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“White Privilege: essay
White privilege and whiteness
“Strange Fruit: An Overview of Lynching in America,” essay
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White Privilege in Poetry
INTRO PARAGRAPH Topic sentence: the idea that governs the entire paragraph then expand on that idea. The overall argument of paper should show the argument from the thesis/topic sentence. Martha Collins uses the story her father tells in order to talk about race in her poem “Blue Front.” Collins writes about race from the perspective of a white person, her father. She talks about his childhood and the horrible events that he witnessed. Race is discussed in the context of being black, and being white, at this time. Collins doesn’t take a stance, one way or another, in whether the black or white side is correct. She tells the truth, puts it out there, without an opinion. White people are painted in a horrible light. baskets napkins white bread ribs and chicken deviled eggs cakes for these occasions celebrations often food (Collins 12)
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For the white people, lynching was a form of entertainment. A lynching was an occasion to be celebrated, a community event that brought people together. “Children were often there they were being taught” (Collins 59). White children were brought to see lynchings, which taught them what it meant to be a white person during this time. They witnessed and were desensitized, to this violence against black people- usually black men. Race gave white people the privilege to sit on the sidelines of a lynching, and watch for entertainment’s sake. Black people did not have the same privilege. Instead of watching lynchings, black people locked themselves in their homes and hoped that the white mobs didn’t come for them
One of the most appalling practices in history, lynching — the extrajudicial hanging of a person accused of a crime — was commonplace in American society less than 100 years ago. The word often conjures up horrifying images of African Americans hanging from lampposts or trees. However, what many do not know is that while African Americans certainly suffered enormously at the hands of a white majority, they were not the only victims of this practice. In fact, the victims of the largest mass lynching in American history were Chinese (Johnson). On October 24th, 1871, a white mob stormed into the Chinatown of Los Angeles.
The racial project in this is, of course, a lynching. The racial spectacles are how lynchings are surfaced throughout the people. A lynching may be televised on television for people to watch. In addition, a lynching may be written in a local town’s newspaper for the people to read. Due to the fact that the lynching is carried out by so many people for this becomes a spectacle. The racial project of a lynching works towards the side of white supremacists because white people use it as a tactic to inflict their power over black people. MAny Klu Klux Klan members that lynched black people use religion as manner of justifying their actions. Former President Barack Obama reminded the nation back in February of 2015 when he was asked about Muslim intervention and the terrors that were used to justify religion. The president had this to say “Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of
Wells challenged this notion as a concealed racist agenda that functioned to keep white men in power over blacks as well as white women. Jacqueline Jones Royster documents the stereotypes of this popular white belief in an analysis of Wells’ reports.... ... middle of paper ... ...]” http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/lynching/lynching.htm>. [3] Tabulating the statistics for lynchings in 1893, [in A Red Record] Wells demonstrated that less than a third of the victims were even accused of rape or attempted a rape.. http://www.alexanderstreet6.com/wasm/wasmrestricted/aswpl/doc4.htm> 4 Royster.
In the case of a lynching, the violence affects both the lynchman and the lynched. Other times the violence is psychological in nature and it is often indirect. No matter what, it poisons and corrodes everything and everyone, from the environment itself to the very self; the “i” within the environment. And it still does to this day. Jean Toomer’s short story, “Blood Burning Moon” and other works featured in Cane, visualizes depictions of violence through lynching and reveal the innermost madness of the psyche that is the product of racialized violence in the South.
I feel that the white people felt that the blacks were getting to close to be like an equal. With that on mind, the whites felt that they need to show the blacks that they still run things. For instance, on page 107, it clearly states, "There are friends of humanity who feel their souls shrink from any compromise with murder, but whose deep and abiding reverence for womanhood causes them to hesitate in giving their support to this crusade against Lynch Law, out of fear that they may encourage the miscreants whose deeds are worse than murder." It goes on to explain blacks were lynched because the whites had the power to kill and get away with it and they prefer to kill, than taking it to court.
Reading these poems is an incredible learning experience because it allows readers to view segregation through the eyes of someone most affected by it. In the U.S. History course I took I didn’t take away the details and specific examples I did from reading and researching Brooks’ work. For example, the history textbook only mentioned one specific person who was affected by segregation, that person was Rosa Parks. The example of Rosa Parks demonstrated just one isolated incident of how black people were punished if they disobeyed the laws of segregation. In contrast, Brooks’ work demonstrates the everyday lives of black people living with segregation, which provides a much different perspective than what people are used to. An example, of this would be in Brooks’ poem “Bronzeville Woman in a Red Hat”. The speaker of this poem hired a black maid and referred to her as “it”(103). By not using the maid’s name or using the pronoun her, the speaker is dehumanizing the maid. This poem expresses to readers that white people thought that black people weren’t like them, that they weren’t even
As defined by encyclopedia.com, lynching is “violent punishment or execution, without due process, for real or alleged crimes” (Lynching). Although this is somewhat vague, it is quite accurate. Basically, the illegal act of intentional harm, usually performed in front of a vigilante audience, falls into this definition. It is commonly believed that the word “lynching” or “lynch law” was derived from the name of Charles Lynch (Simkin). This Virginian landowner consistently practiced illegal “trials” of local lawbreakers in his very own front yard. Once found guilty, not exactly a difficult finding, Lynch would then proceed to heartlessly whip and beat the accused (Simkin). Thus, “lynching” was born, and not explicitly to colored folks alone.
