The four texts I have chosen are Crips and Bloods: Made in America directed by Stacy Peralta, The Secret Life of Bees written by Sue Monk Kidd, The Help directed by Tate Taylor and Selma directed by Ava DuVernay. These texts all have the theme of segregation of black and white people in America. Segregation in America in the 1960s was a very large issue at this time, yet is still a part of our society today.
A significant connection that unites the two texts Crips and Bloods and The Secret Life of Bees is the theme of segregation of black and white people. In The Life of Bees, Zach dreams of becoming a lawyer despite his skin colour. He believes he can be the best lawyer out there, and so does Lily, Zach’s close friend. Zach’s disadvantages inspire him to work hard for his future. In the same way, Kumasi, a former gang member, explains how police regularly reminded the black children in the gangs how they would have a limited future because of their race. This was the effect of the black children being rejected by white extra-curricular groups such as the Scouts of America. They grew up alienated and angry and began to fight one another instead of the state. This is where The Secret Life of Bees and Crips and Bloods differ. While Zach
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Segregation was an important issue in the 1960s because it separated blacks and whites. Black people were treated like lower class uneducated citizens. In The Help and Selma, both Skeeter Phelan and Martin Luther King believed that African Americans are not any less of a person than white people. Zach from The Secret Life of Bees and the children in gangs from Crips and Bloods: Made in America differ because Zach has the support and education he needs to believe in himself and his future. The children of gangs have support, but it is not in the same caring ways. Their lives revolve around violence and guns, they are not encouraged by their peers to become successful businessmen like Zach
Sue Monk Kidd indirectly characterizes Rosaleen through speech , in The Secret Life of Bees, as brave in order to reveal that she cares about Lily enough to stand up to T Ray and be like a mother figure to Lily. An example of this is when Rosaleen defends Lily and her new baby chick, “ she said and looked him up one side and down the other ‘You ain’t touching that chick.’ ” (Kidd 11).In this scene, T Ray was threatening to kill Lily’s baby chick that she had recently acquired. Since Lily was only 8 years old she could not defend herself against her father, so Rosaleen is brave and steps in and acts as her mother in protecting her, and what she cares about, from her ill-tempered father. The author does this in order to explain to the reader
The book Black Freedom Fighters in Steel by Ruth Needleman and John Singleton’s movie Boyz N The Hood had a lot of themes in common. The two showed stories of racism, discrimination, and success in the African American community. The most prominent theme I found with the two was institutional racism. The way society was forced a lot of African Americans to live in many different ways.
Chapter 1 The five aspects of a quest are: (a) a quester, (b) a place to go, (c) a stated reason to go there, (d) challenges and trials en route, and (e) a real reason to go there. A book that uses the aspects of a quest very nicely is the secret life of bees. (a) The quester in this story is a young girl named lily owens who fights with her father and does not have a mother because lily accidently shot her when she younger.
I believe that it takes more courage to engage in nonviolent direct action, like Bayard Rustin did against Jim Crow laws, rather than being involved in physically fight back against oppression, like Rosaleen at the end of chapter one. I believe this primarily because if the oppressed side chooses to be violent, then it gives the other side a reason to discriminate against them even more and it will cause them to fight back even more. In The Secret Life of Bees, Rosaleen decides spill her snuff jar onto the men because they were using racial slurs and belittling her due to her skin color. Although she was rightfully defending herself, she was attacked by the men, and when the police came, she was the one to be blamed and arrested. Her actions
There were three main conflicts in the segregation days, the 1960’s. I will be getting into those topics. The first one is the Brown vs. Board of education, which was putting all races in one school. Another was that so many people started standing up in their beliefs, which was white people and colored people could be together. The last one was the Civil Rights Act that made it so all nationalities could use the same water fountain, restroom, theater, schools, and white and blacks could sit together on buses.
It is proven that when you are put in a certain environment with expectations that you may not agree with, you follow them anyway. Being in a gang at a young age is something expected or even respected in his community. Steve seems as if he doesn’t really want to known as the community thug or bully. He seems like a normal 16 year old boy that just wants to be himself. Steve is stuck in a community where if he at least doesn’t act like he is tough, he can be killed.
