The Struggle For Equality In America

2008-02-12T19:10:00.000-05:00

Question #1

Nick thinks that Gatsby's dream cannot be achieved. The death of Myrtle will anger Tom much more than before, so he wouldn't let Daisy go to Gatsby. Although Daisy killed Myrtle, Gatsby said he want to put all the fault on him. Thus, Tom would think Gatsby as an enemy and never do whatever Gatsby will like. Gatsby has no choice but getting all blame to protect Daisy from Tom.

Quotation #5

This quote shows that Gatsby is desperate to have Daisy. He thinks all the pasts can be repeated again. Nick tells Gastby to give up since Daisy is married and can’t be divorced. But, Gatsby see nothing but getting Daisy. Since Gatsby loves Daisy so much that noting is the matter for him. We can say that he almost spent half of his life for Daisy. It was not direct but indirectly. He built his huge mansion to show to Daisy. All of his parties were for Daisy to come and enjoy. Gatsby stayed close to Nick because he was the second cousin of her.

2007-03-21T20:45:00.000-05:00

CRIMES/GANGS

2007-03-21T20:20:00.000-05:00

I am partnering up with Elliott for the crimes and gangs subj anyone is welcome to join

Answer to #6

2007-03-21T17:11:00.000-05:00

In the nevel, all the characters face obstacles. But I want to focus the quagmire that Macon Dead Jr.'s family faced. As Sitkoff mentions in the book that wealthy black people couldn't mingle with the whites due to their color of skin and also their self-esteem prevented them from interacting with the black lower community.
Macon's family enjoyed their advatage of wealth; they owned their own house, had a car, and even the job of Ruth's father and Macon's position being landlord intimidated the fellow black communiy. But the problem was that even though they had higher living standard than most of black people, their skin color was black so didn't really have advantage. Although Ruth's father was a well known doctor, Ruth could only, out of her 3 labors, deliver Milkman in the very own hostipal that her father worked in. Milkman, with guitar, was stopped and was caught while running away with green sack they stole from Pilate just because their skin color was black. Only when Macon payed money, Milkman was released. Also by the clothes and the way they acted, we can know that they tried to look like white but it was impossible to overcome their skin color.
When Magdalane called Lena wanted to have relationship with Henry Porter, Macon's self-esteem of being higher class than Porter prevented him from letting Lena have the relationship. Also in early stage Milkman couldn't mingle with the lower black community, until Guitar helped him out.
Even though only few whites appear in this novel whole concept of segregation is rooted in the background of the novel.

Answer to Question 1

2007-03-21T14:47:00.000-05:00

Whites do not play a very direct role in Song of Solomon. I would say that the point of white influence is not shown through characters or specific encounters. White influence is throughout the book in the way that the black community acts. For instance, it is white influence that drives Guitar to kill white people. There are not specific white people that are characters in the novel that kill blacks. The narrator simply tells the reader that it has been done. Another example of white influence is Macon Dead's obsession for power and money. As Macon acquires more wealth he seperates himself from his black neighbors. It seems to me that he is trying to be more and more like the stereotypical white man.

Answer to Question 3

2007-03-21T13:47:00.000-05:00

I don’t think we can make any generalization about the role of females in the novel because we had two contrasting females, Ruth and Pilate. While Ruth is a weak young woman (not to mention that some of her actions are a little difficult to understand), Pilate represents a different side of the African American females. She is a strong single woman and her strength is shown in the beginning of the novel when she attacks Reba’s boyfriend. Her strength is also shown throughout her life such as raising Reba by herself, overcoming her physical differences, and so forth. I also think that it is a little hard to make generalization about the males in the novel because we also had contrasting male characters as well: Milkman, Macon Dead and Guitar. On one hand, we had Guitar who felt the need to take revenge for any injustice that happened to African Americans. Then, on the other end of the spectrum, we had Macon Dead that was acting like a Caucasian and being unfair to his own people. Somewhere in the middle was Milkman who didn’t feel the need to act and didn’t realize his own identity till the very end. I feel like Sitkoff concentrated more on the roles of African American males than the females and it is certainly because the activist was generally males. However, we did have characters like Rosa Parks that stood up for the African American rights and in some ways, I feel like Rosa Parks shares some similarities with Pilate. Overall, I think the novel showed different sides of both the female and male African Americans which make it hard to make any generalization. I also feel like Sitkoff concentrated a little more on the role of males and the females were more shown as the supporting characters.

