When I heard that Professor Lytton Smith was returning to our class to give a second lecture, I was apprehensive. I remember he was the first guest lecturer for our class and that was the day I felt the most lost in class because I was not into the routine of our classes. However, when I walked into class on March 3rd, 2019 I tried to keep an open mind. Smith first began class with the word division and how we define it. To push myself from the first lecture he gave, I participated with my interpretation of division. I discussed how women in New Orleans face division in society by expressing themselves through dancing and music. Mary discussed the division with contrast of dark versus light. Amina thought of a literal divider and a segregated community. Within the span of ten minutes, I knew exactly what I wanted to unpack in my blog post: the word division.
Why would a person of color hold a grudge against a white person?
Before answering the question titled for this blog post, I would first like to define some key terms and answer some questions for you:
- Human
According to the biology online dictionary:
“Humans are the hominins capable of creating and using complex tools, solving problems by sense and reasoning, using symbols and language, and creating complex social structures. Over time, humans have demonstrated behavioral modernity and advancement.”
2. African American
According to collins dictionary,
“African-Americans are black people living in the United States who are descended from families that originally came from Africa.”
I defined the word human first because I would like to make a point in saying that all humans are equally capable of applying themselves to complete any task given on Earth. All humans are intelligent beings and can achieve any goal that they want with the use of communication, experience, memory and their physical abilities. Notice that the definition does not say anything about race, ethnicity or having different abilities, body types, muscles, or blood. It simply states what all human beings are capable of.
People of color are constantly mistreated, disenfranchised, and are underprivileged because of a research study that Johann Freidrich Blumenbach did on the measurements of craniums which led him to dividing human beings in to five different categories. The categories are “Caucasian, Mongolian, Malayan, Ethiopian, and American.” Once there was a separation of race between human beings because of their distinct appearances over time people took advantage of their own characteristics, power, and potential to seek other resources from other locations and from other human beings that were of a different race. Caucasian individuals from different countries across Europe took advantage of other racially categorized groups in different times and ways. Dating back to when Johann Friedrich Blumenbach formed this idea, it followed through with the slave trade organization that commenced in about 1650.
The slave trade organization was a controlling, manipulative and violent historical event that was used for financial growth, greed and gain in power from the Americas and Africa. Thousands of African human beings were captured and sold to other “masters” or other European “business men” who wanted more territory, power and access to resources from South and North America. Through the process of the slave trade organization many people lost their lives or were brutally mistreated. African and Indigenous women were raped in the Americas and in Africa and this led to the population of mixed people that exist today. Since the mid-1600s, up until 1865 when slavery was abolished, the majority of Caucasian individuals from Europe who settled in to the United States of America treated individuals of African descent whether it was half, a quarter or fully black like they were wild animals. After slavery was abolished the 13th Amendment claimed that it was illegal to own a slave but segregation still existed, racism still existed and if you were African American you would constantly struggle financially and socially. One wrong move and you would get arrested and treated like a slave again. Up until the 1960s when Jim Crow laws were abolished but, again, African American people and other people of color were still mistreated in terms of getting a job, financially, they were underprivileged all because of their complexion. It wasn’t until the late 1990s to early 2000s that employment discrimination laws were passed, that African American high school children were graduating on time or were graduating at all, that people of color were progressing economically, and were able to succeed in the U.S.
This leads me to explaining my second key term, “African American”. All human beings experience different things in their lives. We are all very distinct not because of out complexion, or our appearance. We are all distinct because of our experiences and the cultures that influence us. Humans are born in different locations and assimilate to different cultures over time and learn to adopt to different styles of life. People of color are black, indigenous, latino, or of other mixed ethnic groups. When living in America and being a person of color or specifically African American you have your own experience. Racism still exists and according to NBC News, the article, “Poll: 64 percent of Americans say racism remains a major problem” by Andrew Arenge, Stephanie Perry and Dartunorro Clark, “64 percent said racism remains a major problem in our society. Thirty percent agreed that racism exists today, but it isn’t a major problem.”
More than 50% of Americans acknowledge that there is a racial discrimination issue in their country. Given that the majority of people of color in America experience discrimination it seems like the issues isn’t complexion the the way in which people of color carry their skin. Every person has been influenced by culture but many people who happen to be Caucasian feel like because it isn’t like their own that they should discriminate, be racist against or mistreat others. Although not all white individuals are actively racists or follow white supremacists groups, actions speak louder than words and the statistics above prove that. If racism still exists, all Americans need to work on being culturally educated and learn to respect one another’s as they teach in Kindergarten. Americans need to show that they acknowledge each others experiences rather than focus on their own.
So to answer the question properly I would say that people of color should not hold grudges against people who have not prepared to actively not follow the kind of system that we live under. All humans are influenced by others and they experience complete different events and have different perspectives. People of color forgive those who are ignorant and just don’t know how to respect their culture but their is an expectation of learning from a mistake that was made. At the end of the day, this all shouldn’t be about color it is now about how people should learn to understand their similarities and differences between one another and where boundaries may lay between those two categories.
