The Prevalence Of Inequality
I openly admit that I really couldn’t care less when it comes to the topic that seems to be incredibly influential to our culture. I am, of course, referring to sports. Sports has always been a part of my life in some form, because of my family ties to the Dallas Cowboys. The Jimenez family are huge Dallas Cowboys fans. I really have never understood the meaning of sports, looking with an innate sense of bewilderment whenever people ask me, “Why don’t you like sports?” It’s just never had any sort of profound impact on me. That being said, I can still somewhat appreciate sports, because it gives us an excuse to be with the people we love most. Some of my family talk about sports the way I talk with such fervent passion the way I talk about film and stage. However, I can become involved and concerned when it comes to the various controversial issues when it comes to sports. I am indifferent about sports itself, but I vehemently care about the overabundance of issues sports face. Inequality, for example.
Take a look at Maya Angelou’s autobiography entitled, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” The apprehensive atmosphere was set, everybody at a local general store just sitting anxiously over the outcome of the boxing match. “I ain’t worried ‘bout this fight. Joe’s gonna whip that cracker like it’s open season.” (Angelou 484) Angelou already presents a vivid representation of how much it matters that Joe Louis wins. The commentator stated that the contender keeps raining the blows on Louis. “My race groaned. It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped. A Black boy whipped and maimed. It was hounds on the trail of a man runn...
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...ely does sell. The women who are willing to show a little skin are the ones that are the most recognizable and even though they may have the athletic skills, they only gain popularity by how they look and not necessarily by the skill they have. Women can be just as strong, confident, and skillful, as their male counterparts. Even striving to be the face of the sport. For example, Venus and Serena Williams changed the face of Tennis. Women through inspiration, dedication, and hard work raised the bar of what true excellence should be. “How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!” (Maya Angelou).
Bibliography
Angelou, Maya. (1969). I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. New York. Random House
Rodriguez, Ana. Female athletes still face inequality. The Daily Sundial. http://sundial.csun.edu/2013/09/female-athletes-still-face-inequality/
“My race groaned it was our people falling. it was another lynching, yet another black man hung on a tree. One more women ambushed and raped…” she uses hyperboles to show the readers how devastating it would be to the black community if joe lost that fight. In doing so she also gives background on the setting, and how blacks were treated during that point in time. Angelou doesn’t state it word for word, but she finally leaves room for the readers to infer why that particular fight was so important and why the mood was so tense at the start of the story. Another hyperbole shed light on a major conflict, Person Vs Society. “If joe lost we were back in slavery, beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations that we were lower types of human beings.” The fight was a symbol for hope, hope that all inferior views on the black community would disappear. Right before the radio announcers reveal that Joe won, Angelou starts to write in fragments, “we didn’t breathe we didn’t hope. we waited.” it was used to draw out the last feel of apprehension. in the conclusion of Champion of the World Maya Angelou strategically picks out vocabulary words like “Champion of the World, some black boy…” to prove what a shock it was to everyone, it reinforces her symbol of hope by saying if he won then anyone else can triumph. However Angelou ends the narrative with “it wouldn’t do for a black man and his family to be caught on a lonely country road on an night when joe louis had proved that we were the strongest people in the world.” to reinstate that no matter what they believed, the fight still didn’t end the racial
Similarly, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, which I first read the summer after I graduated high school, is a tale of oppression that translates into a deeply moving novel chronicling the ups and downs of a black family in the 1930’s and 1940’s. A myriad of historical and social issues are addressed, including race relations in the pre-civil rights south, segregated schools, sexual abuse, patriotism and religion. Autobiographical in nature, this tumultuous story centers around Marguerite Johnson, affectionately called "Maya", and her coast-to-coast life experiences. From the simple, backwards town of Stamps, Arkansas to the high-energy city life of San Francisco and St. Louis, Maya is assaulted by prejudice in almost every nook and cranny of society, until she finally learns to overcome her insecurities and be proud of who she is.
1- I used the book When the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou. It has 36 chapters. The movie I used was the Troy.
Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya shields herself against the confusion of St. Louis by reading fairy-tales and telling herself that she does not intend on staying there anyway. Vivian works in a gambling parlor at night. Maya pities Mr. Freeman because he spends his days at home waiting for Vivian to return. Maya begins sleeping at night with Vivian and Mr. Freeman because she suffers from nightmares. One morning after Vivian has left the bed and the house, Mr. Freeman sexually molests Maya. He does not rape her but rather masturbates on the bed while holding her close to him. Afterward, he threatens to kill Bailey if Maya ever tells anyone, but Maya, who does not understand what has happened and who actually enjoyed being held by someone, cannot understand what caused such a threat. For weeks, Mr. Freeman ignores her, and then molests her again. Again, he ignores her for weeks. Maya feels rejected and hurt, but she loses herself in other things, such as books. She wishes she were a boy because the heroes in all her favorite books and stories are male. Bailey welcomes the move to St. Louis and he makes friends, with whom he plays baseball. Maya, however, does not make any friends during this time. She and Bailey begin to grow apart, so she spends her Saturdays in the library reading fantastic adventures. ...
