The American Race Issue: Literacy as a Means to Freedom

The American Race Issue: Literacy as a Means to Freedom PDF Author: Anders Alkærsig
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3656338787
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 14

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject American Studies - Literature, University of Copenhagen (American Studies), language: English, abstract: The subject of ‘race throughout American history’ has evolved around has evolved around and run up against innumerable variables. One could choose, for example, to investigate the race issue’s relationship to labor market developments or any other equally important topic. However, due to the nature of the course, American History and Literature, of which this paper marks the ending, it is a natural consequence that this paper seeks to enquire into the race issue from a literary perspective. Again, hundreds of possible approaches present themselves to describe how the race issue has permeated literary history from the adoption of The Declaration of Independence in 1776 until now. This paper will approach literature’s role in the race issue from two primary perspectives, namely that of Frederick Douglass’ slave narrative in his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, and from that of Herman Melville’s novella Benito Cereno. Rather than an actual textual analysis of the two authors’ works, this paper will use them as tools to provide a glimpse of the nature of the race issue and to show how, in Frederick Douglass’ case for instance, literacy does not equal freedom. The paper will attempt to investigate two separate perspectives of the race issue, namely, to present the living conditions of slaves as well as of liberated slaves in the 19th century through the works of, primarily, Frederick Douglass, but also Harriet Jacobs and to explore the racist mind of the white man through Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno.

The American Race Issue: Literacy as a Means to Freedom

The American Race Issue: Literacy as a Means to Freedom PDF Author: Anders Alkærsig
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3656338787
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 14

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject American Studies - Literature, University of Copenhagen (American Studies), language: English, abstract: The subject of ‘race throughout American history’ has evolved around has evolved around and run up against innumerable variables. One could choose, for example, to investigate the race issue’s relationship to labor market developments or any other equally important topic. However, due to the nature of the course, American History and Literature, of which this paper marks the ending, it is a natural consequence that this paper seeks to enquire into the race issue from a literary perspective. Again, hundreds of possible approaches present themselves to describe how the race issue has permeated literary history from the adoption of The Declaration of Independence in 1776 until now. This paper will approach literature’s role in the race issue from two primary perspectives, namely that of Frederick Douglass’ slave narrative in his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, and from that of Herman Melville’s novella Benito Cereno. Rather than an actual textual analysis of the two authors’ works, this paper will use them as tools to provide a glimpse of the nature of the race issue and to show how, in Frederick Douglass’ case for instance, literacy does not equal freedom. The paper will attempt to investigate two separate perspectives of the race issue, namely, to present the living conditions of slaves as well as of liberated slaves in the 19th century through the works of, primarily, Frederick Douglass, but also Harriet Jacobs and to explore the racist mind of the white man through Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Letter from a Birmingham Jail PDF Author: Dr Martin Luther King
Publisher: HarperOne
ISBN: 9780063425811
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


White Freedom

White Freedom PDF Author: Tyler Stovall
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069120537X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
The racist legacy behind the Western idea of freedom The era of the Enlightenment, which gave rise to our modern conceptions of freedom and democracy, was also the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. America, a nation founded on the principle of liberty, is also a nation built on African slavery, Native American genocide, and systematic racial discrimination. White Freedom traces the complex relationship between freedom and race from the eighteenth century to today, revealing how being free has meant being white. Tyler Stovall explores the intertwined histories of racism and freedom in France and the United States, the two leading nations that have claimed liberty as the heart of their national identities. He explores how French and American thinkers defined freedom in racial terms and conceived of liberty as an aspect and privilege of whiteness. He discusses how the Statue of Liberty—a gift from France to the United States and perhaps the most famous symbol of freedom on Earth—promised both freedom and whiteness to European immigrants. Taking readers from the Age of Revolution to today, Stovall challenges the notion that racism is somehow a paradox or contradiction within the democratic tradition, demonstrating how white identity is intrinsic to Western ideas about liberty. Throughout the history of modern Western liberal democracy, freedom has long been white freedom. A major work of scholarship that is certain to draw a wide readership and transform contemporary debates, White Freedom provides vital new perspectives on the inherent racism behind our most cherished beliefs about freedom, liberty, and human rights.

Between the World and Me

Between the World and Me PDF Author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Publisher: One World
ISBN: 0679645985
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone) NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

