An Extraordinary Man

In the article by Studs Terkel, C.P. Ellis overcomes racism and personal prejudices through education and face to face interaction with blacks and other minorities. C.P. Ellis’s story is not typical. My step mom would say “He turned his brain on”. In other words he believed what he was taught without even thinking about it. Then Ellis “turned his brain on”, talked to the kinds of people he was prejudiced against, and questioned his beliefs. Ellis fought for diversity, integration of schools, and a union. Ellis did an extraordinary thing by doing all this. Not many Americans have their brains turned on which is I why I don’t think Ellis’ story could be repeated. It is a personal choice to ponder one’s culture and beliefs. I cannot make anyone believe anything. That is also why I don’t think Ellis’s story could be repeated on a much larger scale. To promote understanding and acceptance of all cultures integrating minorities, people of different religions and sexual orientations is a start. Starting a union for the protection of the working class (which largely consists of minorities) creates opportunity for success for everyone. To implement all these ideas with the goal of diversity will create change albeit small. And that is something worth striving for.

pressure to cover

“Covering” is a concept I had never heard of until Yoshino’s “Pressure to Cover.” The idea of discriminating is not new but the discrimination toward one’s traits associating one with a particular minority is something worth pondering. I agree that the concept of “covering” is prevalent in our country. Penalizing a person for their subtle traits associating said person with a certain group, especially if they are mutable, is discrimination. Yoshino’s “Pressure to Cover” directly ties in with the concept of America’s “melting pot”. The need for assimilation is human nature. We all want to fit in somewhere whether it is a group of friends, or one friend. The idea to have everyone accepting of anyone sounds almost impossible to accomplish. It would be defying a need everyone seems to have. One point in this article is everyone has a characteristic that must be muted in order to look professional. I think the pressure to cover is heaviest on minorities but not exclusive to those groups. Everyone must cover in some way. This is Yoshino’s point in “the mainstream is a myth”. “It is not normal to be completely normal” jumped out at me. Is not everyone different in some loud, obvious way? And who defines normal? I would love to answer with white males but they have their own problems of obesity, alcoholism, and whatever else plagues white males in particular. The need for assimilation or to “fit in” will never be overcome.

Harriet Jacobs Attains her Freedom...

I take my freedom for granted every day I am alive. I do not walk around and consciously enjoy not wearing chains on my wrists and ankles. I do not lie in my bed at night, stretch out, and take a minute to truly enjoy the luxury of space. I am not always grateful for the fact that I have my parents to come home to every night. I do not notice these things because they have never been taken away from me. I have never spent seven years of my life in a coffin-like “garret”. I have never been chained against my will. I have never lost my parents. Harriet Jacobs has survived these horrors and many more. In “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” Harriet Jacobs makes a perilous escape to the Northern States after a life of slavery only to be disillusioned. Linda (Jacobs name in the book) believes the North she will be considered human and therefore free. Upon reaching the North Linda manages to gain a job with Mrs. Bruce, an English woman needing a nurse for her child. During this time the Fugitive Slave Law is passed basically making it much easier to obtain African American people for the purposes of slavery. Linda is then sought after by her old mistress and husband. Linda decides she must go into hiding once again, but Mrs. Bruce (the second) opposes the idea. Mrs. Bruce believes in order to end the trouble she will buy Linda and give Linda her freedom. Linda is troubled with the fact that in order to gain her freedom….she must be bought. Even in the northern states there could be legal documents produced proving her sale. In the end, Linda is bought by Mrs. Bruce (the second) and given her freedom.

The Credibility of Harriet Jacobs

Harriet Jacobs establishes her credibility by being a slave. She sees many torturous acts inflicted on her fellow slaves and speaks of them in the book “Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl”. A part from the book that epitomizes the value of a slave’s life is the end of chapter twenty, page 95. “As the light increased, I saw snake after snake crawling round us. I had been accustomed to the sight of snakes all my life, but these were larger than any I had ever seen…As evening approached, the number of snakes increased so much that we were continually obliged to thrash them with sticks to keep them from crawling over us.” This event doesn’t sound like anything a human being would ever go through. Its hard to pinpoint one event from the book and say it makes Jacobs credible. Too many haunting stories from the book are told with such descriptive language how can one not believe her? One cannot even begin to understand the horrors of a man eaten by rats before he was dead, a woman drowning herself to escape her master, and Jacobs living in a coffin-like “garret” for seven years. I do not doubt Jacobs credibility nor any of her personal narrative accounts of her fellow slaves lives.

Chapters 1-9, Incidents In the Life of a Slavegirl

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. “
George Santayana
We must always know history as truth to prevent its repeating. As I was reading chapters 1-9 I thought to myself that if most men and women were cruel to their slaves then, would most of us here and now be malicious to our slaves if we had them today? The concept seems so impossible, so sick and wrong, but I believe the answer to this question is yes. “I do not say there are no humane slaveholders…But they are “like angels’ visits-few and far between.”” P 44 We advance in our knowledge of failure. Slavery is one huge failure of the United States of America. We failed both the white and black race in its institution. Linda/Harriet Jacobs says, “I can testify, from my own experience and observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as the blacks. It makes the white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the wives wretched. And as for the colored race, it needs an abler pen than mine to describe the extremity of their sufferings, the depth of their degradation.”
We must also remember this book is fiction because it makes the notion of this could have happened to you more real. As I was reading this book I kept anticipating the fairytale ending, or I kept imagining means of getting the slave (whoever it may be) out of trouble. But because I knew the story was true I had to face the reality of what happened.
Some aspects I noticed of the book were…
-Is Grandmother the heroine and Mr. Flint the antagonist? Which leads me to,
-This is the dilemma of good vs. evil

"...punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation..."

Race- n.
Each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics
Ism- suffix forming nouns
Denoting a system, principle, or ideological movement; denoting a pathological condition
History is strewn with the massacres and persecutions caused by prejudice. Parrillo addresses some of these events in “Causes of Prejudice”. He explains the psychology behind prejudice feelings and actions, and gives many examples to help shed light on our culture today. One term describing a pathological tendency in prejudice behavior is socialization. The socialization process is when “individuals acquire the values, attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions of their culture or subculture, including religion, nationality, and social class.” I am a follower of Aristotle and believe everything I know is presumed. Someone supposes an idea, “proves” it, and we accept the idea as truth. In my mind the socialization process piggybacks this belief. We learn cognitively. Before we can formulate opinions on anything we are taught what to believe. An example would be growing up with a religious background. I was taught there is a god. I was taught who he/she was, what he/she has done, and why he/she existed. It wasn’t until seventh grade that I even heard of the concept of atheism. No god? Yes, there’s one dummy, just like that chair there is blue. I knew there was a god without even thinking about it. I think prejudice can evolve like this. Without realizing it where we grow up, who our parents are, and what kind of financial class we are in will create biased views on the world. It isn’t until we hear an opposing idea that we even notice a belief is actually an opinion. I find it truly sad when I know someone isn’t listening to me. I enjoy a passionate and intellectual argument, but am disappointed when someone will not even hear my idea and think about it. I think part of the problem with socialization is it is scary when someone tells us we’re wrong. It reminds us we are only human. It reminds us we do not know everything and neither did our parents. I also think it is a lot easier to accept something as truth rather than think about it, question it, and educate ourselves on the matter.