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A black woman walking up to the counter at Macy's will be a customer, not an American-American customer; a Latino buying a car at a used car lot in Memphis won't be a Mexican-American he will be a customer. That's how it should be.
THREE: Why is the focus so different between male authors and female authors? For the same reason that men see the world from a very different lens than women see the world. Naomi Wolf has a very good perspective on why there is such a dramatic difference between what men write about and what women write about, and I agree with her wholeheartedly. There were archaic yet potent attitudes toward women a century ago, Wolf explains, in which "normal female activity, especially the kind that would lead women into power, was classified as ugly and sick." In fact, there were whispers that if a woman engaged in too much reading, "her uterus would 'atrophy.'" And if she went on reading her entire reproductive system would "collapse"; if she assertively pursued educational interests, she would become sterilized and surely become less sexually attractive. One can readily see that Victorian society -- at least to some extent -- embraced the idea that rather than lift herself up in the social milieu a woman was a womb to be busy producing offspring and having sex with a man. Her body was a factory, designed for action and at the pleasure of men. That's not the way it is today, but perhaps women...
As to McIntosh's list of 26 "conditions" she exaggerates frequently. Depending on what neighborhood she is in, persons of any skin color would not be safe (#4), for example. But moreover if a white person runs for office, it is seen as normal. He's a candidate. An African-American running for office is a "black candidate" -- but is that necessarily bad? Especially since Barack Obama became president "black" has a more positive tone.
FIVE: Dr. Maya Angelou experienced brutal bigotry growing up in Arkansas, but she overcame racial discrimination through her genius and creative power to express herself. She freed herself with her poetry and her drama:
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.
Freedom is what Angelou was determined to find for herself, and she did more than that. She became an internationally celebrated author, poet, actress, director and advocate.
There many instances in the book to remind the reader of the non-human ways those slaves were treated. There is a passage in which a slave does not have any name other than the name that was written on the bill of sale when she was purchased. When finally asked what she calls herself her answer is chilling: "Nothing.... I don't call myself nothing" (142) (Malmgren, 1995). The book belies the
Toni Morrison What meanings can be attributed to the literary accomplishments of American author Toni Morrison? How does Morrison use history to portray her stories and her characters? How did Morrison become known as one of the premier African-American authors in America? This paper delves into those issues and others relevant to the writing of Toni Morrison. What meanings are attributed to the works of Toni Morrison? Critic Marilyn Sanders Mobley -- in
Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Beloved (Morrison), based loosely on a real life experience of a Cincinnati area former slave, mirrors her own journey from her early life living in a segregated South to her moving to a more racially friendly Lorain, Ohio (Reinhardt). Her life in Lorain was free of many of the prejudices that would have been present if she had remained in the South but she
From girlhood," Sula shows a natural gift for daring, Lorie Watkins Fulton writes in African-American Review (Fulton, 2006). Sula in fact persuades Nel to join up with her in order to confront the bullies on Carpenter's Road; and when Sula shows the guts to pull her grandma's paring knife from her pocket and slice a piece of her finger off, the boys star "open-mouthed at the wound" (Morrison 54). If I
Toni Morrison's Beloved Through the exquisitely penned prose and evocative storytelling weaved within her novel Beloved, author Toni Morrison manages to depict the spiritual damage inflicted on African-Americans throughout the darkest period in our nation's history. Rather than confine her penetrating perceptive abilities as a writer to the external conditions of slavery, Morrison delves deeply into personal experience and cultural heritage to expose the insidious internal consequences of human bondage
He is identified as follows in the story: "...he had not so much moved through his life as wandered through it, his spirit like a dazed body bumping into furniture and corners. He had always been a fearful father..." This depiction of Matt shows how his love for his family has become a weakness for him, for there is always a fear in him that he will fail as