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1. In this piece, the zoot suit is being studied to show its influence on African American males. Moreover, many different components were also included to signify black culture such as Hep Cat, the “conk” hairdo, Bebop, and Lyndy Hop. The time period being studied is during the 1940s. 2. The author argues that the zoot suit represents both African American subculture and a figure to strike back white supremacy via the young Malcolm. The zoot suit reflects slothful lifestyle of black men since they want to live in the “pursuit of leisure and pleasure.” Along with other components, it was also a way for black males to identify themselves and transmitted the fact that they were trying to overcome low-paying jobs. 3. There are differences between
McCutcheon, Marc. "Clothing and Fashions." The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life from Prohibition Through World War II. Cincinnati: Writer's Digest, 1995. 161-67. Print.
The book Zoot Suit has symbolic significance for Mexican Americans and tells about the riots during World War II. The Sleepy Lagoon Murder was one step in the fight for the rights and respect of Mexican American's. This riot involved young servicemen and civilians who clashed in the streets of the city with young Mexican Americans who wore the noticeable "Zoot Suit." At their height, the riots involved several thousand men and women. In the end no one was killed and only a few were injured but even today, the Zoot Suit riots are remembered for their significance.
Brent Staples was one of nine African American children born into the Staples family in Chester, Pennsylvania. He and his family were witnesses to Chester becoming victim to the slums after the city closed some of it’s major industries. As a former reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, he worked his way up a few positions to the assistant metropolitan editor of The New York Times Book Review. In 1994, he published his memoir, Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black and White. One of his most moving pieces is his essay on the stereotypical views of the average African American Male entitled, “Black Men and Public Space.” It was first published in Harper’s Magazine in 1986. This essay shows not only the average African American male’s thoughts while simply walking down the street at night, but he somewhat explains that he also understands what is going through the mind of the average white by passers as they are forced to cross each other’s paths in the dead of night.
Wilson created the atmosphere of not only binding black race with economical and social issues when there are other contributing factors as well. The plight of low-skilled inner city black males explains the other variables. He argues “Americans may not fully understand the dreadful social and economic circumstances that have moved these bla...
In this particular piece by Gaines, offers a close analysis of the racial, class, color, and gender dimensions of a very complex subject, yet it is also a provoking study. As stated in many of our classroom discussion that, it is a difficult read that employs complicated language and a fragmented organizational structure. For me as well as many others in the class, this piece required a dictionary on hand for a translation of the word choice used by Gaines. At times Gaines' analysis lacks any clear sense of flow and seems to be wandering from one unrelated point to another. In nine fully documented chapters with an excellent bibliography and index, Kevin K. Gaines develops his ideas with regard to an "uplift ideology." He begins at the turn of the century by examining violent racism as Reconstruction was dying and the civil-rights movement was born. From this historical mix emerges a new concept, "uplift," whereby the upper class, or elite blacks, believed that they could earn the rights and respect of whites by assuming bourgeois mores of self-help and service to the black ma...
The zoot suit symbolized several different things for the Mexican American population in the Los Angeles community. Not only was it a symbol of pride in their Mexican heritage, but also a form of rebellion from the norms emplaced upon the Mexican teenagers by their parents. These suits were also a symbol of unity, these young men wanted to look different and feel as if they’re culture could be something they could display and be proud of. This whole image was seen by the modern culture of Los Angeles to be “gang” related or distasteful. These “Pachuco” or punks often spoke a hybrid of English and Spanish, this was known as “calo.” However, many of the Mexican American teenagers at the time, spoke only English. The outfit often included pants wide at the knee often 40 inches or more, a broad shouldered jacket, hat, chain wallet and shined shoes called “calcos.”
Richardson, Riche. Black Masculinity and the U.S. South: From Uncle Tom to Gangsta. University of Georgia Press, 2010. Print.
Throughout the years, the black community has been looked down upon as a community of criminals and a community of lesser educated and poor who have a lesser purpose in life. Journalist Brent Staples, the author of Black Men And Public Spaces, takes us into his own thoughts as a young black man growing up in Chester, Pennsylvania to becoming a journalist in New York City. He tells us his own challenges that he faces on a daily basis along with challenges that many black men his own age faced and the way he changed in order to minimize the tension between himself and the common white person. Growing up in the post-segregation era was a challenge for most blacks. Having the same rights and privileges as many white Americans, but still fighting for the sense of equality, was a brick wall that many blacks had to overcome.
