Black Elk Speaks

Most people would like to believe that they make their choices based on what they believe is right or wrong. For most this is an easy thing to do and most problems normally don’t make a difference to other people anyway. Sometimes it isn’t that easy such as problems like what it takes to be the man of a situation. Sometimes it works out but most of the time it does not. Most would like to believe that people always do the right thing and not based on what society thinks. Everyone has wanted one…

One such man, a pastor, a leader of the southern Christian leadership conference, and an author Martin Luther King Jr , wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” written on April 12, 1963 in the Birmingham jail. He claim against the injustice towards the black community in the United States, especially in the southern part and sets up an elite case for equality for all races using biblical, philosophical, and political references. King uses emotional appeals, ethical appeals, and logical appeals to…

The concept of stereotyping is prevalent within both Lori Baker-Sperry and Liz Grauerholz’s “The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children’s Fairytales” and in the preface to Robert Entman and Andrew Rojecki’s The Black Image in the White Mind. These articles discuss how media has the capability to influence the mind of individuals with images of fairy tale’s beauty norms and with racial depictions. Popular media often creates ideals and stereotypes by using…

This is when the “black lives matter” movement started, after numerous black men and women had their lives taken by police officers. After this, there seemed to be a war with African-Americans and cops. America was divided on this topic, some believing that cops were genuinely racist, while others…

All beings possess a powerful weapon within their vessel. The Bible cautions its readers to not let it rule over them. The Quran apprises its readers that life and death resides in it. It can heal the emotionally wounded, and cut them even deeper in the same instant. It is the tongue, or in other words, Nommo which means the power of spoken word. Nommo is one of the terms I learn while taking Dr. Franklin’s African American history 101 course, and in my opinion, it is also the foundation for…

people of color rarely get a chance to hear from ethnic philosophers on what the self means to them. According to WEB Dubois, an American black, or other person of color, is unable to be both an American and a minority. This paper will argue that despite DuBois’ belief that a person is unable to formulate a self due to cultural differences, it is possible for a black person or other minority to have a self and succeed despite opposition from the Caucasian majority. Despite most Americans…

Passing, is her second work of literature and sets the scene in the 1920s. Throughout the pages, the reader is gradually faced with several conflicts such as race and identity as narrated by the main character of the novella, Irene Redfield, a married black woman with two children for whom these conflicts arise when she re-encounters an old acquaintance, Clare Kendry. Clare is presented as the antagonist and as the opposite of Irene, and the more Clare is around, the more Irene struggles with…

Halloween (Or Ever),” Julia Craven discusses the use of blackface on Halloween and how it shouldn’t be acceptable. She gives some statistics in her article that I found eye opening, 52 percent of white Americans think that it is fine to paint your skin black for Halloween (Craven). Just remember we are in the 21st century slavery and the civil rights movement might be a thing of the past but the battle for equality is still being fought as hard as ever. There is at no moment in this day and age…

War, African Americans were forced to deal with great discrimination. At the same time, two of the most influential black leaders of the time, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois, attempted to improve African Americans’ situations in two very different ways. Though these men had very different philosophies, they shared a mutual goal: gaining equality and civil rights for blacks. Booker T. Washington was born a slave and emancipated at nine years old. He attended Hampton Institute in Virginia,…

experiencing is exposed through Countee Cullen’s, work. He brought new respect and awareness to the black race; through poems like “Heritage”, “Fruit of The Flower,” and “Incident”. His life experiences were quite different from most African Americans of his era; which helped shape his brilliance. This made him much of an economic figure, because it gave him the advantage of connecting to both white and black races. Countee Cullen was born on 30 March 1902,…