The theme of segregation is of significant importance in the novel the Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the films Selma by Ava DuVernay, The Help by Tate Taylor, and the documentary Crips and Bloods: Made in America by Stacey Peralta. I chose this theme as it plays an important role in all texts and greatly contributes to the main problems and situations in each. Although the Civil Rights Act supposedly ended all state and local laws requiring segregation the year before the film was set in 1964, there are still many cases of it seen in Selma, such as restaurants that solely serve white people or not allowing black people to vote. A lot of white people featured in this film were segregationists; unable to accept the fact that the era of
Segregation formed between 1849 and 1964, splitting whites from black into public and private places. Black Americans did not receive the same privileges or opportunities as White Americans. However, many civil rights activists worked to remove segregation and provide those affected with more options. Martin Luther King Jr. is one of these leaders. Martin Luther King advocated for several tensions, including police violence, in his fight against segregation, which shows that unfair laws should not be upheld.
Journal #7 On page 182, Lily thinks to herself, “If August is the red heart on Mary’s chest, Rosaleen is the fist.” Lily believes August has the heart of Mary because she puts everyone before herself. For example, August tells Lily, “If it (the Caribbean Pink House) can lift Mary’s heart like that, I guess she ought to live inside it” (147). August wanted to choose a different color, but what mattered to her more was her little sister, May. August believes that with all the pain and grief May suffers from she deserves to have things that make her happy.
“A wonderful novel about mothers and daughters and the transcendent power of love” (Connie May Fowler). This quote reflects the novel, The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd because the protagonist in the story, Lily Owens, her mother have died when she was four years old and she didn’t feel loved by her abusive father, T. Ray Owens, until she met the Boatwrights family with the housekeeper, Rosaleen, and stayed with them. The Boatwrights family are the three black sisters who are August, May, and June. This novel took place in Sylvan and Tiburon, South Carolina, where Lily grew up and where she found the answer to her questions.
1) "Just Walk On By: Black Men and Public Space" by Brent Staples and "It's a White Industry" by Chris Rock are two works that can be studied together because they both address issues of race and representation in society. Similarities between the two works include their focus on the experiences of black people in society and the way that race affects those experiences. Both "Just Walk On By" and "It's a White Industry" highlight the ways in which racism and prejudice can create barriers and limit opportunities for black people. Differences between the two works include the tone and format. 2) Chris Rock's thesis in "It's a White Industry" is that Hollywood is a white-dominated industry that excludes and limits opportunities for black people.
The Secret Lives of People The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, is an interesting story that connects human lives to bees. The story takes place in 1964 during the Civil Rights Movement and fourteen year-old Lily Owens leaves her abusive father and her home in Sylvan, South Carolina to go to Tiburon with hopes to find information on her mother. Throughout the story, Lily struggles with many internal conflicts and also meets several mother figures along the way.
The main example in which Kidd used throughout The Secret Life of Bees novel was with the symbolism of Lily by bees. When this book was written its purpose was to represent racism within the US around the civil rights movement. But racism is really just taking two different parties which appear different but are equally smart, can perform the same tasks, and are emotionally equal, Caucasians and African Americans. So the real importance of the way Kidd uses bees as a symbol within the novel is to understand what Kidd is representing at a larger scale, not just within the story itself, racism present within the
Mental Illness affects an immense amount of individuals no matter their race, culture or age. It is everywhere we go, yet still an issue some choose to ignore; whether it is the person facing the illness or those around them. People handle their sickness in a variety of ways. Some by using violence as their only answer, others run away from their issue and majority choose to accept and make the best of it. After reading the novel The Secret Life of Bees, it would be easy to think that the main theme is discrimination or family, but in reality it is actually focused on the toll that mental illness takes on a family.
“Young hoods- who would grow up to be old hoods. I’d never thought about it before, but they’d just get worse as they got older, not better.” The book very well shows that sometimes people, like the Shepard gang or Dallas Winston, just get worse and worse as they grow older, and never change for the better. The fight for self- preservation has hardened them to the point where they have a savage defiance to the world. “I could picture hundreds and hundreds of boys living on the wrong sides of cities, boys with black eyes who jumped at their own shadows.