Pick an Interesting Topic
1. I feel that I am led by the same impulse which forces the un-found-out criminal to take somebody into his confidence, although he knows that the act is likely, even almost certain, to lead to his undoing. I know that I am playing with fire. . .(The Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson. This sentence is located in the first paragraph of the first chapter of the book and provides the key to authors disclosing his own personal story. First of all, the secret lies in his identity as a black who is passing as white, opening the themes of racism, bi-racism, passing, and the crime of blackness. If the secret were divulged, the penalty would indeed be a liability in terms of social class, lifestyle, career options, and human dignity).
2. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at ones self through the eyes of others, of measuring ones soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. (The Souls of Black Folk by WEB Du Bois. This sentence encapsulates WEB Du Bois famous theory of racial double-consciousness where the Black (African-American) has no identity of his own. Instead, he sees himself stripped of true, individual identity, observes mainstream societys projection of him, and has to live with the worlds conception of himself where his image inspires either open hatred (resentment) or ridicule).
3. Nother thing. Ah hates tuh see folks lak me and you mixed up wid em. Us oughta class off. (Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. (This quotation represents a declaration of intra-racism and underlines the principle of official racial segregation which was alive up to the pre-civil rights era. This comment is spoken by Mrs. Turner who is a high-yellow, light colored Negro who despises her darker-complexioned countrymen. She feels ashamed at the low class behavior that prevailed among Blacks. This conversation exposes the reality of the black bourgeoisie who classify themselves in another class from the poorer, less educated, and darker African-Americans).
4. I am an ordinarily successful white man who has made a little money. They are men who are making history and a race. I, too, might have taken part in a work so glorious. (The Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson. The main character, the ex-colored man who passes for white has gotten by as a mediocre businessman. He never stands out as an illustrious man in history or race and does not aspire to such. He prefers to blend in with the dominant white culture and to retain a level of comfort and complacency, than breaking with the mold and confessing his true identity with all its risks and stereotypes.
5. The songs are indeed the siftings of centuries the music is far more ancient than the words, and in it we can trace here and there signs of development (The Souls of Black Folk by WEB Du Bois. WEB Du Bois clarify the cultural songs that derive from African Americans which he calls Sorrow Songs. Du Bois traces the development of African American music true soul or folk music whose roots run deep in Africa and whose rhythm still throbbed within the souls of African slaves who passed the songs down through the centuries despite religio-cultural dilutions).
6. So this was a marriage She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then she felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid (Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neales Hurston. This quotation summarizes the thoughts of Janie as she is out in nature looking at a bee pollinate and fertilize a flower. In her mind, she draws the connection between the birds and the bees, human sexual intercourse, and the consummation of a union).
7. And neither world thought the other worlds thought, save with a vague unrest. (The Souls of Black Folk by WEB Du Bois). This simple sentence carries much weight as WEB Du Bois outlines the demarcation between the world of the blacks and the world of the whites and the cultural wall which serves as a barrier to mutual understanding. Du Bois draws two distinct people in the Black and White community both called John and demonstrates the different lot that each had because of his racial extraction.
8. I believe it to be a fact that the colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them (The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson. This extract from the novel shows that Blacks have acquired a survival technique by learning how to please white men by understanding their inclinations. This narrator points to the dualism or the double consciousness of the Black man, his ability to adopt certain identities in order to betray the white man into subtle confidence in his submission).
9. The day of the gun, and the bloody body, and the courthouse came and commenced to sing a sobbing sigh out of every corner in the room out of each and every chair and thing. Commenced to sing, commenced to sob and sigh, singing and sobbing. (Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. This passage marks the conclusion of the novel where Janie recalls the day when she kills her own husband TeaCake, the proceeding legal trial, and the ambiance of the courtroom. TeaCakes murder is etched deeply in her mind and remains a climactic milestone in Janies life where she had to fight for herself as a woman and defend herself).
10. Would America have been America without her Negro people (The Souls of Black Folk by WEB Du Bois. WEB Du Bois poses this question in the concluding paragraphs of his classic text when he explains the valuable contributions and peculiar characteristics which constitute the African American culture song, oral tradition, labor in the sugar, tobacco, and cotton estates to which America attributes her wealth, and Negro spirituality. All of these aspects make America the land that it is today.