With African Americans being apart of the fashion industry, they faced many hardships. However, they created a distinctive voice in the history of fashion. Throughout the early twentieth century, Blacks designers influenced the fashion industry in America, having, “a system and structure for maintaining their particular type of fashion.” African American fashion was very popular and caught the attention from the media. Department stores held successful fashion shows, screened fashion movies, and staged fashion pageants. Fortunately, African Americans were allowed to attend these events, yet they were not welcomed. Fast-forward to today, the fashion industry has opened up several doors for African American designers, stylist, and models. However,
Although the Civil War is celebrated as the time of emancipation, emancipation was not the primary issue at stake. This leads to wondering how the Emancipation Proclamation and the 14th amendment actually affected the life of the average black. If emancipation was a side effect or an afterthought, what did it really mean? Truly, although blacks were legally freed after the war, they were in many ways still enslaved to the white man. But although the majority of whites in the South did desire and often succeed in keeping the “freedmen” under their control, some few truly did desire to see blacks succeed in the world. Also, the status of blacks during the war was intriguing; for the North, blacks from the South and Northern blacks were treated the same. And that same was inferior to the whites of the North.
The 1940s represent a decade of turmoil for the United States in general. Perhaps no group of people struggled more during that time period, however, than African Americans. With racial segregation prevalent, particularly in the South, opportunity was lacking for African-Americans. However, Ralph Ellison suggests in “Battle Royal” that due to the lack of racial unity among black men as well as a certain amount of naiveté, black men prevented themselves from succeeding more so than their white oppressors.
“All of the magazine vendors are black males.”(Duneier, 44) this is a strange statement that sounds particularly ridiculous at first and it does demonstrate certain thought provoking social phenomenon. In order to understand this social phenomenon, we need first to understand the reasons behind those human behaviors. It’s not an easy task to identify the reasons for this phenomenon which involves several complicated factors, with this in mind, I would like to develop those human behaviors into three phases. Firstly, the social attitudes of surrounding society toward blacks made blacks feel like they were segregated; secondly, the social attitude resulted those “norms” of social behaviors; thirdly, Blacks reactions to those “norms”. In the book, “Or Does It Explode?:
Young African American males are burdened with a significant disconnect between their enthusiastic display of adolescence and the intransigence of authority. Below the surface of the Pull Up Your Pants laws is the lack of hope the black youth feel about their future and place in American society. African American children were not yet born when their parents and grandparents did all the heavy lifting in the preliminary stages of social reform. Reform is slow to embrace today’s society and stories continue to surface of African American youth being subjected to harsh and sometimes unfair treatment. Stories such two Tennessee black teenagers arrested at Bolivar Central High School and jailed for 48 hours for indecent exposure because of their sagging pants (Deutschmann, 2015). In, 2008, then Senator Barak Obama had a unique point of view regarding the Pull Up Your Pants argument during an MTV interview, ‘The saggy pants law is a waste of time…having said that brothers should pull up their pants (Sirianni, 2012 P. 762). Obama went on to speak about wanting to see African American males presented in a respectable manner. There is push back from the confrontational versus conciliatory points of view comes from the African American music industry influence over black youth and promoting Baggy/Saggy Pants as a major social statement. America’s apparently are unwilling to accept the uniqueness of African American street culture and are clearly without viable alternatives to offer these young
In the short essay, “Black Men in Public Space” written by Brent Staples, discusses his own experiences on how he is stereotyped because he is an African American and looks intimidated in “public places” (Staples 225). Staples, an intelligent man that is a graduate student at University of Chicago. Due to his skin complexity, he is not treated fairly and always being discriminated against. On one of his usual nightly walks he encountered a white woman. She took a couple glances at him and soon began to walk faster and avoided him that night. He decided to change his appearance so others would not be frightened by his skin color. He changed the way he looked and walked. Staples dressed sophisticated to look more professional so no one would expect him to be a mugger. Whistling classical music was referred to the “cowbell that hikers wear when they know they are in bear country”(Staples 226). The cowbell is used to protect hikers from bears. But in Staples case, it was to not be stereotyped and show that he is harmless. The general purpose of Staples essay was to inform the readers that stereotypes could affect African Americans and any other races.
Although artists like Al Bernard and Bert Williams were performers of physical blackface on stage in the 20th century, the hipster has shown to become a form of non-physical blackface. A type of blackface that isn’t ridiculed or criticized by society, but accepted or sometimes even ignored as a grand section of American popular culture. The essay gives us a walkthrough by Mailer on how he thinks the hipster and the Negro have joined together in the form of the White Negro. The psychoanalysis and exploration of the struggle of the hipster by Mailer throughout his essay leads to an almost perfect understanding of the new concept that he is trying to convey.