Suffering in Song of Solomon

2007-03-21T13:20:00.000-05:00

Although the characters in Song of Solomon don’t seem to suffer directly from others’ racist actions, the entire black community suffers as a result of the white’s ignorance. Since the black characters are not given the same rights or opportunities as the whites, they are forced to live lives of poverty in separated, predominantly black sections of town. Some of the black community in the novel is defeated as a result of their continual suffering and act as though they are not able to change their rights, while characters, like Guitar and his fellow Seven Days members, are mobilized as a result of their suffering. They feel as though the suffering and lack of rights have gone on long enough, and if they are not able to change rights then at least they are able to counteract and balance the suffering.

How would you characterize the role of whites in the novel?

2007-03-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

The main cause of suffering in the novel is racism. Racism segregates not only the blacks from the whites, but also individual blacks from their society. The novel, by only introducing one white character throughout the story represents how extremely blacks are alienated from whites. The book even shows the alienating effect segregation has in the black community itself. Guitar is an example of an individual who alienates himself from his own society. He adopts radical views resulting from his hatred for whites and the actions they take. Guitar seems to follow a similar path to Malcom X, who takes a radical position against all whites as a whole, disregarding whether they are innocent or guilty of racism. Although Guitar has no previous experience of direct racism against him as Malcom X did, he still represents Malcom X in the story, a radical direct-actionist. They both believe that to win the struggle, direct measures must be taken against all whites, and blacks must join together against white America.

2007-03-21T08:50:00.000-05:00

Sitkoff suggests that both white and black Northerners were more willing to accept African Americans with "white" mannerisms in speech, attire, and behavior. White and black Southerners generally shared the dislike for African Americans who possessed this "white" behavior. The white Southerners preferred the black man who obediently surrendered his bus seat and did not question white supremacy. Black southerners also disapproved, and felt that the blacks with "white" mannerisms lacked pride.
In "Song of Solomon", Milkman's travels from his hometown in Michigan, the "industrialized North", to the place of his family roots, Pennsylvania and Virginia. While he is treated with respect by the natives of his hometown, Milkman finds that the inhabitants of the rural South are less courteous. Milkman's demeanor is unique from other black characters in the novel, and perhaps this is the reason for the variations of approval in his travels. Milkman serves as a substitute for the novel's absence of white characters. Although he is physically a black man, Milkman dresses, talks, and behaves like a white man. His fellow black Michigan town members treat him with respect, as a white man would have been treated. His white mannerisms are approved of by the Northerners. As Milkman travels south, he begins to experience a change in the way he is treated. The black townspeople in the South do not respect Milkman's fancy clothes and speech; instead, they take offense to his "white" mannerisms.

Answer to Question #7

2007-03-21T07:40:00.000-05:00

Throughout the entire Sitkoff novel there are many events in which blacks struggle to fight for equality and are continually shut down by white Americans. For example, when they (African Americans) were allowed to go to the same school for the first time with whites, many whites were not willing to accept this and freely expressed it through horrific actions. They threw rocks of all sorts and verbally attacked them by name calling. I think that here instead of discouraging them to give up and accept that they would never be treated equal, they continued in their struggle to fight for their rights.

Answer to question 1

2007-03-21T07:38:00.000-05:00

In the novel we meet the white priest who encounters Ruth through a friend at church. Immediatley he reacts descriminant towards her until the white woman introduces Ruth as a close friend of hers. After she is introduced the priest has a complete change in attitude towards the black woman, and accepts her because he is told to do so. In the novel we dont many whites because the book is based on the struggle between blacks with blacks, whereas we usaually read about the troubles between white and black.

responding to dr. noff-
Monday night we had a debate about whether Malcolm X or MLK was right. It was interesting to be in the Malcolm X group, because we had Brendan who didnt want to argue him what so ever because he thought he was wrong, and then we had Hannah who is all for peace, but yet was able to come up with valid arguments defending X. Our group as a whole came up with the point that X never advocated vi0lence upon whites, but he gave the activists a purpose in their beliefs.