Section Two
1. Its uh known fact, says Janie to Phoeby, you got tuh go there tuh know there.
Here Janie stresses the importance of the quest for individual experience for the African American. She further adds that neither mother nor father nor anyone can point the way since one has to come to ones own conclusions on history. Since the Negro was bound by several restraints which inhibited free speech, education, rights, and freedoms, the search into the past becomes more difficult hence the necessity of going back there in order to recoup what has been lost. The construction of the Negro identity has already been warped because of the imposition of another language and the hindrance of education.
These barriers have obstructed articulation and clouded historical and cultural understanding for the ancestors of the slaves. Janie introduces in her speech the concept of sankofa in which one has to look back in move forward. Retracing ones steps to the past will enable further direction in the future. A personal retrospection in order to know invites practical understanding instead of indirect information transference via mainstream historians who may offer a representative of their views through biased lenses. As Janie works in the Muck of the Everglades in Florida, She discovers new elements of the black way of life that she never experienced herself. Over there in Florida, offers her a close-up and intimate view of the working class blacks their culture and tradition. Janie learns something exceptional working and living alongside the blacks of darker hue.
Witnessing the destitution, the vibrancy of African-American culture at the marketplace, fields, and African music and dances enable Janie to appreciate, grasp, and embrace the identity of her people. Hurston provides the reader with an image of un-depressed people living in depressed circumstances. On the other hand, not everything in the Muck is joie-de-vivre, Janie gets insight into the notorious, violent gamblers, experiences the taint of domestic violence at the hands of TeaCake, and has her eyes open to the sub-racial categories among the black bourgeoisie. As a result, Janie becomes a sort of historian who transmits what she lives as one who is socially deprived like the other Blacks around her. When she returns, Janie summarizes the attainment of this personal experience by her words Two things everybodys got tuh do for themselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin fuh theyselves.
2. Louis Armstrongs performance in a cartoon.
The coupled ideas of joy and sorrow, satire and song, are expressions of the African American which flourished in African American entertainment. Louis Armstrong uses both humor and pathos to parody whites and betrays an undercurrent of resentment at American society who painted him, as in the cartoon, as an uncultured, cannibalistic, barbarian who never will be fully integrated within mainstream culture. Black minstrelsy as an art portrays the Negro as a person who feels and expresses joy and sorrow based on his American experience. The expression of Negro joy and sorrow dominates in the cartoon as Armstrong grins, sings, and plays his music while terrorizing the white characters. Indeed, clownish joy and underlying grief play a major role for the African American since through his practical experience and artistic expression, these sentiments pervaded the atmosphere. Some critics see Armstrong as confirming the stereotyped view of the Negro as a pathetic, colored buffoon however, others view him as a revolutionary who skillfully wear a mask similar to Caliban of Shakespeare to deliver a biting message in the masters own language. This dual mask awakens the concepts of W.E.B. Du Bois idea of Double Consciousness in which Black Minstrelsy gave the Negro the stage literally and figuratively to communicate joy and sorrow, humor and pathos, joke and criticism. Looking at the cartoon has aroused the offensive racial nature of the characters portrayal however, in the background, Armstrong plays the tune, Ill Be Glad When Youre Dead.
The attribution is you is ambiguous and can be taken in either Armstrongs desires to see the white racism dead or the characters of the cartoon. Armstrong employs the musical rhythm and blues and incarnates this conflict of emotions in the Negro minstrel. The viewer witnesses Armstrong as he beats the drums like the African, or the cartoons close comparison with his wide mouth and lips, wide eyes, ostentatious grin, and the inarticulate language conducive only to the barbarian. Armstrong knew his white audience and was able to understand and humor them for he had a firm grasp on the internal workings of the American culture and the expectations of him.
