Black Eyed Peas

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…

BLACK LIVES MATTER: Navigating White Silence, Fear, Denial and Privilege. The final shot of Poussey Washington’s lifeless face sent chills down my spine. Her cold body—the end result of a blonde haired, brown-eyed white woman using her white privilege to maintain a monopoly on her illegal panty-selling business in the hit Netflix’s series Orange Is the New Black (OITNB). This final shot exemplifies the current issues in our county concerning law enforcement, white privilege, and black lives.…

For example, Ida mae grew up in a small town where a white man would come through weekly and start firing of shots at any black man, woman, or child that he came across. This went on and on and the government never persecuted him for anything. However, when the tables flipped and an African American was accused of the slightest wrong, for example opening the door for a white…

set out to confirm the existence of cosmopolitan canopies, “settings that offer a respite from the lingering tensions of urban life and an opportunity for diverse peoples to come together” (Anderson xiv). While his experience of Philadelphia as a black man is different than mine as a white woman, I believe cosmopolitan canopies can be identified by any person if they are looking for one. Anderson 's definition of a cosmopolitan canopy is broad enough that nearly all of the heavily populated…

of white womanhood, it was no surprise that that southerners acted this way towards the males despite the loads of evidence against the female’s story- the white women pedestal was exposed. The case also exposed Alabama for intentionally excluding blacks from being on the jury showing the political dishonesty based on race in the U.S. The Scottsboro case displayed the social, sectional, political, gender, and racial issues in the USA, but not without sharpening tensions nationally.…

This paper examines the controversial issue regarding racism in the law enforcement system. Statistics in regards to minorities and white people are included to show in numbers how people are actually being affected by the treatment of those in law enforcement. Two college campus rape cases are discussed in order to display the difference in sentencings given to two athletes of different races. Lastly, the ideas of institutional racism as well as the Implicit Bias theory are explored.…

Abraham Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation” ensured freedom and a hope for a better life to the African American community. Three decades later, the idea of a better life had been forgotten. Instead, the Black Americans had begun to endure their suffering, pretending that the unfair laws created by the White Americans were fair. Paul Dunbar describes in his poem, “We Wear the Mask,” the roles that African Americans began to play in life in order to survive. In his poem, you are able to…

Whether one cares to admit it or not, the concept of race continues to be a driving force that directly influences our world view and the manner in which we perceive others. As members of societies, we as humans are oftentimes guilty of feeding into the historically mandated standard of what is expected of a certain ethnicity, failing to fully recognize that a human’s skin color does not define the traits that they exude. The construct of ‘blackness’ is a result of this tendency, leading to a…

that touched on the relations of blacks and whites. This film covered several time periods including the 1940s through the 1980s. Forrest grew up in Alabama in the fictional town of Greenbow. He grew up in a home with his single mother who always told him “don’t you ever let anyone tell you that they’re better than you… you’re the same as everybody else.” These values were instilled in Forrest and he acted by them accordingly. He did not treat anyone differently. Black and white were all the…