Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
-
March 10, 2019 at 1:24 pm #4770Isabel LavrovParticipant
Link to lyric video:
Once an Addict (Interlude) – YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP3dXsMO8a8
J. Cole’s song “Once an Addict” has powerful lyrics regarding parents’ substance addiction and the strain it places on young adults starting their lives away from home. College for those with white privilege is generally a space of growth, learning, and moving forward in life away from home. However, lyrically representing many low socioeconomic-status black homes, J. Cole discusses how the college space can seem like a scapegoat for those children who grew up in struggling homes. These young adults with aspirations of making a better life for themselves are held back by the guilt of abandoning their families, or are held back simply because they cannot afford to occupy a university’s space. Instead, they can only afford to stay home and take care of their families, thus never able to occupy a new space. In the repeated lines “Something’s got a hold on me, I can’t let it go, Out of fear I won’t be free”, the “something” is the guilt of abandoning one’s parent in that parent’s time of need and how this guilt will not allow him to be “free” from home and is therefore unable to be physically and/or emotionally present in college.
Attachments:
You must be logged in to view attached files. -
March 3, 2019 at 1:16 pm #4565Isabel LavrovParticipant
I chose this disgusting image because it relates to many white people’s obsession with where people of color are “really” from. Non-supporters of Obama have been obsessed with the idea that he his a “Muslim illegal immigrant from Africa” who, therefore, should not be President because he is not from America. Obama was the first president to ever be accused so much of not being an American citizen, of course, because he was also the first ever non-white president. Despite the dozens of “white” countries in the world, people who insist Obama is an immigrant are basing their claim solely on the color of his skin. If a white person running for President was from the UK, for example, their ethnic background would be used against them as much, if at all, as much as Obama’s was, despite his being born in Hawaii.
Artist: Unknown. Published 2009.
http://piratenews-tv.blogspot.com/2009/03/judges-say-obama-can-be-illegal-alien.html
Attachments:
You must be logged in to view attached files. -
February 24, 2019 at 11:05 am #4301Isabel LavrovParticipant
https://www.yellowstone.org/who-we-are/staff/
This photo is a screenshot of the Yellowstone National Park website’s staff page, where Yellowstone’s 75 “office” staff members (higher-paid and non-ranger staff) are listed with pictures. Of the 75 people, there was just one person of color (I am judging their whiteness based on how I see their photos, so I may be wrong in a few of my judgments). The woman in this picture is the President and CEO of Yellowstone, Heather White, and it says that she sees the $20,000,000 annual salary budget for the 75 staff members. This means that there is room in the budget for each person to make over $266,000 per year. According to criminaljusticedegreeschools.com, Yellowstone park rangers may an average of roughly $57,000 per year, and because there are 74 of the 75 office positions are white, even of there are minorities working for Yellowstone, they are making significantly less annually than the white office workers. This relates to our themes discussed in class this week because the national parks in the US do not hire and help the Native American people whose land was stolen to create these national parks.
Attachments:
You must be logged in to view attached files. -
February 17, 2019 at 3:54 pm #4147Isabel LavrovParticipant
Photograph: Gerald Herbert, 2011.
https://eji.org/history-racial-injustice-prison-labor
This is a picture of prisoners returning from working in fields at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. This image demonstrates the themes about prison labor and exploitation that we’ve been discussing in class this week. Prisoners are exploited for their labor, a form of modern slavery because they have no real choice weather or not to work. When in prison, you do what the guards say or suffer extreme, inhumane consequences. Also, all of these prisoners are black which represents the systematic racialization of imprisonment. The white prison guard is not even walking, riding the horse to make literal his white privilege and power; the black men look tired and hot under the Louisiana sun.
Attachments:
You must be logged in to view attached files. -
February 10, 2019 at 2:16 pm #3894Isabel LavrovParticipant
Photo produced by WMAZ-tv. Daily Mail article published April 28, 2014.
This is a photo a biracial couple attending the first ever racially-integrated prom held at Wilcox County High School in Georgia, in 2014. While most high school proms are held by the school itself, this Georgia high school did not; its proms were held by parents who proffered to hold separate “white” and “black” proms. Not until the segregated proms became viral and heavily criticized did the school decide to host its own, integrated, prom. This relates to the power that parents have in their children’s educational and social lives. The parents who were hosting the segregated proms were trying to stop their children from socializing with students of a different race, and it was the students who ultimately protested the segregated proms, making it viral and leading to the school’s first all-accepting prom.
Attachments:
You must be logged in to view attached files. -
February 3, 2019 at 8:39 pm #3765Isabel LavrovParticipant
‘Lone Icelandic Church’; Brandon Falls, September 9, 2015.
http://brandonfalls.com/historic-churches-of-iceland-pictures
I chose this image because in many ways it symbolizes James Baldwin’s journey with the Christian Church. Baldwin was looking for refuge from the Harlem’s reinforcement of the country’s white supremacy, institutionalizing black families into low socioeconomic positions. This lone church is (symbolically) Baldwin’s refuge. However, Baldwin ended up leaving the Christian Church because he realized that even in the Black Church there is white superiority; this Church, painted white, symbolizes the whiteness that is preached and embraced by most Christian churches in the United States.
Attachments:
You must be logged in to view attached files. -
January 24, 2019 at 8:11 pm #3340Isabel LavrovParticipant
Photographer: Freidman-Abeles, 1959.
This is a photograph of Broadway’s production of Lorraine Hansberry’s play “A Raisin in the Sun” in 1959. In short, “A Raisin in the Sun” is a play about the struggles of a black family, the Youngers, living in a small apartment in South Side Chicago. Mama Younger (second from the left) decides to use her late husband’s life insurance check on a down payment on a new house for her and her family. The catch—the house is in an all-white neighborhood. The white man in this photo is a member of the Clybourne Park Improvement Association and is visiting the Younger’s current home with an offer to buy their new house in Clybourne Park. This scene relates to our class this week because we have been discussing the tactics used by whites to keep their neighborhoods white, in this case bribing the new black family out of their neighborhood. In the play, Mama Younger ends up rejecting the white man’s offer, however whether or not the Youngers are able to peacefully live in their new home is left unknown in the end of the play. I think it is most likely that the Youngers would have ended up being violently driven out by Clybourne’s white residents, but Lorraine Hansberry leaves this up to the audience’s discretion, leaving an optimistic hope for the Youngers’ future.
Attachments:
You must be logged in to view attached files. -
January 20, 2019 at 2:56 pm #3235Isabel LavrovParticipant
Artist: Lalo Alcaraz. Published August 7, 2012, “Andrews McMeel Syndicate”; http://www.pocho.com/it-was-a-green-skinned-big-eyed-flying-martian-robot-peeper-toon/
I picked this image because it is a comedic metaphor the topic of the white Manifest Destiny, “New World” mindset white Americans have had since European settlers sought to explore the “pure and untouched” Americas. The Mars rover represents the whites who believe that, because they have not been to a space, they have all rights to explore that land and space. The alien is asking the Mars rover to show it it’s papers (meaning the rover’s proof to a right to be on the Alien’s land) which is unfortunately ironic because Americans assume that Mars is unexplored and thus we have the right to inhabit it. In the context of this week’s class and race and space, the rover could represent white gentrification in black neighborhoods, and the alien represents black neighborhoods that are being gentrified. Like the Mars rover, white people assume they can decide out what land they find desirable and claim it as their own.
Attachments:
You must be logged in to view attached files.
-
-
AuthorPosts