On stage, the Negro jester becomes a crucial figure which helps the Negro to transition from a passive person who simply expresses feelings to an active person who acts on his feelings as his sense of injustice grows and deepens. Minstrelsy, music, and black entertainment take centre stage as a means to an end. Not simply for the fun of it, but for the achievement of dignity has the Negro has filled his work with meaning and making it utilitarian. It was this feat that Armstrong accomplishes while doing the cartoon.
2. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at ones self through the eyes of others, of measuring ones soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. (The Souls of Black Folk by WEB Du Bois. This sentence encapsulates WEB Du Bois famous theory of racial double-consciousness where the Black (African-American) has no identity of his own. Instead, he sees himself stripped of true, individual identity, observes mainstream societys projection of him, and has to live with the worlds conception of himself where his image inspires either open hatred (resentment) or ridicule).
3. Nother thing. Ah hates tuh see folks lak me and you mixed up wid em. Us oughta class off. (Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. (This quotation represents a declaration of intra-racism and underlines the principle of official racial segregation which was alive up to the pre-civil rights era. This comment is spoken by Mrs. Turner who is a high-yellow, light colored Negro who despises her darker-complexioned countrymen. She feels ashamed at the low class behavior that prevailed among Blacks. This conversation exposes the reality of the black bourgeoisie who classify themselves in another class from the poorer, less educated, and darker African-Americans).
4. I am an ordinarily successful white man who has made a little money. They are men who are making history and a race. I, too, might have taken part in a work so glorious. (The Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson. The main character, the ex-colored man who passes for white has gotten by as a mediocre businessman. He never stands out as an illustrious man in history or race and does not aspire to such. He prefers to blend in with the dominant white culture and to retain a level of comfort and complacency, than breaking with the mold and confessing his true identity with all its risks and stereotypes.
5. The songs are indeed the siftings of centuries the music is far more ancient than the words, and in it we can trace here and there signs of development (The Souls of Black Folk by WEB Du Bois. WEB Du Bois clarify the cultural songs that derive from African Americans which he calls Sorrow Songs. Du Bois traces the development of African American music true soul or folk music whose roots run deep in Africa and whose rhythm still throbbed within the souls of African slaves who passed the songs down through the centuries despite religio-cultural dilutions).
6. So this was a marriage She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then she felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid (Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neales Hurston. This quotation summarizes the thoughts of Janie as she is out in nature looking at a bee pollinate and fertilize a flower. In her mind, she draws the connection between the birds and the bees, human sexual intercourse, and the consummation of a union).
7. And neither world thought the other worlds thought, save with a vague unrest. (The Souls of Black Folk by WEB Du Bois). This simple sentence carries much weight as WEB Du Bois outlines the demarcation between the world of the blacks and the world of the whites and the cultural wall which serves as a barrier to mutual understanding. Du Bois draws two distinct people in the Black and White community both called John and demonstrates the different lot that each had because of his racial extraction.
8. I believe it to be a fact that the colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them (The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson. This extract from the novel shows that Blacks have acquired a survival technique by learning how to please white men by understanding their inclinations. This narrator points to the dualism or the double consciousness of the Black man, his ability to adopt certain identities in order to betray the white man into subtle confidence in his submission).
9. The day of the gun, and the bloody body, and the courthouse came and commenced to sing a sobbing sigh out of every corner in the room out of each and every chair and thing. Commenced to sing, commenced to sob and sigh, singing and sobbing. (Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. This passage marks the conclusion of the novel where Janie recalls the day when she kills her own husband TeaCake, the proceeding legal trial, and the ambiance of the courtroom. TeaCakes murder is etched deeply in her mind and remains a climactic milestone in Janies life where she had to fight for herself as a woman and defend herself).
10. Would America have been America without her Negro people (The Souls of Black Folk by WEB Du Bois. WEB Du Bois poses this question in the concluding paragraphs of his classic text when he explains the valuable contributions and peculiar characteristics which constitute the African American culture song, oral tradition, labor in the sugar, tobacco, and cotton estates to which America attributes her wealth, and Negro spirituality. All of these aspects make America the land that it is today.
