Ta-Nehisi Coates is an award-winning author and journalist, that is one of the reasons why I chose to analyze the text he wrote, Acting French. Ta-Nehisi Coates shows and explains the ways many cultures are different and how the culture you are in shapes you and how hard it is to fit in and/or adapt to a new culture. One quote he used in the text that supports this was, “It’s hard to learn a new language”. But it’s way harder to learn a new culture.” He would know because he has attempted to do both before.
To start, Ta-Nehisi Coates makes it clear that one of his main points from the text is to adapt and fit in with a new culture. He took a course to learn French and he was in a new scholastic culture which he had not yet adapted. In the …show more content…
From the last point I stated you see how that culture and point of view was different, and how the third point that I eventually analyze about his culture is very different too. He also showed this in his text when he explained, “In the early 19th century, the Cherokee Nation was told by the new Americans that if its members adopted their “civilized” ways, they would soon be respected as equals. This promise was deeply embedded in the early 19th century approach to this continent's indigenous nations. We will never do an unjust act towards you. on the contrary, we wish you to live in peace, to increase in numbers, to learn to labor, as we do,” Thomas Jefferson said. “In time you will be as we are; you will become one people with us; your blood will mix with ours; & will spread, with ours, over this great Island. Hold fast then, my Children, the Chain of friendship, which binds us together; & join us in keeping it forever bright & unbroken.” The Cherokee Nation—likely for their own reasons—embraced mission schools. Some of them converted to Christianity. Other than that, I am married. Others are still enslaved blacks. They adopted a written Constitution, created a script for their language and published a newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix, in English and Cherokee. Thus, the Native Americans of that time showed themselves to be as able to integrate elements of the West with their own …show more content…
The culture and environment that surrounded Ta-Nehisi played a huge role in what he ended up doing currently in his life and shaped all the experiences he had. He showed this by giving us insight into how it was growing up for him, “I will confess to having very little experience with fence-patrolling, and virtually none with the idea that if you are holding a book, you are “acting white.” The Baltimore of my youth was a place where white people rarely ventured. It would not have occurred to anyone I knew to associate reading with white people because very few of us knew any. And I read everything I could find: A Wrinkle In Time, David Walker’s Appeal, Dragon’s of Autumn Twilight, Seize The Time, Deadly Bugs and Killer Insects, The Web of Spider-Man. I have a full set of Childcraft. I loved the volume Make and Do. I have a full set of World Book encyclopedias. I used to pick up the fat “P” edition, flip to a random page, and read for hours. When I was just 6 years old, my mother took me to the Enoch Pratt Free Library on Garrison Boulevard and enrolled me in a competition to see which child could read the most books. I read 24 that summer, far outdistancing the competition. My mother smiled at me. The librarian gave me some candy. I was very proud of it. For carrying books in black neighborhoods, in black schools, around black people, I was called many things—nerd,
To start, Ta-Nehisi Coates makes it clear that one of his main points from the text is to adapt and fit in with a new culture. He took a course to learn French and he was in a new scholastic culture which he had not yet adapted. In the …show more content…
From the last point I stated you see how that culture and point of view was different, and how the third point that I eventually analyze about his culture is very different too. He also showed this in his text when he explained, “In the early 19th century, the Cherokee Nation was told by the new Americans that if its members adopted their “civilized” ways, they would soon be respected as equals. This promise was deeply embedded in the early 19th century approach to this continent's indigenous nations. We will never do an unjust act towards you. on the contrary, we wish you to live in peace, to increase in numbers, to learn to labor, as we do,” Thomas Jefferson said. “In time you will be as we are; you will become one people with us; your blood will mix with ours; & will spread, with ours, over this great Island. Hold fast then, my Children, the Chain of friendship, which binds us together; & join us in keeping it forever bright & unbroken.” The Cherokee Nation—likely for their own reasons—embraced mission schools. Some of them converted to Christianity. Other than that, I am married. Others are still enslaved blacks. They adopted a written Constitution, created a script for their language and published a newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix, in English and Cherokee. Thus, the Native Americans of that time showed themselves to be as able to integrate elements of the West with their own …show more content…
The culture and environment that surrounded Ta-Nehisi played a huge role in what he ended up doing currently in his life and shaped all the experiences he had. He showed this by giving us insight into how it was growing up for him, “I will confess to having very little experience with fence-patrolling, and virtually none with the idea that if you are holding a book, you are “acting white.” The Baltimore of my youth was a place where white people rarely ventured. It would not have occurred to anyone I knew to associate reading with white people because very few of us knew any. And I read everything I could find: A Wrinkle In Time, David Walker’s Appeal, Dragon’s of Autumn Twilight, Seize The Time, Deadly Bugs and Killer Insects, The Web of Spider-Man. I have a full set of Childcraft. I loved the volume Make and Do. I have a full set of World Book encyclopedias. I used to pick up the fat “P” edition, flip to a random page, and read for hours. When I was just 6 years old, my mother took me to the Enoch Pratt Free Library on Garrison Boulevard and enrolled me in a competition to see which child could read the most books. I read 24 that summer, far outdistancing the competition. My mother smiled at me. The librarian gave me some candy. I was very proud of it. For carrying books in black neighborhoods, in black schools, around black people, I was called many things—nerd,