... doing or what his attire is, he is considered a threat to those who don't look like him. Staples testifies about being constantly avoided and feared by people who don't even know his true character. He uses personal experiences as well as stories from other black men to shine some light on black ... men and public space. Staples starts the story with a testimony about him as twenty-two year old college student, walking down the street one random night. He explains to us that a white woman, who seemed to be in her early twenties, is walking front of him. He calls the ... woman, "his firs...

• Word Count: 690
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... . If I will ever accomplish my goal and find happiness, I do not really know because I am ridicule for the color of my skin. Similar, Helga felt this way going into the world. The protagonist Helga in "Quicksand" by Nella Larsen represents the struggle encountered by many blacks during the early 1900s. Blacks were considered second class citizens. Helga being a biracial child opens doors ... to rejection by both Blacks and Whites. Helga quest for selfhood is similar to African American search for equality in American in the early 1900s. Nella Larsen brilliantly creates Helga's character ...

• Word Count: 271
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... from having equal rights to the White South Africans. Apartheid is ridiculous and extremely wrong. A discussion of apartheid according to the novel Waiting for the Rain will show the reader to understand exactly how wrong apartheid really is. In the novel the two main characters are best friends ... , one of them is white and the other is black. Frikkie is a white kid who gets to go to school for free and is best friends with Tengo who is a black kid and is not allowed a free education. Tengo cannot understand why the black kids aren't allowed ... the white people. There is a very rude ...

• Word Count: 529
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• Grade Level: High School

Theme for English B "Theme for English B- is a poem by Langston Hughes in which a black student in a predominantly white college takes a seemingly simple assignment as an opportunity to inspect the ... to turn in his brainstorm as his response to the assignment. Langston Hughes provides plenty of information about himself in the first half of the poem, for example, that he was "born in Winston Salem- (7) and his school history first Durham, then Columbia University. He tells us that he was ... perceives and feels about this color difference and reflects on the difficulties in analyzing those ...

• Word Count: 581
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

"Theme for English B" by Langston Hughes is a powerful poem. Hughes is a prolific African-American literary writer from the early 1900's. "Theme for English B" is a poem about a young freshman student asked to write a theme for class. This poem makes a powerful statement. It touches on the racial differences of that time. The student wanted to know if the assignment is as simple as the professor says. ... he and the professor are apart of each other. Here he is trying to say that they are both men living under the same notion. They follow the same guidelines for life, or do they? He mention...

• Word Count: 296
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• Grade Level: High School

... owners with their farming and picking of their crops. Without this help from the southerners the blacks would have no food, housing, or work for them and their families. If it were not for the farmers the blacks would have no other place to go and they would never be able to find a job that would pay them ... well enough for them to feed and house their families. Another benefit that affected the slaves would be that when they got their freedom they had learned the language ... and the culture of the white man. As a result they would be able to interact with people much more professiona...

• Word Count: 292
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... throughout the colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries. According to George Fitzhugh's and Thomas Dew's views, slaves were claimed to be, in a sense, very free and content people, and their masters were beloved and appreciated. However, based on Seward's and Northup's documents, the above-mentioned claims are not accurate. In ... in some sense, the freest people in the world."1 This was because slaves had their food, clothes, shelter and everything needed for themselves and their families provided by their masters, although the condition and quality of such provisions were not mentioned...

• Word Count: 580
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... through the story. Miss Emily demonstrates the characteristics of the south all throughout the story. Emily Grierson has a sense of tradition that makes it very difficult for her to accept change. In the beginning of the story Miss Emily's father passes away. Miss Emily does not accept that her father is dead and ... Emily's was back in the old south. Homer Barron represents the north in this story. The north was totally different from the south. The north was all for a little change, and so was Homer Barron. Homer Barron was a man from the north that came down south to construct sidewal...

