'Hanging Fire' By Audre Lorde

She believes that being granted the blue eyes that she wishes for would change both how others see her and what she is forced to see. The reasoning behind this approach lies beyond the 20th century, in the 19th century in fact, when slavery peeked and the African-American women were forced to be beautiful in order to gain what seemed like their freedom. Victoria Chihos demonstrates this concept in her article, The Role of Woman in Slave Communities, by writing: “Many viewed black female’s lack of modesty as a sign of their impaired moral nature and increased sex drive. The view of the African female as a manipulating temptress thus emerged and it was believed that she used it to her advantage to achieve favours and obtain prestige” (Chihos, “The Role of Women in Slave Communities”). In this excerpt, the sexuality of women is described to be advantageous in many instances.

The passage that I am looking at has to deal with the fears that the author discusses she has- “fear of hunger, Hell, the Devil, and fear of dying because she is black” (pg. 220). Anne Moody’s use of word choice and punctuation show that she is more concerned of some fears than others, however, Moody allows the reader to see that power can not control all

Helga’s rage is rationalized by her conflicted identity, and as another literary critic puts it, "Through her love of color, Helga attempts to create a spectrum rather than an opposition, a palette that will unify her life rather than leave it divided" (Hostetler 35). She attempts to cement her identity by sympathizing with her African American side through activism, but she fails as she realizes she does not belong to either side; not white because she is empowering blacks and not black because she is supporting a system of white superiority. Thus, she remains divided, and she cannot help but feel repelled and

This discovery on the nature of truth is not only mirroring the one in Life of Pi but is an important one to get a better understanding of everything around. “I’m sorry there is so much pain in this story. I’m sorry it’s fragments, like a body caught in crossfire or pulled apart but force” the way Atwood is writing this novel is an extended metaphor of Offred’s emotional state and it reflects how little power she has in this society that she gets fragments of information that of that which only reveals she is aware of her limited view of her world caused by the oppression against women under totalitarian regime making the truth clearer. She constantly restates the flaws which create a juxtaposition in her words. “This isn 't a story I 'm telling," , "It 's also a story I 'm telling, in my head, as I go along”.

“But because of affirmative action or minority something—she is not sure what they are calling it these days and weren’t they supposed to get rid of it?,” writes Claudia Rankine in her critically acclaimed American book, Citizen. Within this quote, Rankine begins to showcase the narrative of a black women in a society that strives to be color blind. Affirmative action has caused controversy as it threatens white supremacy since it favors diversity. The bitter attitude towards affirmative action expressed by whites, causes people of color to feel apologetic for their achievements and opportunities. Claudia Rankine reveals how white supremacist attitudes trigger people of color to live their life in an apologetic nature through the short stories of the cafeteria, the neighbor calling the police, and the Serena William’s celebratory dance.

The article “Let Rachel Dolezal Be as Black as She Wants to Be” by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar purposely targeting the audiences of those criticize Rachel Dolezal as a liar and untruthful of being a black woman. The point that the author trying to persuade is to change the way we perceived Dolezal as a person. Perhaps, consider what she has done and will be doing to assist the black community in the future. Jabbar supports how Dolezal is the “chairwoman of a police oversight committee monitoring fairness in police activities”, meanwhile, black people will have a better chance off mistreatment toward their race. In additionally, we cannot blame her for the influences she came to adapt through her African-American siblings.

“Her poetry is a record of a Negro’s survival in our white culture” says Lynn Matson. It is also important to remember to her detractors that Phillis Wheatley, even though raised in far better conditions than her fellows, still was a black slave in a time where she could have known great prejudices or death if she spoke up. It is unfair from the author to say that “It will be impossible to make her Black.” Because even though Wheatley had the chance to know education over harsh treatment, she had been, like her brothers and sisters, brought in extremely terrible conditions to America. By saying this, the author is denigrating Wheatley’s suffering, that probably

While these writers create Afro-Latino characters that are aware of their Latin American, or African roots, they are also pressured to assimilate into the norms established by society. One must bear in mind that the negrista literature stereotyped the black female body and presented the black human being as a object of the white man’s imagination. For this purpose, The poems “Oh Lord, I Want to be White" by Carmen Colón Pellot and "Cry of the Kinky Haired Girl" by Julia de Burgos (Willis, 2003) challenged societal norms as women in the white male Hispanic society era. In addition, individual versus societal level is compared and contrasted by how the way racial pride is depicted in the

The author F.B Newman once said, “be careful what you say. You can always say you 're sorry, but you can never take back what you said.” A post in Psychology Today by Satoshi Kanazawa called “A Look at the Hard Truths About Human Nature" argues that African American women are less attractive than other women. He uses Body Mass Index (BMI), intelligence, and testosterone levels in men and women in order to make his argument. Not a stranger to controversial works, Kanazawa’s post about African American women also faced heavy backlash and questions about the violation of bias in research. He seems to not be bothered by it, as he writes,” If the truth offends people, it is our job as scientists to offend them” and “I do science as if the truth mattered and your feelings about it didn 't.” Kanazawa is treading on a slippery slope, because of the sensitive nature of his topic.

Throughout the novel, it demonstrates that white societies have a better living, and higher beauty standard in which the media illustrates through television and books. This causes many conflicts towards African Americans because they are unable to find the true meaning of beauty. The author Toni Morrison, stresses plot, setting, characterization, or theme when writing a work of fiction like The Bluest Eye. In the novel The Bluest Eye, defining beauty affects many characters’ and supports the theme seen throughout the novel because it reflects their self-esteem due to the media’s perception of beauty, expresses racial issues through the setting in the time of 1940’s, and stresses plot as an important part in the novel to express the struggles and hardship seen in the conflict and situation throughout the