Norviel's Eyes on the Prize Opinion

1. In the movie Eyes on the Prize, the creator of this video wanted to show what the blacks went through in order to get some of the privileges and rights that whites had that the African Americans didn’t. Even though they were said to be “free”, without the same treatment and luxuries as the whites, they felt as though they were still nothing more than slaves.
2. The movie began with the story of a 14 year old boy named Emmett Till. The boy was not from around Mississippi, and while he was there he was told to say something to a white woman in a store. After telling the woman “bye” he was threatened by a man. Later the boy’s body was found mangled and shot in a river, all of this just for talking to a white woman. The husband of the woman and her brother-in-law were accused of the murder, but were found not guilty. The inequalities of the blacks were then focused on and demonstrated when showing the separate water fountains for blacks and whites, as well as the segregation of buses. Whites were to sit in the front while blacks were allowed to sit in the back, unless there were more whites then the blacks were required to give up their seat to the white person. Later in the movie it talked about what happened in Little Rock. The Little Rock high school was to integrate and allow a few black students into the school. The whites rioted outside of the school, and the police didn’t allow the blacks into the school. The U.S. president took matters into his own hands and assigned the National Guard to escort the black students into the school, while each black student was assigned a personal guard who walked them to each class. After accomplishing some integration within high schools, the African Americans then started attending colleges. There were special seating for blacks and whites so the black students decided to sit in the seats that were set for whites and had a sit in to prove their point.
3. What would have been the result if the blacks hadn’t decided not to use violence in order to get their rights, and started killing and rioting? Weren’t the white parents afraid to send their kids to school too with the rioting?
4. I enjoyed the movie for the most part. It was nice to see the different views of people that actually experienced what the movie was talking about. It gave us a better understanding and personal feel to what the blacks did to accomplish their equality goals. I couldn’t imagine living during that time, and sending my kids to a school where there were people outside with guns and wanting to kill potential students. Even if they were not after my child, accidents still happen, and you never know what people will do when they get fired up. School now is scary enough with all of the random shootings that no one anticipates, let alone knowing everyday that when you try to go to school you may be shot or killed in another way.

Norviel's Ethics of Living

1. In the writing The Ethics of Living Jim Crow, the author is describes the rules and ways of living that African Americans were expected to follow. If they wanted to live and make a living among whites then they had to obey the unwritten rules that the white men created for them. Those African Americans who stepped out of line were often punished for supposedly disrespecting the whites.
2. This piece of writing followed a short time period of a young black boy’s life. It describes the lessons that the boy had to experience throughout part of his life of how to act, speak to, and work for whites. In the beginning he finds that after being cut by a broken glass bottle, that was thrown at him by a white boy while having a war, that his mother was non-sympathetic like he expected she would be. Rather she punished the boy, she wanted him to learn the right way to behave if he were ever going to survive in a world that he was an inferior part of. She knew what she was talking about because she has learned throughout her life how to get along with whites in order to provide food and other necessities for her family. Later when the boy had his first job and was accused of not addressing a white man properly, he learned to keep his mouth shut and to become submissive to what the whites wanted from him; he left his job without saying a word to the boss, even though the white men were ordered to teach him things. He knew better than to talk back. With each new job and as his life went on he learned the tricks that would keep him out of trouble and keep him alive as well. When he was unsure of the proper response to make toward a white person he found ways out of having to make any gesture at all, like when he was unable to remove his hat while in the elevator and the white man took it off for him. He knew he wasn’t really supposed to thank him, so rather than having to say or do anything he pretended to lose his sturdy hold on his packages so that the white man would understand that he was preoccupied with other matters.
3. Why did the group of white men in the car that offered him a ride say that he was lucky that he talked to them that way instead of someone else, why didn’t they treat him the same way that they thought other people would? Why didn’t the whites who had a soft spot for the blacks try harder to help them out?
4. Overall I liked the reading. I liked that it was more of a story rather than simply just facts. It gave it a more personal feel and made it more interesting to read and held the readers attention better.

No Real Freedom According to Norviel

1. The main point that Zinn is trying to get across in “Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom” is that even though after a lot of struggling to be free, the African Americans were not given the same rights and privileges that the white’s had.
2. In the beginning of the reading Zinn talks about the hardships and abuse that the slaves were put through. They were separated from their families at all ages, not know if they were ever going to see each other ever again. They were then forced to work in fields and in homes for their white owners, with only whippings and little food given to them in return for their hard labor. In the reading Zinn quotes another, saying that by the blacks raising their children to be slaves is only adding to their situation, and that they too are responsible for what they are put through by bringing their children in the world to go through the same things that they are. Later on in the reading the author talks about Lincoln working to grant the slaves their freedom. Although they were said to be “free men” and did not have to work for the white men anymore, they were not granted the same rights as the whites were. They were still not allowed to bear arms, own land, and were paid less for doing the same work that a white man is doing. At the end of the writing Zinn questions the motive of Was Du Bois. He asks if the growth of capitalism is in a way making not only blacks but whites slaves of their own country. Since capitalism is such a major focus point in America, people are forced to work and produce profit in order to ensure their survival, much like slavery.
3. Does Zinn not think that we have made any progress, that slavery has just been masked but not really completely abolished? If the focus on capitalism was not made into a main focus what would our country be like today? Would people live more equally, and would we be as advanced as we are not?
4. I personally was not all that overly fond of the reading. It was rather boring and had too many quotes in it, that at times seemed to be quite pointless.