Answer to Question Seven

2007-03-21T07:18:00.000-05:00

in answer to question seven about the presence of Universality in Song of Solomon compared to King's "Letter From Birmingham Jail" I felt that Song of Solomon is about emancipation on several levels: personal, racial, and universal. Milkman experiences emancipation from the ignorant and destructive way he lives his life, and he observes the coming of age of a generation of African-American activists. Although the story told in the book is specific to the African-American experience the message is one for all humanity: Everyone is looking for freedom, they just take different paths. This message is universal, but the way that Milkman gets freedom, through his roots and racial-history, is specific to African-American emancipation.

Abraham - Morrison Response

2007-03-21T06:55:00.000-05:00

7. In King's "Letter From Birmingham City Jail" King insists that injustice anywhere is the business of all Americans: i.e., the plight of African Americans is in some sense universal. Is there a similar sense of universality in Morrison's novel--in other words, is this novel just about blacks, or about human beings generally?

[The plight of African Americans is unique and unlike any other struggle in history. However, it can be applied as universal, in that it represents a struggle that many groups have had since the beginning of time all across the world. For thousands of years races of people have been oppressed and discriminated against. During the 15th and 16th centuries, the Spanish conquistadors succeeded in eliminating nearly all native residents (the Aztecs and Incas) of Central and South America. In the 19th century, while the United States was beginning to occupy the western half of the nation, the government pushed many Native Americans off of their own land and onto reservations. The Dawes Act in 1887 gave land to individual Native Americans rather than to the tribe as a whole, upending one of their key cultural values. During World War II, Adolf Hitler adopted what he called the "final solution," a plan to narrow down the world into one "master race," which included the extermination of millions of Jews, gypsies, and people who were mentally handicapped. However, the struggle that blacks went through (and still go through) in America is unlike any other struggle of any other people in history. Until the elimination of slavery in 1863, nearly all of the southern economy was based on the enslavement of an "inferior" race. The White Southern slave-owners depended on slaves for their economic prosperity. The conquistadors killed the Aztecs and Incas for the "three G's" (gold, God, and glory) and land for the Spanish empire; the United States put Native Americans on reservations not because they depended on them, but because US citizens wanted their land; Adolf Hitler killed millions of innocent people not because they made the German economy boom, but because he simply believed they did not have a warrant to live. The African American struggle, while it can be applied as universal, goes much deeper than any other struggle.] Aside from all of that, Song of Solomon represents an odyssey of change, something experienced by many people, not just African Americans. Milkman starts his journey looking for gold, but ends up looking for his family history, something much more valuable than his initial desire. He starts his journey as someone with material values much like his fathers and a cold heart. However, by the end of the novel, Milkman changes into a caring human being after reflection and deeper investigation of his roots. Milkman's odyssey not only represents how personal change is possible, but also how there is great variety within every race. Like an innumerable amount of novels, Song of Solomon displays how a cold-hearted soul can change into a kind, compassionate person. But it also shows how every culture and race has its own differences. Not all blacks agreed on every subject during the civil rights movement (as our passionate debate showed on Monday), nor does any race or culture have the exact same values on every subject. The diversity of the African Americans in Song of Solomon shows how stereotypes of cultures can be easily proved wrong. There is a large amount of disagreement between people throughout the novel. Guitar, on one side, advocates killing innocent whites while Pilate, on the other side, is a figure of peace and love who would probably never advocate killing anybody. Macon Jr., a man who only seems to care about wealth, is disliked by much of the community. In any society there is disagreement. Upon examination, disagreement is the tell tale sign of being human. While it can lead to bigger problems, disagreement shows how every society is human. Song of Solomon is not a novel about African Americans, it is a novel with African Americans as its subject and universally applicable themes.