Racism exists and the cure isn’t to temporarily try to understand someone else’s pain or culture, it is to truly care about people around you day by day.
Experiencing the “Emotional Bridge”
When asked to find my favorite poem in the Norton anthology, I started from the beginning and read through until I hit one that made me stop. The poem that I stopped at was Audre Lorde’s “To My Daughter The Junkie On A Train.” What struck me in this poem that separated it from the others was the linebreaks, unexpected connections, and word choice. The lines act independently and yet work together to create multiple interpretations, in the same way, she chooses words that can have more than one meaning. The other poems of Lorde’s in the anthology also resonated with me and even just reading them aloud was quite an experience. After deciding I liked these poems the best, I read her short autobiographical comments that are included before her poems. Lorde identifies as a “Black, Lesbian, Feminist, warrior, poet, mother” and she writes about the intersectionality of these “ingredients” in her poem “Who Said It Was Simple.” Continue reading “Experiencing the “Emotional Bridge””
Poverty as a Crime?
About two weeks ago Joe Cope came to class and discussed with us the the relationship between text and imagery. I found this class period to be really informative in terms of how text can support images in terms of description and illustration, but what really stood out to me was the topic behind the images that Cope had selected. Cope had chosen images that portrayed injustices through insensitive and narrow-minded narratives. Specifically, Cope explained how in the time period displayed in the 17th century pamphlets he selected, it was a common thing for people to be arrested and put in jail if they were unable to prove that they own property or had a working job. Continue reading “Poverty as a Crime?”
Providence and the Unlikely Scholars
While scrolling through the (Im)Possibilities blog this past week, I came across a blog written for the Steve Prince class that had underlying connections to our course. In Claire Corbeaux’s recent blog post, “Providence and the Baby Dolls,” she discusses the concept of providence and how it relates to Kim Vaz-Deville’s book, Walking Raddy and society at large. While this post doesn’t directly relate to our class, I found that the central theme of “providence” connects to the material we’ve been working with, especially in terms of Victor La Valle’s novel, The Big Machine.
As Claire begins to write, she notes that her class’s guest speaker, Dr. Cope, explained providence in relation to the Puritans. According to Claire’s post, the Puritans defined providence as “God’s control over the universe and its happenings as well as the lives of individual beings.” After reading this sentence, I realized that providence has developed as a theme in LaValle’s novel. Continue reading “Providence and the Unlikely Scholars”
A Moment in Retrospect to Push Me Forward
Recently, both Jen and Michee touched upon authorial intent and reader interpretation in their incredibly thoughtful blog posts. In “Whose Story is it Anyway?,” Michee brought up a debate I have been struggling with.
Continue reading “A Moment in Retrospect to Push Me Forward”
The One Where I Talk Too Much About Maps
The fact that the discipline of geography is classified solely as a science is one that I find to be problematic. The interactions I have had with modern geography tend more towards the hard science end of things, as physical geography especially involves a fusion of climate science, chemistry, biology, geology and more, but to classify the discipline as purely a science ignores its origins as a subject that once was more artistic than scientific in its endeavours. Continue reading “The One Where I Talk Too Much About Maps”
What is Real Anymore?
In class on Friday, we were talking about the Momo Challenge and the damages this hoax has caused internationally. For the longest time, I just assumed that the creator of this character had evil intentions, when in actuality, it was another social media scam that people from the disturbing parts of the internet caught hold of. When Professor McCoy informed us that this horrifying phenomenon is fake, it really concerned me with the way information is spread throughout the world and what actually holds authenticity in our lives anymore.
Side note: The fictional character, Momo, is a terrifying image to look at (trust me, I had difficulty researching for this blog post). The link that I included is the same article that we read through in class, so if you feel like you’re missing out on additional information, you don’t need to open the link if the image is troubling for you to look at. I will provide a paragraph that summarizes these turn of events so you, as a reader of my blog post, won’t feel disconnected.
Understanding the Different Forms of Consent
In the past two years that I have been a student at Geneseo I have not talked about consent as much as we did in Dr. McCoy’s class the other week. I found it helpful to talk about what consent is and how it is more than just sexual consent. Growing up I never talked about consent. When I started college at SUNY Geneseo, they show all their freshman and sports teams a video about sexual consent. The video compares consent to offering someone a cup of tea, and shows us how we should think about sexual consent in this way (if someone does not want a cup of tea, do not force it down their throat, etc).
Continue reading “Understanding the Different Forms of Consent”
Culture Viewed with a Mask or Veil
After Dr. McCoy passed out the essay prompt on Friday for the Spring 2016 African American Literature course I found myself immediately gravitating towards a particular epigraph stated on the prompt. I found the words of Glenn Ligon, an American conceptual artist who explores things such as race and identity within his work, to be compelling and interesting. On the prompt Ligon’s words are stated as such, “Perhaps it is a feeling that cultural products are used as substitutes for sustained and meaningful contact between people. It’s like send me something from where you are, but don’t come here.” Continue reading “Culture Viewed with a Mask or Veil”