Afro-Eurasia

In her book Playing in the Dark, Toni Morrison discusses how American literature uses distorted representations of blackness to better make sense of its own (white) American identity. She refers these black characters and images endemic to American literature as the “Africanist presence” (17). Through Morrison’s theory of the Africanist presence, we can better understand how Buffy the Vampire Slayer employs characters like Kendra and larger themes of monstrosity and darkness to uphold the power,…

The Organization for African Students’ Interests and Solidarity (OASIS) serves as a place where African students can discuss their identities and meet other African students on the University of North Carolina’s campus. Organizations like OASIS that are specifically geared towards these students are becoming more imperative because the population of Africans on college campuses is on the rise. The number of African born immigrants in the United States has doubled in size between 2000 and 2010.…

The novel The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young African American girl in Ohio who faces great adversity as a result of her race, gender, and age. She wants nothing more than to have blue eyes, believing that they would make her beautiful and improve her quality of life. She lives in a small house with her mother Pauline, her father Cholly, and her brother Sammy. In an excerpt titled “Battle Royal” from Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, the narrator faces…

All throughout Langston Hughes writing he works to make the statement that no matter what, he will never conform to white ideals. In “The Negro Artists and the Racial Mountains” he writes,” I am a Negro – and beautiful!” He even often calls out black writers for trying to conform and blend in with white culture, and he deliberately does not write in “proper” English like white people do because he wants to express his culture and where he comes from. Langston writes,” It is the duty of the…

Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eye, is about the Problem of middle-class people ideas of beauty on a female of an African American girls. Her novel came about after Morrison talked with someone who wanted to have blue eyes, the novel shows a girl, Pecola Breedlove, who wanted love and to be taken into a world that doesn’t care about people of her race. Author Shelley Wong’s in her Article Transgression as Poesis in The Bluest Eye talks about the different ways in which Morrison wrote her novels…

Toni Morrison´s first novel successfully portrayed the life of young girls from Afro-American families, who are facing racism, violence while-, they are searching for an identity in the primarily white world. Morrison touched many points concerning racial and social problems that were on the stake during the period after the Great Depression and maybe could even have some meaning nowadays. It is possible for young girls to be able of self-love and confidence-, even when they are exposed every…

Do people ever feel like they just want to kill? In The book Native Son, by Richard Wright, tells the story of a Black man named Bigger. The book follows Bigger and unveils the story through his eyes and peers through his thoughts, emotions, and actions. The story takes place in the south side of Chicago where many Black Americans who flee from the south in search of better lives in the north and during the time was when discrimination against African- Americans were an everyday occurance. There…

During the mid twentieth century, racism began to climax in the United States. Tensions of racial differences erupted. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. solidified his position as leader of the African Americans and the struggle for equality. King spoke at many rallies and events. The most notable being his “I Have a Dream” speech. This speech remains one of the most powerful and influential speeches in history. King gave the speech on August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial. King attracted nearly…

All citizens of the United States, no matter what race they are, have seen the racial discrimination in past U.S. history. Racial pride was a common idea that many African-American spokesmen and women had during the period of segregation. ¨Primer for Blacks “ by Gwendolyn Brooks and “How it Feels to be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston are two examples of literature that portray racial pride. Brooks gives insight about the meaning of black pride in poetry . Hurston talk about talks about her…

Claire Denis’ Chocolat in juxtaposition to Frantz Fanon’s concept of colonial violence. 1. Introduction Analyses of the film “Chocolat” by Claire Denis in contrast to Frantz Fanon’s writing “The Fact of Blackness.” The title of the movie Chocolat was derived from a colloquial speech meaning “to be had, to be cheated,” in connotation with “to be black and to be cheated” (cited in Sandars 2001). Chocolat is a movie of endless delicacies, it is about the boundaries set by the racist society. In…