ASSIGNMENT FOR THURSDAY'S SEMINAR AND FINAL PROJECT

2007-03-21T06:40:00.000-05:00

ASSIGNMENT for THURSDAY’S SEMINAR

Sitkoff paints a pretty gloomy picture of the status of African Americans in 1990, 25 years after the major gains of the Civil Rights Movement. While there were surely distinct gains during that period, there were also some ominous signs of stagnation and even of decline. In every region, at every educational level, and in every occupation, African-Americans had a lower median income than did whites; “a third of African-Americans, and half of all black children, [were] living below the poverty level;” (p. 226); over half of African American families were headed by a single female; African-Americans had a higher rate of infant mortality than some third world countries, and almost half the prison population in the U.S. was African-American. (Sitkoff, p. 227). Even a cursory glance at the 2000 census reveals even further decline

Throughout the past week and a half we have been looking at policies and actions that have wrought significant change. Your assignment is to take what you have learned through our study and apply it to one of the problems faced by African-Americans today. Begin by re-reading Sitkoff, pp. 224-228) and look for an issue that seems to you especially pressing. Then do some research to discover the current issue you've identified, and what steps are being taken to address it. Then, working singly or in groups, come up with a plan for change. You may draw on any of the strategies we’ve encountered in our reading; you may work inside or outside government; you may surely invent your own strategies. Your goal is to write a Manifesto for Change. It will contain a statement of the problem; your goalA; a carefully constructed strategy for accomplishing it; and an underlying argument for why you think your strategy will work.

You should come to class on Thursday ready to present your Manifesto (in preliminary form) to our group. The culminating exercise for this Seminar will be a written Manifesto due on Tuesday, 3/27.

2007-03-20T20:24:00.000-05:00

In the novel we meet only one white who is only briefly mentioned. This novel is purely based upon a certain African-American and his travels. I believe that the lack of whites represents the seperate life and/0r nation that Malcolm X suggests. As our Monday class shifted more towards a defence of Malcolm's ideas, the connection between the novel and actual life(as also depcited in Sitkoff) seemed evident. The racist and active views that Guitar depicts, when in fact he would go as far as murder of the white race, of whites symbolizes the more radical side of Malcolm's solition. However, Milkman seems to be confused with the events involving race around him and doesn't take action against whites like Guitar; therefore he represents the lighter views of Malcolm or even in ways King's anti-violence.

Suffering

2007-03-20T20:05:00.000-05:00

Immediately after reading this question I think of Guitar and his organization. For every black man, woman, or child killed, man of the black citizens suffer great loses of people near and dear to them. This suffering motivates Guitar and company to take action and energize an equal and opposite act of revenge. Guitar believes so much in this organization that he supports Milkman's journey to find the missing gold and to contribute some to his funds for purchasing a bomb. Whether everyone agrees with Guitars tactics is one thing, but the fact that he is out there fighting against the suffering the black people are feeling is what's important.

2007-03-20T19:44:00.000-05:00

Hello All,

After having been away a few days, I checked the blog this afternoon, hoping to learn something more specific about what transpired in class yesterday--but I found very little to help me. Could some (all?) of you please write some impressions about class on Monday evening? What were topics of discussion? What were your "takes" on these topics? What's up for Wednesday? How is the process going? Please shed some light on these issues for me!

Thanks.

Dr. No

Emancipation of the Psyche

2007-03-20T19:30:00.000-05:00

I think the idea of the "emancipation of the black psyche" is brilliant, and i immediatly associated it with Milkman in Song of Solomon. MLK effectively emancipated the black psyche by showing the community that it could be done, that things could happen. Milkman for the first time in his life becomes emancipated when he travels South and when everything that he has brought with him becomes useless: money, suitcase, clothes, etc.. Because of this, he learns (in the woods, specifically) who he really is and what he wants. He emerges from the swamp of self-pity he had been living in and actually becomes someone. It seems that he has woken up from a thirty some odd year slumber. He separates himself from his father's greediness and realizes what he did to Hagar, who loved him selflessly. He changes and becomes emancipated because, like the black community behind MLK, he finally has something to do, something to fight for. He wants to find his background. Without the restraints of his home and family, he becomes independent and finds his self. With the leadership of Dr. King, the black community realizes that they can finally and actively face the monster that is segregation, and because they have something to go after, become emancipated. This emancipation comes about by someone leading the way; many people pointed Milkman South, and many people including MLK led the black people. However as soon as the way is shown, the people go on their own. They have become emancipated, the biggest step, and now have all the strength, knowledge, and capacity to do with it what they will.