Shades of Freedom

Shades of Freedom PDF Author: A. Leon Higginbotham Jr.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190284099
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Few individuals have had as great an impact on the law--both its practice and its history--as A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. A winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, he has distinguished himself over the decades both as a professor at Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard, and as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals. But Judge Higginbotham is perhaps best known as an authority on racism in America: not the least important achievement of his long career has been In the Matter of Color, the first volume in a monumental history of race and the American legal process. Published in 1978, this brilliant book has been hailed as the definitive account of racism, slavery, and the law in colonial America. Now, after twenty years, comes the long-awaited sequel. In Shades of Freedom, Higginbotham provides a magisterial account of the interaction between the law and racial oppression in America from colonial times to the present, demonstrating how the one agent that should have guaranteed equal treatment before the law--the judicial system--instead played a dominant role in enforcing the inferior position of blacks. The issue of racial inferiority is central to this volume, as Higginbotham documents how early white perceptions of black inferiority slowly became codified into law. Perhaps the most powerful and insightful writing centers on a pair of famous Supreme Court cases, which Higginbotham uses to portray race relations at two vital moments in our history. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 declared that a slave who had escaped to free territory must be returned to his slave owner. Chief Justice Roger Taney, in his notorious opinion for the majority, stated that blacks were "so inferior that they had no right which the white man was bound to respect." For Higginbotham, Taney's decision reflects the extreme state that race relations had reached just before the Civil War. And after the War and Reconstruction, Higginbotham reveals, the Courts showed a pervasive reluctance (if not hostility) toward the goal of full and equal justice for African Americans, and this was particularly true of the Supreme Court. And in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which Higginbotham terms "one of the most catastrophic racial decisions ever rendered," the Court held that full equality--in schooling or housing, for instance--was unnecessary as long as there were "separate but equal" facilities. Higginbotham also documents the eloquent voices that opposed the openly racist workings of the judicial system, from Reconstruction Congressman John R. Lynch to Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan to W. E. B. Du Bois, and he shows that, ironically, it was the conservative Supreme Court of the 1930s that began the attack on school segregation, and overturned the convictions of African Americans in the famous Scottsboro case. But today racial bias still dominates the nation, Higginbotham concludes, as he shows how in six recent court cases the public perception of black inferiority continues to persist. In Shades of Freedom, a noted scholar and celebrated jurist offers a work of magnificent scope, insight, and passion. Ranging from the earliest colonial times to the present, it is a superb work of history--and a mirror to the American soul.

Linguistic Justice

Linguistic Justice PDF Author: April Baker-Bell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351376705
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 129

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Book Description
Bringing together theory, research, and practice to dismantle Anti-Black Linguistic Racism and white linguistic supremacy, this book provides ethnographic snapshots of how Black students navigate and negotiate their linguistic and racial identities across multiple contexts. By highlighting the counterstories of Black students, Baker-Bell demonstrates how traditional approaches to language education do not account for the emotional harm, internalized linguistic racism, or consequences these approaches have on Black students' sense of self and identity. This book presents Anti-Black Linguistic Racism as a framework that explicitly names and richly captures the linguistic violence, persecution, dehumanization, and marginalization Black Language-speakers endure when using their language in schools and in everyday life. To move toward Black linguistic liberation, Baker-Bell introduces a new way forward through Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy, a pedagogical approach that intentionally and unapologetically centers the linguistic, cultural, racial, intellectual, and self-confidence needs of Black students. This volume captures what Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy looks like in classrooms while simultaneously illustrating how theory, research, and practice can operate in tandem in pursuit of linguistic and racial justice. A crucial resource for educators, researchers, professors, and graduate students in language and literacy education, writing studies, sociology of education, sociolinguistics, and critical pedagogy, this book features a range of multimodal examples and practices through instructional maps, charts, artwork, and stories that reflect the urgent need for antiracist language pedagogies in our current social and political climate.

Through Afro-America

Through Afro-America PDF Author: William Archer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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On Freedom

On Freedom PDF Author: Cass R. Sunstein
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691191158
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 135

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Book Description
From New York Times bestselling author Cass Sunstein, a brisk, provocative book that shows what freedom really means—and requires—today In this pathbreaking book, New York Times bestselling author Cass Sunstein asks us to rethink freedom. He shows that freedom of choice isn’t nearly enough. To be free, we must also be able to navigate life. People often need something like a GPS device to help them get where they want to go—whether the issue involves health, money, jobs, children, or relationships. In both rich and poor countries, citizens often have no idea how to get to their desired destination. That is why they are unfree. People also face serious problems of self-control, as many of them make decisions today that can make their lives worse tomorrow. And in some cases, we would be just as happy with other choices, whether a different partner, career, or place to live—which raises the difficult question of which outcome best promotes our well-being. Accessible and lively, and drawing on perspectives from the humanities, religion, and the arts, as well as social science and the law, On Freedom explores a crucial dimension of the human condition that philosophers and economists have long missed—and shows what it would take to make freedom real.

Self-Taught

Self-Taught PDF Author: Heather Andrea Williams
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1442995408
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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If I Ran the Zoo

If I Ran the Zoo PDF Author: Dr. Seuss
Publisher: RH Childrens Books
ISBN: 0385379382
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 33

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Book Description
Animals abound in Dr. Seuss’s Caldecott Honor–winning picture book If I Ran the Zoo. Gerald McGrew imagines the myriad of animals he’d have in his very own zoo, and the adventures he’ll have to go on in order to gather them all. Featuring everything from a lion with ten feet to a Fizza-ma-Wizza-ma-Dill, this is a classic Seussian crowd-pleaser. In fact, one of Gerald’s creatures has even become a part of the language: the Nerd!