“Hell, I’ll buy all your turkeys…just to help you out. I’ll show you fellows that not all white men are bastards.” These are the words of a well-intentioned white man whom Griffin meets in Tuskegee, Alabama. The man attempts to show he’s not racist by offering to buy a load of turkeys from a black turkey vendor. However, as he doesn’t really want or need the turkeys, his gesture seems patronizing. Griffin notes that in being paternalistic toward black people, whites only reveal their prejudice and downgrade black people’s dignity. Black people want and need their lawful rights, not pity or handouts.
I chose this quote because it shows how not everyone is the same. It proves that stereotypes are in fact not true. In this book, the biggest stereotype is that every white man is racist. That none of them truly care for a civil agreement between blacks and whites. Or so it seems. I chose this quote because I believe that everyone can change who they are if they realize the world around them. Whites always thought blacks were unsuperior until they found out that they are exactly the same on the inside. In today’s society, everybody is equal. No nationality or race is deemed unuperior. 1. What is “language?” How does it differ from other forms of animal communication? What areas of language are anthropologists interested in and why?
1. We use language to express inner thoughts and emotions, make sense of complex and abstract thought, to learn to communicate with others, to fulfill our wants and needs, as well as to establish rules and maintain our culture.
Animals communicate differently. Some animals like dog, dolphins, and birds have developed their own system of communication. But their communication system differs from human communication. Animal communication lacks flexibility and creativity. Their communication tradition is acquired genetically and not through learning .Human language has got certain charachteristics which makes it unique and different from animal communication system. These charachteristics are duality, creativity, and distinctiveness. Human beings can talk of real or imaginary situations, places and objects far removed from their present surroundings and time. Human language is context free whereas animal communication mostly context bound. Animal communication is a response to stimulus in the immediate environment like the presence of food or danger.Language is part of what makes us human. Linguistic anthropologists study language, and how language is used in order to understand culture. Linguistic anthropologists are interested in how many languages there are, how those languages are distributed across the world, and their contemporary and historical relationships. We are also interested in language variation, why variations exist, how the variations are used and what they mean when they are used in various
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
He wants us to take responsibility and stop excluding some parts of society from the “danger-zone” just because they look bucolic and normal on the outside and almost in the form of a provocative scolding he explains what damages these ‘white lies’ can do - not only to people of color, but to white people as well.…
- 990 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Atticus Finch, the best lawyer in Maycomb, was sitting nervously in his chair as he waited for the town Judge to arrive in court. Tom Robinson, Atticus’ client was sitting next to him, equally angry as he was scared. “They can’t send me to jail, just because of rumors” he thought “ I really can’t, just because I’m colored don’t mean they can send me to jail, and now my lawyer is a white man and is nearly here for the pay out!” A snarled look came to his face. Atticus saw this gesture and shuddered in discouragement. Atticus was always a true believer in justice for all, feeling everyone should have a fair trial. He was one of the most loved lawyers in Maycomb, that is, before he sided with a black man, over a white. He honestly believed him when he said he didn’t do it. He looked at the townspeople and jury, anger and hatred for Tom and Atticus peered onto their faces. “ Calm” Atticus whispered “they’ll get their own soon Tom, but I know you didn’t do it, and I fought for your rights.” Tom smiled “It’s okay, Mr. Atticus, you did your best, maybe my children will grow up in a better, less racist place” Atticus saw the…
- 441 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
acceptance of a person of any color. Atticus as a lawyer has always believed in…
- 700 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
“For a few weeks I must be this aging, bald Negro; I must walk through a land hostile to my color, hostile to my skin”(11). In stating this Griffin is essentially saying that his identity has been ripped from him and turned into this African-American. He knows that this transformation is going to lead to a tougher life. “Look at all of them-bunch of dirty punks-don’t know how to dress. You don’t deserve anything better. Mein kampf”(53)! The theme of race is present in this book through different ways, sometimes it's a smiling face telling an African-American they can not use the white restroom. Other times it is a White man threatening to kill an…
- 683 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
“This was my first really big step toward self-degradation: when I endured all of that pain, literally burning my flesh to have it look like a white man 's hair. I had joined that multitude of Negro men and women in America who are brainwashed into believing that the black people are "inferior" — and white people "superior" — that they will even violate and mutilate their God-created…
- 1537 Words
- 7 Pages
Powerful Essays -
