Black Elk Speaks

documentary they created in celebration of Black History Month. The film explored racism in cartoons, social media, news, T.V., music, and even award shows. Not only did the documentary touch on the everyday struggles of the black community, but touched on racism of all cultures observed globally. In addition, the students highlighted in their documentary how media has skewed the facts and has- and still is- trying to convince the public that much of the black youth seen on the news are not as…

Race vs. Ethnicity. Race can be de defined as a group of persons related by common descent or hereditary. Ethnicity can be defined as an ethnic group; a social group that shares a common and distinctive culture, religion and language. Race and ethnicity have many similarities but also many differences, your race can sometimes narrow down your ethnicity and if you know what ethnicity you are, you definitely know your race. You can tell a person’s race just by their physical appearance, but…

In the novel, Invisible Man, the author, Ralph Ellison addresses the social issue of racism through the lens of an African American man. The narrator, also known as the Invisible Man, struggles with his identity as a black man in a prejudice mid-twentieth century America. Many of the events in the novel correlate with the constant struggle of racism in society. Racism has always been a major social issue, especially during the mid-twentieth century, in which the novel takes place in. Ralph…

giving people of color the ability to speak or live for themselves. Over the past 60 years we have come a very long way but racial profiling is keeping us from continuing the progression towards equality. Racial profiling is common in law enforcement, whether its pulling over a person of color because they just seem more suspicious or if its shooting and attacking a colored person based off of stereotype based suspicions. Many people believe that…

color is undefined and we are all black. One must not view Blackness as simply a skin color rather an Ontological Experience. The experience occurred during the middle passage in which it ceased being the African American people, but a division of humane and inhumane; with the African now deemed as the black body. In this episode of humanity an entire people were Dis-identified, Disenfranchised, and dis-embodied. “My mother bore me in the southern wild, and I am black, but O! My soul is white;…

bountiful history from which they originated. W.E.B Du Bois, in writing The Souls of Black Folk draws a powerful comparison between this categorical miseducation that was necessary to perpetuate slavery in America, and the further miseducation that was necessary to keep blacks is their lower societal positions even after the abolition of slavery. There was no social mobility, because the systems that were created to elevate black society were really…

and our role as a nation on the global stage. Only one issue, however, has led to civil war in our country– the issue of slavery. When wealthy landowners began buying and importing African Americans as slaves, they created a stark division between blacks and whites. A bloody war was fought to settle the matter, yet we still face issues of race today. Discrimination and racism have divided our nation more than any other, throughout our history, and are problems we are still attempting to solve.…

Black Citizen Racism can scream—segregation, Jim Crow laws, hate crimes, and discrimination—but racism can also whisper. Claiming instead the private, personal space as its territory, microaggressions describe the various ways in which racism infiltrates everyday interactions in a minimized, rather than maximal, form. These manifest as subtly charged statements, impulsive reactions generated towards one’s race before realizing the implications and apologizing. While the apology may be received,…

plowed driveway leading to a small two level cottage splattered with colorful lights and icy silt. Three figures slowly open their doors and step onto the frosty gravel. The first is a man no older than forty. White stubble splatters his face and his black hair moves in the frosty winds, his height resembles a small spruce tree that is newly planted, tall but lanky. As the wind blows snow into his chiseled face his blue eyes shine in contrast.…

John Wideman’s Our Time tells the story of two brothers and the differences between them. John, the author and primary narrator, is a successful author and teacher. The primary focus of the story his brother Robert, who is younger by ten years. Robert or “Robby”, spent much of his young adult life on the streets addicted to heroin until being jailed for a robbery. Wideman illustrates how differently each brother develop using place. Much of the story is set in the Pittsburgh neighborhoods of…