Section Two
1. Its uh known fact, says Janie to Phoeby, you got tuh go there tuh know there.
Here Janie stresses the importance of the quest for individual experience for the African American. She further adds that neither mother nor father nor anyone can point the way since one has to come to ones own conclusions on history. Since the Negro was bound by several restraints which inhibited free speech, education, rights, and freedoms, the search into the past becomes more difficult hence the necessity of going back there in order to recoup what has been lost. The construction of the Negro identity has already been warped because of the imposition of another language and the hindrance of education.
These barriers have obstructed articulation and clouded historical and cultural understanding for the ancestors of the slaves. Janie introduces in her speech the concept of sankofa in which one has to look back in move forward. Retracing ones steps to the past will enable further direction in the future. A personal retrospection in order to know invites practical understanding instead of indirect information transference via mainstream historians who may offer a representative of their views through biased lenses. As Janie works in the Muck of the Everglades in Florida, She discovers new elements of the black way of life that she never experienced herself. Over there in Florida, offers her a close-up and intimate view of the working class blacks their culture and tradition. Janie learns something exceptional working and living alongside the blacks of darker hue.
Witnessing the destitution, the vibrancy of African-American culture at the marketplace, fields, and African music and dances enable Janie to appreciate, grasp, and embrace the identity of her people. Hurston provides the reader with an image of un-depressed people living in depressed circumstances. On the other hand, not everything in the Muck is joie-de-vivre, Janie gets insight into the notorious, violent gamblers, experiences the taint of domestic violence at the hands of TeaCake, and has her eyes open to the sub-racial categories among the black bourgeoisie. As a result, Janie becomes a sort of historian who transmits what she lives as one who is socially deprived like the other Blacks around her. When she returns, Janie summarizes the attainment of this personal experience by her words Two things everybodys got tuh do for themselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin fuh theyselves.
2. Louis Armstrongs performance in a cartoon.
The coupled ideas of joy and sorrow, satire and song, are expressions of the African American which flourished in African American entertainment. Louis Armstrong uses both humor and pathos to parody whites and betrays an undercurrent of resentment at American society who painted him, as in the cartoon, as an uncultured, cannibalistic, barbarian who never will be fully integrated within mainstream culture. Black minstrelsy as an art portrays the Negro as a person who feels and expresses joy and sorrow based on his American experience. The expression of Negro joy and sorrow dominates in the cartoon as Armstrong grins, sings, and plays his music while terrorizing the white characters. Indeed, clownish joy and underlying grief play a major role for the African American since through his practical experience and artistic expression, these sentiments pervaded the atmosphere. Some critics see Armstrong as confirming the stereotyped view of the Negro as a pathetic, colored buffoon however, others view him as a revolutionary who skillfully wear a mask similar to Caliban of Shakespeare to deliver a biting message in the masters own language. This dual mask awakens the concepts of W.E.B. Du Bois idea of Double Consciousness in which Black Minstrelsy gave the Negro the stage literally and figuratively to communicate joy and sorrow, humor and pathos, joke and criticism. Looking at the cartoon has aroused the offensive racial nature of the characters portrayal however, in the background, Armstrong plays the tune, Ill Be Glad When Youre Dead.
The attribution is you is ambiguous and can be taken in either Armstrongs desires to see the white racism dead or the characters of the cartoon. Armstrong employs the musical rhythm and blues and incarnates this conflict of emotions in the Negro minstrel. The viewer witnesses Armstrong as he beats the drums like the African, or the cartoons close comparison with his wide mouth and lips, wide eyes, ostentatious grin, and the inarticulate language conducive only to the barbarian. Armstrong knew his white audience and was able to understand and humor them for he had a firm grasp on the internal workings of the American culture and the expectations of him.
On stage, the Negro jester becomes a crucial figure which helps the Negro to transition from a passive person who simply expresses feelings to an active person who acts on his feelings as his sense of injustice grows and deepens. Minstrelsy, music, and black entertainment take centre stage as a means to an end. Not simply for the fun of it, but for the achievement of dignity has the Negro has filled his work with meaning and making it utilitarian. It was this feat that Armstrong accomplishes while doing the cartoon.
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