After looking back on previous paragraphs I have determined that one of the stronger areas of my writing is the topic sentences. My topic sentences are clear and argumentative while setting up the main idea of the paragraph. In the fifth paragraph assigned this term the topic sentence,“In the novel True Grit by Charles Portis…Rooster Cogburn is at heart a man of stronger character than his...acquaintance, Labeouf.” is a topic sentence that sets up the main topic and the foundation of the argumentative paragraph.
Southern Horror s: Lynch Law in All Its Phases by Ida B. Wells took me on a journey through our nations violent past. This book voices how strong the practice of lynching is sewn into the fabric of America and expresses the elevated severity of this issue; she also includes pages of graphic stories detailing lynching in the South. Wells examined the many cases of lynching based on “rape of white women” and concluded that rape was just an excuse to shadow white’s real reasons for this type of execution. It was black’s economic progress that threatened white’s ideas about black inferiority. In the South Reconstruction laws often conflicted with real Southern racism. Before I give it to you straight, let me take you on a journey through Ida’s
White men had three reasons for executing these acts. The first reason was a claim that Blacks were having a rebellion, so they had to use the force of killings to overpower Blacks from following through with the plans. Since these rebellions were false predictions, they had to find a better reason to eliminate the Black population. Blacks were now being given the right to vote, which placed fear in the White men that Blacks would take over so groups such as the Ku Klux Klan formed to attack Blacks and kill Blacks. The government deserted Blacks because they thought since Blacks were given freedom then they were fine, but in actuality, they needed to be secured too. The third reason, Whites claimed that they needed to protect White women from Black men because Black men were “alleged” raping White women. White men did not believe that a consensual relationship could occur between a white woman and a black man and always assumed of rape. Many other lynchings occurred and might not have been recorded. The Whites had no good reason for these unjust acts and just did them because they knew they could and were just vicious
The contradiction of being both black and American was a great one for Hughes. Although this disparity was troublesome, his situation as such granted him an almost begged status; due to his place as a “black American” poet, his work was all the more accessible. Hughes’ black experience was sensationalized. Using his “black experience” as a façade, however, Hughes was able to obscure his own torments and insecurities regarding his ambiguous sexuality, his parents and their relationship, and his status as a public figure.
Due to the past history of racial tension and lynching, black journalist and activist associate lynching with white on black violence. If you google “lynchings today,” the top five links are about black people being lynched. Today America has practiced using new and old ways of lynching. In the 21st century people are still be lynched for crimes they committed. Hate crimes involving lynching have died down a lot since the 20th century and so has the activity of the notorious Ku Klux Klan. Lynching was a punishment system designed to prevent a rape culture from spreading and help protect white women from being raped. However, over the years this punishment formed into a racial tension that increased as years went by. During the 20th century black activists and journalist such as Ida B. Wells documented every lynching in the United States to show the people what is happening behind closed curtains in the south. Wells stressed the importance of recording these numbers into something called “Lynch Law.” In this documentation Wells numbers the amount of black people being lynched in different states. You can tell the difference in demographic areas were lynching occurred more frequently; while New York only had 1, Tennessee had 28. The numbers vary from state to state, based on where they were located on the map. Wells’ “Lynch Law,” shows that the further down south you go the more frequent lynchings happen toward black
The poem “Negro” was written by Langston Hughes in 1958 where it was a time of African American development and the birth of the Civil Rights Movement. Langston Hughes, as a first person narrator tells a story of what he has been through as a Negro, and the life he is proud to have had. He expresses his emotional experiences and makes the reader think about what exactly it was like to live his life during this time. By using specific words, this allows the reader to envision the different situations he has been put through. Starting off the poem with the statement “I am a Negro:” lets people know who he is, Hughes continues by saying, “ Black as the night is black, /Black like the depths of my Africa.” He identifies Africa as being his and is proud to be as dark as night, and as black as the depths of the heart of his country. Being proud of him self, heritage and culture is clearly shown in this first stanza.
1. The introduction starts with a fairly general opening statement which introduces readers to your topic (or