Families in Strange Fruit
The family plays an integral role in perpetuating racial traditions in Maxwell.
Heads of black families took it upon themselves to teach their offspring how to properly
behave amongst white people. This entailed lessons in utter submission and complete
subservience. White families also educated their kin about their superior role in society.
"That's one of the Anderson niggers. Been to college. Yeah! Whole family been
to college! All right niggers though, even if they have. Had a good mother who raised
her children to work hard and know their place. Anderson niggers all right." (Smith, p.1)
Tillie Anderson placed great importance in teaching her children to know their position in
Maxwell. She is aware of the fact that regardless of what educational level her children
reach, they must always stay confined within the trappings of their race. This of course
compels Tillie and her children to maintain a slavish disposition.
"Hush yo moufs, all of you! Us Andersons don raise voices. We belong, you
hear!" (p. 22)
This is yet another example of Tillie Anderson's emphatic belief in absolute conformity.
She trains her children to not bring attention to themselves for fear of serious physical
harm or perhaps even death. Tillie will never let them forget that they are minorities and
lower class citizens living in a discriminating town. Again, Tillie drills her children in
their role as black inhabitants of the South.
"And Tillie's children looking up into the brown strong sweating face above them
listening to her words, thrust their roots more firmly into that soil out of which they had
come. (p. 23)
Tillie's...
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Mamie forebodes impending doom for Henry and is desperate to save him. She knows
that teaching him to be humble and meek is vital to his survival. Henry must know his
place in Maxwell. Mamie will do whatever it takes to teach her son.
Families have indeed been crucial in keeping the racial traditions of Maxwell.
Children have been cautiously fostered under these stringent and prejudicial guidelines.
Tillie Anderson and Mamie McIntosh have vigorously trained their children about the
confines of their class. Tracy Deen has also been made aware of the elevated status of
his race. It is without question that with these clearly defined roles, the perpetuation of
bigotry is highly inevitable.
Bibliography:
Works Cited
Smith, Lillian. Strange Fruit. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1944.
"My Children are black. They don't look like your children. They know that they are black, and we want it recognized. It's a positive difference, an interesting difference, and a comfortable natural difference. At least it could be so, if you teachers learned to value difference more. What you value, you talk about.'" p.12
Henry is somewhat naïve, he dreams of glory, but doesn't think much of the duty that follows. Rather than a sense of patriotism, it is clear to the reader that Henry goals seem a little different, he wants praise and adulation. "On the way to Washington, the regiment was fed and caressed for station after station until the youth beloved
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.
In her book, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, Annette Lareau argues out that the influences of social class, as well as, race result in unequal childhoods (Lareau 1). However, one could query the inequality of childhood. To understand this, it is necessary to infer from the book and assess the manner in which race and social class tend to shape the life of a family. As the scholar demonstrates, each race and social class usually has its own unique way of child upbringing based on circumstances. To affirm this, the different examples that the scholar presents in the book could be used. Foremost, citing the case of both the White and the African American families, the scholar advances that the broader economics of racial inequality has continued to hamper the educational advancement and blocks access to high-paying jobs with regard to the Blacks as opposed to the Whites. Other researchers have affirmed this where they indicate that the rate of unemployment among the African Americans is twice that of the White Americans. Research further advances that, in contrast to the Whites, for those African Americans who are employed, there is usually a greater chance that they have been underemployed, receive lower wages, as well as, inconsistent employment. This is how the case of unequal childhood based on race comes about; children from the Black families will continue residing in poverty as opposed to those from the white families.
The parents of the seven Carter children, Mae Bertha and Matthew Carter, wanted more than a life of picking cotton for long hours and endless days for their children. When the “Freedom of Choice Act” gave them an opportunity to put their children into white schools, at the time the better schools, Mae Bertha and Matthew immediately decided that their children would attend all white schools in the following school year. Little did they know “they would be the only ones-the only black children to board the bus, the only black children to walk up the steps and through the doors of white schools” (4). That didn’t stop them though, on the morning of September 7, 1965 all seven Carter children boarded the bus for what would end up being years of torment, but also resulted in a monumental time in history. Even though this family had to face desegregating schools alone with no other black family by their side, they did it and they succeeded. A preacher in...
II. Thesis 9: The Racial Contract has always been recognized by nonwhites as the real determinant of (most) white moral/political/practice
One of Miss Moore's defining qualities is her intelligence. Her academic skills and self-presentation is noticeable through her college degree and use of “proper speech” (Bambara, 385). Miss Moore also makes her intelligence evident from the methods she uses to teach Sylvia and the other children. Unlike planting them in classrooms, she takes them out on trips to show them the real world. Despite all the insults she receives from th...
Henry is subject to operant conditioning, classical conditioning, and conditioned response. Henry is taught by giving praise when he does something right and being corrected when he does something wrong. He is taught that if he does a certain thing like walking for example he gets praise. He is taught to associate certain things with others when they are presented like a fork for example to him means it’s time to eat because he has been given a fork before eating a few times before.
My objective for writing this essay on the black family was to examine and interrogate a myriad of stereotypes surrounding this family structure. Slavery and its inception need to be explored because it enables one to acquire a better understanding of the modern day black family. It is my hope that once we achieve this level of understanding, if not acceptance, that we may be able to start the healing process that is so necessary.
our Negro families are happier when they live in their own communities". (Hansberry 407). This
...came almost obsolete, denying the Black father his sociological and economic functions in the family (Staples, 158).
Lareau’s main argument in the text is that when children grow up in certain environments, parents are more likely to use specific methods of child rearing that may be different from other families in different social classes. In the text, Lareau describes how she went into the home of the McAllisters and the Williams, two black families leading completely different lives. Ms. McAllister lives in a low income apartment complex where she takes care of her two children as well as other nieces and nephews. Ms. McAllister never married the father of her two children and she relies on public assistance for income. She considers herself to be a woman highly capable of caring for all the children yet she still struggles to deal with the stress of everyday financial issues. The Williams on the other hand live in a wealthier neighborhood and only have one child. Mr. W...
This article also determines that when talking to certain “high class” blacks they felt that it was not important to learn about there culture stating that, “he didn’t go to school to waste his time.
“...[L]ike so many other black youngsters who were left to be taken care of by their grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles. It actually probably saved my life. It is the reason why I am here today. My grandmother gave me the foundation for success that I was allowed to continue to build upon. My grandmother taught me to read, a...
... the exact abilities that they have and that those views and values weakening society. They could choose new values that would allow equal opportunity for all people and a better society would be able to come into existence. Minorities could use an existentialist perspective to improve their standards of themselves.