Felix Also Enjoys Sitkoff

2007-03-20T17:42:00.000-05:00

Morrison Questions for Wednesday's Seminar

2007-03-20T06:03:00.000-05:00

Here are some questions about Song of Solomon and Sitkoff. Some of these issues we've addressed in our discussions. We'd like you to choose one and write a thoughtful response here on the blog.

1. How many white characters do we meet in the novel? How would you characterize the role of whites in the novel (direct/indirect, positive/negative/neutral, etc.)? How does this role of the whites reflect the issues addressed in Sitkoff?

2. Sitkoff cites MLK's role in emancipating the psyche of blacks (we discussed this idea last week). Is there any reflection of this experience in the novel? Where does it appear? How does it come about?

3. Can we make any generalizations about the male and female characters in the novel? Where/how does Sitkoff's study address gender roles among African Americans?

4. As Sitkoff's book makes clear, rhetoric--the ability to move through words--played a significant role in the Civil Rights Movement. What do you notice about the language (diction) of the novel? Does it affect or in any way reflect the characters' struggles?

5. Sitkoff's study draws attention to the different strategies adopted by civil rights activists, generally divided along the lines of gradualism and radical change. Where in the novel do we see different responses to the plight of blacks and the potential for change?

6. One of the striking things that Sitkoff's book makes clear is the astonishing capacity for suffering among civil rights activists (think of those photos we saw), as well as the general suffering among blacks in America. What kind of suffering do we encounter in the novel? Where does it defeat, where energize or mobilize the characters?

7. In King's "Letter From Birmingham City Jail" King insists that injustice anywhere is the business of all Americans: i.e., the plight of African Americans is in some sense universal. Is there a similar sense of universality in Morrison's novel--in other words, is this novel just about blacks, or about human beings generally?

8. The setting of the novel shifts between the industrialized north and the rural south. How does Milkman's experience differ in those two settings? How did these settings figure in the Civil Rights Movement, as outlined by Sitkoff?

A Challenge

2007-03-18T08:22:00.000-05:00

On September 25, 1957, the "Little Rock Nine" entered Central High under the protection of federal troops. We tend to think of the challenge for these students as ending when they were allowed to enter the building; however, more realistically it is safe to say that there challenge was just beginning. Many of these students faced being harassed in the hallways and bathrooms and countless other forms of discrimination and intimidation. I sometimes wonder how difficult it must have been for students who were sympathetic to these new students and desired to help them out or just welcome them to their new school. This is a challenge that each of you should think about. Would you have risked your own physical well being in an attempt to challenge the prevailing ideas of the authority figures in your community, including your teachers, religious authorities, and even your parents? Here is an example of a student who did just that. On September 19 Jane Emery, co-editor of the Central High School's student newspaper, The Tiger, wrote a letter to her fellow students entitled "Can We Meet the Challenge?"

***

You are being watched! Today the world is watching you, the students of Central High. They want to know what your reactions, behavior impulses will be concerning a matter now before us. After all, as we see it, it settles now to a matter of interpretation of law and order.

Will you be stubborn, obstinate, or refuse to listen to both sides of the question? Will your knowledge of science help you determine your action or will you let customs, superstition, or tradition determine the decision for you?

This is the chance that the youth of America has been waiting for. Through an open mind, broad outlook, wise thinking, and a careful choice you can prove that America's youth has not "gone to the dogs" that their moral, spiritual, and educational standards are not being lowered. This is the opportunity for you as citizens of Arkansas and students of Little Rock Central High to show the world that Arkansas is a progressive thriving state of wide-awake alert people. It is a state that is rapidly growing and improving its social, health, and educational facilities. That it is a
state with friendly, happy, and conscientious citizens who love and cherish their freedom.

It has been said that life is just a chain of problems. If this is true, then this experience in making up your own mind and determining right from wrong will be of great value to you in life.

This challenge is yours, as future adults of America, to prove your maturity, intelligence, and ability to make decisions by how you react, behave, and conduct yourself in this controversial question. What is your answer to this challenge?

