"Individuals cannot fight against that which they do not understand" (127)
Upon reading this line in the lit crit we read last week, I couldn't help but think of The Diamond as Big as the Ritz. One of the topics that we didn't discuss as much were the slaves that obeyed without any second thoughts.
"He read them a proclamation that he had composed, which announced that General Forrest had reorganized the shattered Southern armies and defeated the North in one pitched battle. The negroes believed him implicitly. They passed a vote declaring it a good thing and held revival serviced immediately" (DBR 87).
I found it shocking how they just "believed him implicitly" without even trying to fight for their rights. Then for generations they got farther and farther from freedom and civilization by developing their own language. At that point they literally did not understand the oppression and racism that they were subjected to. Even while the mountain was under attack, they stayed loyal to Washington and basically fought against what could have brought them freedom. They could not fight because they didn't even understand what was wrong with their situation. In A Raison in the Sun, Hansberry addresses the "neglect and economic exploitation of ghettoized communities" (127), this is another example of how understanding an issue is so important. If victims of the economic exploitation don't understand economics or how their situation is being treated differently from a white person's, then of course they won't fight against it; they simply can't. Of course there are instances where some of them do understand, but fail to act upon it. This actually reminded me a little of a piece we read in the beginning of the year, bell hooks' Rethinking the Nature of Work. In there she suggests a "feminist economic program... that speaks to the needs of women...to address some of the most deep-seated injustices of a business and male dominated society" (102). This could also work as a possible solution for the economic exploitation that ghettoized communities face, but I can't help but think of how helping one group affects the other. bell hooks talks about how the early feminist movement excluded minority women, and actually took away jobs from minorities in the process of gaining their rights. So all of these solutions that sound so simple really aren't. There are so many complications in such a simple idea like equality. But the first step out of the thousands that we must take towards pure equality is to understand.
Interesting but sad side note: In the section of the lit crit that I read it said that children used to sing this song but with the lyrics "Oh, I wish I was an Alabama trooper...then I could kill n****** legally." Racism is horrifying.
I really like how you provide textual evidence and connected it to the last paragraph and they very last line. It's as if the African-Americans in DBAR have already been manipulated for so long that they don't oppress to what the whites have to say to them and it's horrifying to see them treated that way. It's sad to see how although a group of people are gaining more freedom, such as women, they still discriminate within their group. They have fought long and hard to be treated as an equal yet they stripped away freedom from African-American women on their path.
ReplyDeleteBut what if people have different understandings of "pure equality"?
ReplyDeleteI really like your posts and how the title relates back to your central theme. Just noticed.
I really liked how you used a variety of the reading that we have had to do and connected it all to one point.
ReplyDeleteI think it is great how you referenced multiple texts we have read and discussed in class! Also, I agree with your idea that in order to fight discrimination one must first understand their situation.
ReplyDeleteLike many people said above, I love your connection of multiple texts. The exploitation of the slaves in DBR reminds me of Thoreau's 'On the Duty of Civil Disobedience' and how he discusses the inefficiency of the voting system due to the rich and powerful deceiving the poor. The lower classes simply don't receive enough information, which makes them all the more vulnerable to propaganda.
ReplyDeleteThis is an awesome post. I especially love how you included that video at the end, and I find that song that children used to sing with the N word very jarring. It was also very impressive how you compared several texts in your blog.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, I liked how you used texts we have read in the past to incorporate them into this post. I also like that you included a video to further convey your thoughts and opinions.
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