• Word Count: 725
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Frikkie and Tengo are the two main characters in the story Waiting for the Rain. Frikkie is a white boy who has a Dutch descent while Tengo is a native black African boy. Frikkie hates school while Tengo dreams to receive an education. Frikkie likes working ... not know and likes asking himself questions. So he moved to a city called Johannesburg (Country verses City). Tengo's physical appearance, knowledge, and viewpoints of things change as the time goes by. When Tengo was little, he used to be short and skinny because he was sometimes starved and could not get enough nutrients. However, h...

• Word Count: 516
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

It is something that has been longed for for centuries. It is something that has been fought over by individuals and societies. It is something that for years to come will never be reached. It may be an impossible goal to accomplish. It is equality. Equality is the state of ... being completely equal and on the same level as others in a society. Equality has different battlegrounds. It can be fought for in the ... home, or even in school. It can try to be reached with in a society, race, or religion. The world has fought over the topic of equality for hundreds of years, but it wasn't until re...

• Word Count: 313
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... The slave auction was one of the most brutal practices of the harsh system of slavery, devastating families and tearing apart entire communities. Post 1840, when slavery was prolonged into the newer lands of the lower south and southwest, the poem, "The Slave Auction," written by Frances E. W. Harper, ... feelings of people who lost their relatives because of this process. Francis E.W. Harper was born in Baltimore to African American free slaves. She attended the Academy for Negro Youth, a school run by her uncle, until the age of 13, and then found local work in a Quaker household, whe...

• Word Count: 748
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad reverses the tradition by using the color of white as a symbol for darkness and mystery. Although some critics have viewed him as a racist, Conrad used the color white as a symbol of evil throughout the story ... honest natives have no choice but to obey whites until they are used up and dead. Death silently turns everything white. Marlow encounters dying African natives being killed by the "enlightened" white Europeans: "They were dying slowly-it was clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now, nothing ... Africa, ...

• Word Count: 572
• Approx Pages: 2
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... am the only colored speaker in my class,"(10). The symbolism of "Theme for English B" is the paper the speaker has to write. The speaker is disturbed by what is to be written in this paper: "It's not easy to know what is true for you or me," (16). The speaker does not want to offend anyone ... but wants to be seen as the same. The paper is supposed to depict the speaker, but the speaker is unsure of what to write for ... the white man once again. The speaker lives in the "Y" in Harlem, "the Harlem branch Y," (14). The Y is a low housing establishment. It is a place for people that cannot...

• Word Count: 799
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Anna Julia Cooper, From A Voice from the South: By A Black Woman of the South (1892) Mrs. Anna Cooper was born a child of a slave in Raleigh, North Carolina. Unlike a vest majority of African Americas, yet ... African American women and wrote many speeches and essays which were collected in "A Voice from the South: By A Black Woman of the South. Cooper was a strong advocate for women's right and for the unseen power they had during era. Throughout his essay she mentioned several women. Every woman in her eyes played a role in shaping the future ... of a good African American woman in a man'...

• Word Count: 698
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... having survived the war when 58, 022 other soldiers died. The poet's use of the simile "like smoke represents both the idea of what could have been, for smoke is hazy and can be blown away as easily as it got there, and a comparison of the death of soldiers in a smoky blast. Then, Komunyakaa ... real life occurring alongside it. Standing there, "Names shimmer on a woman's blousebut then she walks away/the names stay on the wall" (714). For the speaker, the power of the stone will never let go of the names; he wishes the names could walk away with the woman ... must have been bombarded w...

• Word Count: 1018
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... majority of black males, many figure that all African American males partake in these activities. Looks can be deceiving and no one man should be pre-judged by his race nor his gender. In a short essay entitled Black Men and Public Space, there was a male character of black descent who was falsely ... his race, and his gender. In relation to Black Men and Public Space, many black males could relate through several public places. For example, an African American male is driving in his brand new, hard owned Jaguar through his predominately white ascendant neighborhood, and is pulled over...

• Word Count: 644
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... the hate in the world. I do not want her to feel like people are different just because they are diverse in features and colors. 2. One day, I will explain to her that some people are mean to each other for that simple reason, but I just can not bear to discus that until she is a little older. Besides, I still do not understand why all ... situation, and it seems that this problem is more deeply rooted than it appears. There were some riots that broke out after an unarmed black teenager was shot and killed by a police officer back in 1996. Disrespectful encounters have stemmed from this...

