Neither of the girls acknowledges the friend's recurring mistake. Although the friend didn't acknowledge her mistake, she doesn't hold all the blame for her ignorance. The friend didn't know that what she did was insulting or, at least, hurtful from Rankine's perspective because Rankine never spoke up. This example explores the problem when people don't speak up when encountering continuous insults. When the victim doesn’t address the issue, the aggressors will remain ignorant to their subtle racist comment because they don't understand the victim's feelings. However, fear factors into the reasoning behind choosing silence and keeping the problem to oneself. In this microaggression, Rankine continues to choose silence because of fear. However, this fear isn't produced by American society; the fear of upsetting a close friend produces the ongoing silence. She didn't want to create tension between herself and this close friend. With Rankine's silence, her friend never knew how the slippages made Rankine feel. Rankine chooses not to speak up and that results in her friend's growing…
The author emphasizes that it is not only the ordinary people who are being treated differently in the society by introducing two successful African American tennis players, Serena and Venus Williams. In fact, even the professional sport stars also suffer because of their skin color, even at a worldwide sports events that people all around the globe watch. Furthermore, considering tennis being a white dominant sporting game, it can be inferred that Serena and Venus are representing African American women and their…
What if Tom Brady decided to take a knee during the national anthem? “He wouldn’t do that.” He quickly interjected. “But what if he did?” I asked. There was a long silence on the other end of the phone before my friend answered. “I really don’t think he would do that.” He insisted. “Me either” I countered. “but, what if he did?” after a short pause my friend answered as if I had taken all the wind out of his sails. “If Tom did that, he would be as bad as Kaep.” He said the words but, they didn’t ring true. This is coming from a man I have known all my life who I know is no racist. It’s just an unconscious bias that we all have in one way or another. The reaction to Colin Keapernick protest to the national anthem was swift and for the most…
Ta-Nehisi Coates, like James Baldwin, attacks racism by attacking the concept of race itself. He says “I have not spent my time studying the problem of ‘race’— ‘race’ itself is just a restatement and retrenchment of the problem” (115). And yet Coates takes pride in—revels in—black American culture in a way Baldwin never really did. Baldwin was a true outsider: a black, gay, American expatriate. Coates, while realizing that black culture is entirely a product of subjugation, violence, and segregation, has not extricated himself so completely from American society that he refuses to acknowledge and celebrate the particulars of his culture as he sees it. Whereas Baldwin can occasionally seem removed and impartial, almost habitually casting a critical eye at even the people and traditions nearest him, Coates writes without qualms and with something like a religious fervor (though neither man is religious) about hip-hop, historically black colleges, and Malcolm X—while simultaneously developing a philosophy (“race is the child of racism, not the father” [7]) that is at least partially at odds with each. He remains conscious of the contradiction though, ultimately straddling the two viewpoints masterfully. Clearly, he’s comfortable with ambiguity. The last paragraph acknowledges this central divide by acknowledging the impossibility of transcending so thoroughly acculturated a notion as race, while presenting a more optimistic vision of a potential path for his son—not a way out, but a step forward. “Struggle for your grandmother and grandfather, for your name. But do not struggle for the Dreamers. Hope for them. Pray for them, if you are so moved. But do not pin your struggle on their conversion. The Dreamers will have to learn to struggle themselves” (151).…
A Lesson Before Dying was published on January 1st 1993. Ever since that moment people have found this book extremely moving and inspirational. It is mostly because his messages about racism during that time and how it affected people and their government in Bayonne. Jefferson’s trial is unjust because of it and even Jefferson’s mind is corrupted with it. The entire novel shows racism as an oppressive force.…
Question #1: What does Coates say about race? What does he mean when he says “racism is a visceral experience”? How does he show this?…
In the book Citizen, written by Claudia Rankine, she shows us through her personal encounters that racism and inequality is still alive today in America. Whether it be from a stranger, or a close friend, attacks on her personal identity is a repetitive thing in her everyday life. As we progress through the book, we watch as Rankine struggles to fight the stereotypes that people place on her during her ongoing battle to be seen and not erased. We learn that this battle is bigger than Rankine herself, and that it is far from over.…