Norviel's Analysis Paper Exercise

I am going to use Johnson chapter 3 and Takaki chapter 3. My position according to these writings is that I agree that race and gender do in deed play a factor in privilege in the sake of capitalism.

Johnson

• After the war, white capitalists would use the Chinese immigrants’ need to work to their advantage, using them for cheap labor.
• Created “whiteness” to employ less privileged whites for low wages
• Mexican immigrants hired over whites because they could pay them less
• People who are disabled were placed under those who weren’t disabled, which gave them little opportunity for challenge or advancement
• Women were thought of as inferior, and that the work they do isn’t really work

Takaki

• The English, rather than employ other whites to do their work, they enslaved the blacks to do the work for free.
• The new settlers took over the Indian’s land because they felt the Indians were inferior to them.

Norviel's view of Differences

1. The author’s main idea in this reading is describing the numerous different classes in which people are placed or associated with. He talks about the way these classes came about, and how they are not “real” classes, but rather something that people have made up in order to make themselves look better than others, as well as distinguish them from others whom they do not want to be associated with.
2. The authors start off their piece by describing how people are associated with multiple social statuses. An example the author used for this is that “a person can be an office manager, a college graduate, and a cousin simultaneously”. Rosenblum and Travis then go on to talk about how there are master statuses that are used to “really” identify people, such as being male/female, gay/straight, white/black; these are said to be a person’s “personal identity” even though they are not the only ones who classify themselves under this identity. They describe the differences of essentialists (observers of something that is) and constructionists (creator of what something is). The authors then talk about naming, and how when a person claims a specific identity, they are also rejecting the possibility of others identifying them differently. When classifying ones’ self in a particular group, not all members of that group will use the same name to describe themselves, that is because most categories have multiple names so people chose the one that they want to be identified as. And just because a person uses one name to identify themselves does not mean that everyone will cooperate with this and use that name as well.

Individuals and groups are not the only ones who have created categories in which people are places, the government creates categories as well. Combining people into a group is called aggregating, while disaggregation involves the process of fragmenting its constituents according to their nation-origin.

Later the authors bring about the concept of dichotomizing, which is dividing something into only two different groups. People often think that there are two groups, which each person can belong to either one or the other, never both. An example of this in association to race is classifying people as either white or non-white. People who are of mixed race (ex. White and Black), are automatically identified as being African American rather than simply American. Dichotomizing is also used in sexual orientation (gay/straight), and sex (male/female). In this way, the authors describe how these different social classifications are brought about in a very similar way.

3. If people do not like being “classified” then why do they self classify themselves into different categories? Do homosexuals, females, and people of different ethnicity actually like being in a separate class of their opposites? How many people actually classify people who are different?
4. The writing was overall very informative but I felt that it was too long and drawn out. By the last quarter or more of the writing I was losing interest and caught myself zoning out. I did like the examples the authors used to show what they were talking about more effectively though.

Analysis Paper #1 Idea

For my Analysis paper #1 I am thinking about using the different writings about the Indians, and the African Americans and comparing their experiences with the Whites. I will show the differences and similarities of how they were each treated and how they were both viewed by the whites. I plan to use Zinn's writings of A People's History of the United States chapters one and two.

I Liked Johnson's writing better than any of the others that we have used, so I would actually like to try to do my paper on his chapters instead of Zinn ; but I'm having a problem coming up with a good topic for my paper using his writings. So if you have any suggestions I'd appreciate it!!

Norviel's Comparison

The author is stating how she feels that all of these different minority groups claim that they want to be treated equally, like everyone else, and continually bring it up. She doesn't see why they keep digging up issues, such as slavery, and using it as excuses as to why they may have a bad life. Barnes does not feel sorry for them. One reason she doesn't feel sorry for them is because she believes that everyone does have a choice in their path through life. Another reason she does not sympathize minorities with this excuse is also because in most cases people have the same chances and opportunities as everyone else so their color and ethnicity does not play a factor in their bad luck like they play it off to be. It is not only race that the author addresses, she even comments on a major gender issue. This issue is the complaining of women, saying that they are not treated equally. To the author, this is not an argument that is valid these days, and seems to think that men are actually treated worse than women these days. She thinks this because of the negative roles men always seem to play in Lifetime movies and other television shows. Another opinion that she comments on is the fact that different groups do not want different treatment, but yet they feel the need to announce their differences to others.
Barnes' article relates to Johnson in the Sick and Tired perspective. Both are talking about how some things are just brought up to often and go on for too long, which makes people sick of hearing about it. Sarah has had enough of hearing about how whites, heterosexuals, and males get treated better than everyone else. It's an issue that has been around for a long time and as far as she is concerned it has been resolved so there is no reason to continually bring it up.