• Word Count: 572
• Approx Pages: 2
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... two boys matured and went their separate ways; Tengo moved into the township in order to attend a school for colored people. He succeed at his studies, and dreamt of one day schooling in the United States, after he received a scholarship for his outstanding achievements. The text motivated him, it was phenomenal how his bewilderment began to diminish as he became a top scholar. Frikkie, however ... passion, the farm. Peace and order began to dwindle, as the tension increased among black communities. They finally realized the injustices of the policy of apartheid. The black people began ...

• Word Count: 1205
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... was that smile that maddened Irene. She ran across the room, her terror tinged with ferocity, and laid a hand on Claire's bare arm. One thought possessed her. She couldn't have Clare Kendry cast aside by Bellew. She couldn't have her free." (Page 111) So it is safe to conclude that Claire did not fall on her own. Nella Larsen's book exemplifies a wide range ... of women's issues in the earliest part of the 20th century. The reader is presented with two women of the same background who establish a live their lives completely opposite to one another. For Claire ... Kendry, passing as a w...

• Word Count: 849
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... girls in the 1940's. In the tragic novel, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Pecola Breedlove, an eleven-year-old black girl is a victim of racial self-loathing and also rape by her father which results in pregnancy. Described as submissive, ugly, and ... of Lorain, Ohio. Though Pecola does have some friends, Claudia and Frieda Macteer, she wants to be accepted and loved by others. Pecola grows up in an abusive and un-loving family. She longs to disappear from the face of the Earth ... that if her brown eyes were to turn blue, her world would be different. For a year Pecola prays for blue...

• Word Count: 413
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... all to make some money. Jean Kilbourne talks about this issue in, "Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence" by stating, "Sex in advertising is pornographic because it dehumanizes and objectifies people, especially women, and because it fetishes products, imbues them with an erotic ... the most money out of them. Harwood Industries shut down the sewing department putting 120 people out of jobs. "Have-Mores and Have-Lesses" by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele interviewed the vice president whom said, "I think we are taking the proper approach, I know it has hurt ... ...

• Word Count: 1204
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... awareness of life. To get a glimpse into the real world, the reader has to take a deeper look in why Dick Prosser snapped in "Child by Tiger-. Dick was switched from one extreme of being well liked among other people and being their equal to being looked upon as an inferior worker ... by race. In the first few paragraphs, he was described as a military man only respected while in the service. "He knew how to box too. I ... a high respect among ALL men. The society hardly ever calls Dick Prosser by his name. He is mainly referred as the Negro or as one of Sheppertons possessions. The so...

• Word Count: 1167
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... , but it was not insurmountable. Douglass decided that the separation between whites was an advantage to his cause. He could then make allies with one of the disputants in the fight and exploit the alliance to yield guarantees of access to the devices of power and mobility the "new man" ... war to the Emancipation of the slaves than Mr. Garrison and the American Anti-Slavery Society." (Frederick Douglass, Monthly of March 1862). Raising the free black regiments for service in the Union Army was a policy intended to give blacks a sturdy claim on the state and prove that they were citizens ...

• Word Count: 1118
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Heritage and Culture in Everyday Use Everyday Use is a story by Alice Walker is a story most likely set in the late "60s or early "70s. The central characters are Mama and her two daughters Dee (Wangero), ... stature nor her personality or character when she states: "I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog. One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat ... saying hardly anything throughout the entire story. The s...

• Word Count: 937
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... actions of the "mob." First of all, the treatment of the children was the same as the adults. Norman Floyd, of the Oklahoma Press, said, "One of his chief attributes is the respect and humility of the southern darky- he calls even the boys "mister"." Dick Prosser made the boys feel important ... like that, but the kids like Dick, they too treated him with respect, and they did treat him like a servant also. Dick showed the boys how to do everything. For example, he showed them how to throw a ball, kick a ball, split wood, how to shoot a gun. Everything that a young boy would want to do ...

• Word Count: 617
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School