In the first chapter of his book Racism without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva argues that color-blind racism, a new racial ideology which emerged in the late 1960s (16), has become “a formidable political tool” for “the maintenance of the racial order” and “white privilege” in the “post-Civil Rights era” (3). According to his argument about color-blind racism, in contemporary America, although few whites appear like racists, racial inequality does exist everywhere (2). Racism changed from “overt means” of discrimination to “subtle and institutional practices” (3). “Nonracial dynamics” become “white common sense” about explanations…
It has always been a topic of much discussion throughout history: race. Nevertheless, Nicholas Kristof brings a new approach and opinion to an old topic. In this article, his tone, perfect integration of assertion and authority, and the acknowledgement of the opposing perspective ultimately led to a convincing argument.…
Racism: although an ongoing and prevalent issue, it is a foreign topic for many who do not experience the full effects of it on a daily basis or are sheltered from it due to their race. However, through novels, films, and social media, some hope to highlight and end the occurrence of racism. In the novel Citizen by Claudia Rankine, for example, Rankine offers an insightful view of the ongoing racism towards African Americans through descriptions of recent events and personal experiences involving racism. She specifically writes in the second person, allowing readers to fully immerse themselves in the situations that African Americans face in a white-favored society and understand the frustration many African Americans…
The personal experience is subjective. When race relations are deliberated, one might finds it difficult to completely understand instances of discrimination when they are discussed abstractly or generally. However; the human experience is not something that a case can be made against. One cannot make a compelling argument against another’s struggles and emotions throughout those struggles. Ta-Nehisi Coates then makes a most irrefutable argument for the existence of racism (and it’s damaging effects on those who have been deemed “black” by society) through his use of personal experience to explain how his life was monopolized by the idea of race.…
The author presents the readers with different experiences in her everyday life regarding racism. Each example contains racist actions, although not drastic, it’s subtle enough to be detected by people of color that might be oblivious to white people. These daily racists actions, whether intentional or not validate micro aggressions meaning, instances of racism that are communicated unnoticed to people of color on a daily basis.…
Racism is a touchy subject that has been major issue ever since its initial startup. Racism is the hatred towards a person or population of a certain race. The United States has taken huge leaps in equality, but there is still a long ways away from completion. Racism has always existed in America. When the nation was in its younger years, people owned people. People of the African American descent were considered property under the eyes of the law. How insane is that? Progress was made since then, but racism has only evolved. In the 1950s, whites and blacks were segregated to the point where they could not go to the same schools or even use the same bathrooms. Throughout A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry criticizes the state Of America…
In the book Between the world and Me, Coates talks about a variety of different ideas and concepts. The one that was the most powerful message in the novel is what he has to say about racism. Coates believes that racism gave birth to race and not the other way around. He backs this statement by saying that White people only think they are white because it gives them their power and privilege. He goes on to explain that White people don’t think they are racist. They see just differences in wealth, education and treatment by police. He states that racism actually is the rejection of the black body.…
When African-American NBA basketball player, Kendall Marshall, wasn’t getting enough playing time according to his father, he tweeted “I always said there was racism in sports. White guys in basketball are getting every chance to succeed even when they aren’t doing sh!t” (Marshall). Although the father quickly apologized, the media took every chance they could to bring this story to headline news by making the title “The Sixers Are Racist” (Deadspin) “Sixers Are Racist for Benching His Son” (SI) making the controversy more popular and causing a bigger commotion than it needed to be. Other professional athletes went public about their feelings regarding racism and sports and the results were not as expected. Fellow African-American NFL football player Benjamin Watson, responded to the Kendall Marshall controversy in an unexpected manner and goes on to say “…ultimately the problem is not a skin problem, but a sin problem. Sin is the reason we rebel against authority” (Benjamin Watson). With Watson, a professional competitive athlete exclaiming how racism isn’t a problem in sports, but in the way that “we (African-Americans) abuse our authority” (Watson), shows from an unbiased racially similar colleague that racism isn’t an issue in sports. An ESPN African-American football analyst, Michael Smith goes public…