Although America’s ideals have radically changed over the decades, white privilege still runs rampant. As a general rule, in society, whites are still regarded as the most powerful and most successful. When the average U.S. citizen thinks of the “typical American man”, the image of a white, forty-something, financially well-off business executive may come to their mind; in other words, a man of high rank and superiority. It isn’t that they don’t believe in another race’s success, it’s the fact that most times, when another race gains power, whites find ways to patronize that power or shut it down. In the past, whites have been huge culprits behind discrimination and oppression, and that power alone keeps the success cycle going. Through every generation, equality has rapidly grown, but the fact that it wasn’t established as a basic human right in the first place shows the complete egotistical arrogance whites have shown and still, to a certain extent, show today. I believe that no man or woman should ever feel powerless or repressed under the control of another, no matter the race. Respect for another human being should never be a far away desire; rather, an unyielding expectation.…
- 736 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
“Still I know my people have many things that society has taken from the whites. They know how to give; how to tear one’s piece of meat and…
- 444 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
John Howard Griffin pivoted in and out of an African American life for no more than 2 years, yet he was called upon to speak for the blacks on problems they have suffered their whole life. At lectures, Griffin is respected and praised for telling the truth, something that would not be accepted if the same words came out of an African American's mouth. The whites see it as "submitting" their superiority to the blacks if they (believe it or not) actually listened and took opinions from a colored man, an idea they are not comfortable with. Therefore, they place Griffin in a uncomfortable position where he tells the white men exactly what the black men would have said. In other words, he becomes a bridge between white and black communities and speaks on their behalf. From these experiences, Griffin is able to solidify his belief that whites are largely prejudiced towards blacks; in fact, they would rather hear a testimony from a relatively inexperienced white man, than have to suffer the humiliation of hearing the same testimony an African American. The credibility of a person's word depended wholly on their pigmentation, and in this case, a colored person's opinion was questioned, critisized, and rejected. Unfortunately, this was just another instance of racial…
- 296 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
“The witness of the state… have presented themselves to you… in cynical confidence that their testimonies won’t be doubted [because of]... the evil assumption - that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings.” (Lee 273). This was a line quoted from Atticus during Tom Robinson's court case in To Kill a Mockingbird. To Kill a Mockingbird took place in the early 1930’s in Maycomb County, Alabama, when many people were strongly prejudiced against blacks. Atticus said this line not only to save Tom Robinson, a black man, from the wrongful verdict of rape, but potentially even some of his town from the stifling grip of prejudice. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee demonstrated that prejudice causes lack of empathy and bias; this was shown through the words and reactions to conflicts of prejudiced characters.…
- 774 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
“Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.”…
- 885 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
4. “Now I admit that there was a time when I rejected this kind of talk. I rejected it out of hand. There was a time when I rejected it out of hand. A time when I rejected the comparison of mass incarceration and slavery or mass incarceration and Jim Crow. I believe those were exaggerations, distortions or hyperboles. In fact, I thought people who made those kind of claims and those kinds of comparisons were actually doing more harm than good”…
- 803 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Speech is a form of language that is spoken by using words. Speech refers to:…
- 3078 Words
- 13 Pages
Powerful Essays -
But what is it to the slaves, or other races, upon this celebration every year? A sorrow day where the whites cheers? What is the word “we” means on the Declaration of Independence? What does the phrase “all men are created equal” means on the Declaration of Independence? How can we define “men” I ask? It’s a life live by a human being. Is slave, or African American, a life? Yes, I say. Are they human being living under the same sky as the whites? Yes, I repeated. Are they subjects to the whites like how once American was subject to the British? Some may say yes, while the other half might say no. Well, I on one hand, strongly disagree. The color and the race we label each other, but under the same umbrella, we are what is classified as a family, as the meaning of “men.”…
- 1081 Words
- 3 Pages
Better Essays -
“Well I’ll be darned. It looks like there’s been another case of a slave killing another slave,” I say to myself. “Well, it looks as if nothin’ ain’t gonna change if we keep acting like this. They call us blacks animals, wild people. We’ve always argued against that. But now here we are are killin’ our own kind,” I was just about to a shouting level by then. “Oh no, what if someone heard me?” I worry.…
- 1365 Words
- 6 Pages
Good Essays -
“We’re never so outraged as when a cabbie drives past us or the woman in the elevator clutches her purse, not so much because we’re bothered by the fact that such indignities are what less fortunate coloreds have to put up with every single day of their lives—although that’s what we tell ourselves—but because we’re wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and speak impeccable English and yet have somehow been mistaken for an ordinary nigger.” -Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance…
- 3308 Words
- 14 Pages
Powerful Essays