A black boy” (Bedford Reader pg. 104) this is the moment that made me realize the prejudice underlying in the essay and even in our society today. The first thing that came to her mind was the ethnicity of Joe Louis not his strength, stamina or even his personality. Angelou mentioned in her essay “It wouldn’t be fit for a black man and his family to be caught out on a lonely country road on a night when Joe Louis had proved that we were the strongest people in the world” (Bedford Reader pg. 104). This first informs me that obviously the African American community is not the only race guilty of being prejudice. She means that the whites would be angry towards all blacks because Joe Louis won they might try to take the anger out on any African American person. Secondly it makes me continue to believe that African Americans were just as prejudice because she believes due to joe Louis winning the boxing match against the white male that the African American race was the strongest race in the
There are many obstacles in which Maya Angelou had to overcome throughout her life. However, she was not the only person affected throughout the story, but as well as her family. Among all the challenges in their lives the author still manages to tell the rough and dramatic story of the life of African Americans during a racism period in the town of Stamps. In Maya Angelou's book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings she uses various types of language to illustrate the conflicts that arise in the novel. Among the different types of languages used throughout the book, she uses literary devices and various types of figurative language. In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou the author uses literary devices and figurative language to illustrate to the reader how racism creates obstacles for her family and herself along with how they overcome them.
In the text "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" a young black girl is growing up with racism surrounding her. It is very interesting how the author Maya Angelou was there and the way she described every detail with great passion. In the book Maya and Bailey move to a lot of places, which are, Stamps, Arkansas; St. Louis, Missouri; and San Francisco, California. Maya comes threw these places with many thing happening to her and people she knows. She tries to hold onto all the good memories and get rid of the bad but new ones just keep coming. That is why this book is very interesting. It keeps readers on the edge of their seats.
The book thus explores a lot of important issues, such as: sexuality and race relations, and shows us how society violated her as a young African American female. In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou clearly expresses the physical pain of sexual assault, the mental anguish of not daring to tell, and her guilt and shame for having been raped. Her timidity and fear of telling magnify the brutality of the rape. For more than a year after the rape she lives in self-imposed silence, speaking only very rarely. This childhood rape reveals the pain that African American women suffered as victims not only of racism but also sexism.
In “Champions of the World,” is the nineteenth chapter in I Know Why the Caged Bird sings, is written by Maya Angelou. In this chapter, she talks about a African American community in the late 1930s in Arkansas, that are gathered one night in a store to listen to a boxing match which consists of African American professional boxer Joe Louis and his opponent that night was Primo Carnera, a white boxer from Italy. This fight is more than a physical fight for the African community. Joe Louis is seen as a hero in the African community because he is the one that represents the African community; their fate depends on Joe Louis victory. There is segregation happening during this time and the Jim Crow laws which impacted this area. People were feeling
Female athletes, unlike males, are not always portrayed exclusively as performance athletes, instead attention is placed on sex appeal usually overshadowing their on-field accomplishments. Unfortunately female sports, like male sports, are directed primarily to a male audience, the media commonly use marketing techniques which involve sexualisation of the female bodies under a male gaze (Bremner, 2002). The idea that “sex sells” is used to generate viewers and followers of female sport.
The novel, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", by Maya Angelou is the first series of five autobiographical novels. This novel tells about her life in rural Stamps, Arkansas with her religious grandmother and St. Louis, Missouri, where her worldly and glamorous mother resides. At the age of three Maya and her four-year old brother, Bailey, are turned over to the care of their paternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. Southern life in Stamps, Arkansas was filled with humiliation, violation, and displacement. These actions were exemplified for blacks by the fear of the Ku Klux Klan, racial separation of the town, and the many incidents in belittling blacks.
The novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings goes through the childhood of Maya Angelou as she faces the difficult realities of the early South. This novel does not do a very good job at portraying the hardships of the blacks because she
Maya Angelou’s excerpt from her book “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” reveals the challenges facing a young black girl in the south. The prologue of the book tells of a young Angelou in church trying to recite a poem she has forgotten. She describes the dress her grandmother has made her and imagines a day where she wakes up out of her black nightmare. Angelou was raised in a time where segregation and racism were prevalent in society. She uses repetition, diction, and themes to explore the struggle of a black girl while growing up. Angelou produces a feeling of compassion and poignancy within the reader by revealing racial stereotypes, appearance-related insecurities, and negative connotations associated with being a black girl. By doing this she forces the
Whether its baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, or tennis, sports is seen all over the world as a representation of one’s pride for their city, country, and even continent. Sports is something that is valued world-wide which has the ability to bring communities together and create different meanings, beliefs and practices between individuals. Although many people may perceive sports to have a significant meaning within our lives, it can also have the ability to separate people through gender inequalities which can also be represented negatively throughout the media. This essay will attempt to prove how gender is constructed in the sports culture while focusing on female athletes and their acceptance in today’s society.
Maya Angelou was born on April 4th, 1928 and passed away on March 28th, 2014. Maya Angelou was 86. She suffered a horrible childhood; filled with discrimination, her parents’ divorce, as well as being sexually assaulted. Despite her childhood, she achieved a lot during her lifetime. Her occupations included: an author, actress, screenwriter, dancer and poet. Of the many poems she wrote “Caged Bird”. The tone, mood, diction, as well as other literary elements are noticeable in the poem. Maya Angelou uses allusions, imagery, and symbolism in her poem to enhance the readers’ experience. In addition to literary elements, real world connections are used to tie her poem to historical content, such as slavery.