***

What issues must your generation address? To what extent are you even informed about issues that potentially could affect you and those around you? What are you willing to do to help address those issues and what are you willing to personally sacrifice to achieve those goals? What do you see when you look at those images of students your own age jeering, spitting and physically harming other students, whether it is at Central High or at a lunch-counter where students are attempting to order a burger? There is no civil rights movement without people your own age willing to act.

Born Racist?

2007-03-16T10:11:00.000-05:00

One of the questions that came up on our first evening has stuck with me, namely whether children are born racist, this explaining the behavior of people such as Bull Connor. I believe that our consensus was that they are not born racist, with which I agree. However, I do not believe that we are born kind, compassionate, or generous, that these are learned values. And aren't these values the backbone of racism? When a protestor is being slammed against a wall with the water from a fire hose, that is not simply racism; it is a lack of compassion for another being. Bull Connor et al. are not simplt racists--they are people without compassion for others. And as such they were born that way and society/family did not teach them otherwise. The reason that this conversation stuck with me is that I felt we reached a consensus that we are born kind towards others, and I do not think that is the case. We have to learn these values.

2007-03-15T16:41:00.000-05:00

Something that I found interesting about both Song of Solomon and Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail was the concept of racial memory. Both mention the idea of the importance of ancestry, something that I do not understand. Perhaps it is because I am not close with my extended family but I think that the concept of racial memory is a part of the African American experience which is distinctly different then the experience of Caucasians. Because racial memory is so important I don't think you can expect African Americans to easily forget the cruelty of centuries ago.

2007-03-15T15:10:00.000-05:00

In the pictures we looked at during the seminar, I couldn't help but notice a recurring lack of response. For the most part, blacks being bitten by dogs, hazed at lunch counters, and humiliated, kept their reactions impassive. In replacement of violence, these void responses seem to have created the foundation of the entire civil rights movement. This absence of reaction is also found in Song of Solomon. When Hagar is attempting to kill Milkman, it was his lack of opposition that kept her frozen. It is interesting how the less complicated actions or lack thereof create the biggest affect. I don't know if this post has to do with anything really, it was just a thought i had.

prejudice: the case of huck finn

2007-03-15T14:05:00.000-05:00

Dr. Noffsinger has posted some interesting thoughts as a follow-up to our discussion last night about the nature of justice. Let me suggest again that I don't think we are going to have much success in looking for the foundations of justice or morality; even if we discovered an answer it is not obvious that it would necessarily help us in analyzing whether any given ruling or action was just or unjust/moral or immoral. Perhaps there is a way out if we consider the situation of Huck Finn.

The scene takes place on the raft as Huck is assisting his friend Jim in gaining his freedom. As the scene progresses Jim praises his friend for his help in achieving this goal. Huck's reaction, of course, is a feeling of failure as if he is doing something wrong. After all, Huck grew up in the antebellum south where he learned how to maneuver and understand a society built on white racial supremacy. Everything from the laws to the institution of slavery to the way people behave around one another was premised on race. From Huck's point of view his friends praise was not a reason to feel pride or the emotional satisfaction involved in helping Jim, but the realization that he was breaking the law. This sounds strange to us but only because we live at a time when our feelings of sympathy and empathy correspond with our beliefs about justice. In short, there is not conflict.

This is not the case for Huck, but we must ask whether there could have been a way out for Huck given that by the end of the novel he gives up any sense of morality and becomes a pragmatist. Perhaps the understanding that our moral frameworks must on occasion be brought into question can help us here. We should be willing to accept that our moral views may on occasion need to be tweaked or revised given that our society continually evolves and new information becomes available in reference to difficult moral problems such as abortion or animal rights and so on. I am not implying a position of subjectivism where morality simply becomes a matter of the individual just that we need to question.

Now how do we do this? One possibility is that our natural abilities to empathize or sympathize offer each of us a way to step back and imagine ourselves in the position of the "other." Huck clearly has this ability, but he is unable to take the next step which would be to use his natural other-regarding feelings for Jim as a check on his more formal ideas of morality and justice.

We need not necessarily have to figure out the foundations of morality and justice in order to ask the more immediate question of how we go about thinking through the way we learn and revise our ideas in these two areas.