsu met a kind Japanese person who became his boss when he work for him as an apprentice in which he was the one who helped him the most when he arrived in Japan, such as he provided meals for him, paid him his wages, and also paid for his schooling.
The world today can sometimes be a hard place to live, or at least live in comfort. Whether it be through the fault of bullies, or an even more wide spread problem such as racism, it is nearly impossible to live a day in the world today and feel like it was only full of happiness and good times. Due to this widespread problem of racism, often times we tend to see authors go with the grain and ignore it, continuously writing as if nothing bad happens in the world. Fortunately, Claudia Rankine, is not one of these authors. Rankine manages to paint a vivid picture of a life of hardships in her lyric Citizen: An American Lyric. In this lyric Claudia Rankine shows that she truly has a very interesting and not commonly used approach to some literary
Racism and the sense to fulfill a dream has been around throughout history. Langston Hughes’s poems “Harlem” and “I, Too” both depict the denial of ethnicity mix in society and its impact on an African American’s dream. James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” uses jazz music to tie the belief of one’s intention and attainment to the black race. The two main characters are different in a way of one fitting into the norm of the American Dream and the other straying away from such to fulfill his own dream. All three pieces of writing occur during the same time in history in which they connect the black race with the rejection of the American Dream and the opportunity to obtain an individual effort by a culture.
This poem is written from the perspective of an African-American from a foreign country, who has come to America for the promise of equality, only to find out that at this time equality for blacks does not exist. It is written for fellow black men, in an effort to make them understand that the American dream is not something to abandon hope in, but something to fight for. The struggle of putting up with the racist mistreatment is evident even in the first four lines:
There are two views, which are used to explain racism. One of the basic views is the class interest and the other is the white skin privilege. The white skin privilege view is a basic idea that places white skin as an averagely better than black people, American Indians or the Latino and other groups of people. The idea also is that white people benefit largely from the inequality that surface from a result of the privil...
In “Queens, 1963”, the speaker narrates to her audience her observations that she has collected from living in her neighborhood located in Queens, New York in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. The narrator is a thirteen-year-old female immigrant who moved from the Dominican Republic to America with her family. As she reflects on her past year of living in America, she reveals a superb understanding of the reasons why the people in her neighborhood act the way they do towards other neighbors. In “Queens, 1963” by Julia Alvarez, the poet utilizes diction, figurative language, and irony to effectively display to the readers that segregation is a strong part of the American melting pot.
Racism within the black community is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. In the black community, African-Americans are discriminating against each other, putting those with lighter skin complexions against those whose skin is darker. In the African American community, it’s like a battle of the skin tones. This type of racism is also known as colorism, the belief that those with lighter, fairer skin are treated with a higher respect than those with darker skin, this issue has been happening for a long time within the African American community. This form of racism is more offensive, severe, and different than the common traditional racism.
America is considered to be a county where white privilege is unearned, where social status is dignified and the whites are highly educated. In a society that favors one group, there are some similarities between the “people of color”, like Asian Americans and African Americans, who share an identity of struggle. Broad physical similarities, such as skin color, are now used efficiently, if also often inaccurately, to identify the difference between racial groups. However, economic, political and social forces in the US work to keep these groups separated from the privileged society.
Poems and other readings with strong racial undertones such as Strange Fruit allow me to reflect back on the role race plays in my life as a black young woman and analysis if much has changed in terms of racism in the American society today.
Have you ever wondered how your ethnicity can impact the way you interact with people? What about the conversation you might have with people? Do you have a voice in our society that allows you to speak for yourself or a group of people? In the poem “Sure You Can Ask Me a Personal Question” by Diane Burns, the author focused on showing the importance poetic devices have through allusions, repetition, and imagery. Through poetic devices, author of “Sure You Can Ask Me a Personal Question” shows how stereotypes from societies and her ethnicity affects her life. Diane Burns uses three poetic devices to communicate her tone throughout the poem.
“The Tao-te Ching is as much about good government as it is moral behavior.” (Thoughts from the Tao-te Ching 203.) The points Lao-tzu was trying to get across can be interpreted in many ways… But ultimately it resulted in a form of guidance given to us. Understanding how to be a good leader is beneficial to everyone. Good leadership is a great characteristic to have, and learning ways of minimizing the power you have as a leader is going to be the key to the Tao. Being able to identify the means of Lao-tzu’s teachings will help an individual such as a political leader to limit power, also by understanding his word it can help individuals overcome obstacles, lastly his teachings can influence a society to learn respect for one another.
Racism is defined as the belief that one race posses something better or more superior than another race. Racism and Racial Discrimination has been around for 2 Centuries. It started off in medieval times. Often rulers would be Prejudice or would have Racial Assumptions point toward a peasant because of his/her appearance or wealth. From there slavery took over. During MOST of the 19th century, and all of the 20th century, slavery ruled. If you were “colored” a termed used for African American, you were thought of as less than trash. African Americans faced 4 of the 7 most common types of Racial Discrimination. They faced Prejudice, Racial Assumptions, Harassment and Systematic Racism.
Race is, in fact, reestablished as an intrusive presence in American collective life in the second part of the play when Hwang 's father and other members of the community become victims of the 1996 Congressional investigation into the loyalty of Chinese Americans suspected of espionage and of obscure financial dealings with China, thereby imposing the reality of racism on a post-racial sensibility. (Botelho 92)
...ites a short 33-line poem that simply shows the barriers between races in the time period when racism was still openly practiced through segregation and discrimination. The poem captures the African American tenant’s frustrations towards the landlord as well as the racism shown by the landlord. The poem is a great illustration of the time period, and it shows how relevant discrimination was in everyday life in the nineteen-forties. It is important for the author to use the selected literary devices to help better illustrate his point. Each literary device in the poem helps exemplify the author’s intent: to increase awareness of the racism in the society in the time period.
By exposing issues surrounding prejudice, individuals are challenged to alter their ideals, promoting change in societies. Both Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird and Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s poem Son of Mine raise ideas of bigotry that possess the ability to inspire societies to become more inclusive. Through exploring the transformative capacity of innocence, injustice and hope, composers allow the audience an alternative insight into prejudice.