Ayden Duong Ms. Collins English 1 – Period 5 5/22/2023 Title: Subtitle "O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave" writes John Stafford Smith in the American national anthem "Star Spangled Banner". John Stafford Smith writes about the freedom and greatness of America in this song. He sings about how America is a land for the free and the home of the brave. However, the national anthem is not completely true, as we see through the novel The Underground Railroad. The novel shows the enslavement of black people and the abuse of black people. They are not given a chance to be free and start their own lives. In the novel The Underground Railroad, author Colson Whitehead exposes the American Dream as a delusion, as seen through the marginalization …show more content…
For example, when Cora reflects on the Declaration of Independence, she realizes that it is false: "The white men who wrote it didn't understand it either, if all men did not truly mean all men. Not if they snatched away what belonged to other people, whether it was something you could hold in your hand, like dirt, or something you could not, like freedom" (Whitehead 119). Cora recognizes that the white men who wrote the Declaration of Independence were not thinking about the freedom and rights of black people, they were only seeking to benefit themselves. The fact that the basic rights of black people are not protected and can be taken away at any moment, makes their chance to achieve the American Dream impossible. For example, when Cora and Molly were on the way to the library, they were stopped by a teamster: "'Master said the only thing more dangerous than a n*gger with a gun, was a n*gger with a book. That must be a pile of black powder then!'" (Whitehead 278). The master of the teamster is implying that the only thing more dangerous than an oppressed black person able to fight back, is an educated oppressed black person who can potentially pose a greater threat to their society. The zero tolerance for black education ensures that black people will never be able to learn and work towards their …show more content…
To begin, when Cora is examining the white exhibits, she thinks about how false they are and how they hide the truth: "The whites came to this land for a fresh start and to escape the tyranny of their masters, just as the freeman had fled theirs. But the ideals they held up for themselves, they denied others" (Whitehead 119). Cora describes how the white men wanted to conquer this land to achieve their own freedom and live by their ideals, which are only upheld for them and do not apply to black people. The white people did not believe that they needed to treat black people equally as them, rather, they were just objects that they could use for their own benefit. Furthermore, while Lander speaks about common delusions, he brings up America: "'And America, too, is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes--believes with all its heart--that it is their right to take the land. To kill Indians. Make war. Enslave their brothers. This nation shouldn't exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. Yet here we are'" (Whitehead 291). Lander describes America as the grandest delusion because based on the morality of a common person, once exposed to the oppression and exploitation of black people, they would conclude that America is not fit to be a thriving country. The
These whites thought themselves to be superior to all race, the kings of humanity itself. Beliefs such as these plagued the minds of many white men leading them to justify the theft of lands from innocent for a reason as inexplicable as the color of their skin and the idea of selfish profit. Land
They truly wanted justice in the United States and most of the time, they were shot down. However, with this belief that the white men could soon be gone, they would do basically anything to get that. After the all, the white men were the ones holding the Indians back. In conclusion, this article has taught me that you can believe in something that may not be realistic. The Indians thought it was reasonable, but of course looking at it now from my point of view, I know that it was not.
They professed to feel betrayed. They were willing to risk their lives for the Union, they said, but not for black freedom.” They believed in the “legacy if 1776”, but that legacy was a white legacy and as soon as that image was broken, it broke their will to
Its ideals were to ensure to successful future of our nation and the citizen who inhabit. That included African Americans looking for a beginning in this nation as well. However the great ideologies of political liberty and of ordinary justice, personified in that Declaration of Independence were in fact, not extended to blacks. Douglass calls America out on the hypocrisy of these words. He notes that the founders constructed a document to afford equal security and rights to all; the minute they drafted the constitution those rights were not actually extended to all human beings.
According to Neither Wolf Nor Dog, it states, “‘I see a lack of concern for the land you claim to revere,’ - ‘ You mean, you see a bunch of shit, right?’ - His candor was liberating. ‘Yes,’” (Nerburn 75). As shown most white people only see Natives as people who keep junk, but if the perspective was shown from both sides people would see its part of their culture.
Freedom is demanded because legal documents do not guarantee equal rights or freedom. This is conveyed by, “we cannot be satisfied as long as Negros basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one; we can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and
Whiteness in America stems from power. White people feel they only have power with domination over black people, and thus without it, it simply comes apart and disappears. “ “White America” is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and control our bodies. Sometimes this power is direct (lynching), and sometimes it is insidious (redlining). But however it appears, the power of domination and exclusion is central to the belief in being white, and without it, “white people” would cease to exist for a want of reasons” (Coates, 42).
The Declaration of Independence states that all people have the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Unfortunately, unless you were a rich white male, you had to fight for that right. Many of our ancestors worked tirelessly for the rights that we have today; tearing down barriers so that we, their distant relatives would never have to experience them. They faced abuse and ridicule with their heads held high, telling the privileged few “We will have our rights!” While we will never be able to thank them, we owe them our time.
Danielle Allen’s Our Declaration is a rereading of the Declaration of Independence in an effort to take ownership of this crucial document for herself and the Black community. Due to her predetermined mission of reinterpreting the document in an empowering manner, established through her transformational experience teaching the Declaration to her college classes, her chapters tend to fall to the wayside of overenthusiastic optimism rather than clarifications of how the authors or the document itself pertains to minorities and targeted communities of the United States of America. The focus of Allen’s novel lies in her beseeching the reader to recognize equality as a core facet of the Declaration, a component that is inseparable from freedom
After seeing everyones’ hopes for freedom being crushed just outside a hole in her cramped attic,Cora begins to reflect on her sense of independence she felt through her garden, “Cora thought of her garden back on Randall, the plot she cherished. Now she saw it for the joke it was—a tiny square of dirt that had convinced her she owned something. It was hers like the cotton she seeded, weeded, and picked was hers” (184). Cora begins to wonder if she ever had owned her garden after witnessing black people like her being killed for believing they had the same rights as white people. She talks about how she felt like she owned the garden despite the fact that she was living and working on a plantation.
Not everyone born free and equal, as the constitution says, but everyone made equal . . . A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind.”
Since the time of colonialism, Blacks and Indigenous peoples fell under the totalitarian ruling of colonists who have obviously favored their own race over others in order to expand their political, territorial and economic powers. As a result, the non-whites (notably the Blacks and Indians) were unjustly segregated and classified as inferior to the
The main difference that we see between both racial ethnic groups is that white Americans believed that they could strip Native Americans from their culture and civilize them while “nurture could not improve the nature of blacks” (67). Although some Native Americans did try to live under the laws of white Americans, they were eventually betrayed and forced to leave the
In many ways, Whitehead’s novel is a symbol of resistance. He encourages individuals to resist the attempts of the unjust, who wish to erase the diverse nation that history has worked so hard to build. Today, freedom in American is often taken for granted. Taking a look at the struggles faced by those enslaved, therefore, forces individuals to pay close attention to and learn from America’s frightful history. In doing so, modern generations have the ability to work towards building a better world, laid alternatively, on the foundation of equality and acceptance of all, regardless of sex, gender, and
The story represents the culmination of Wright’s passionate desire to observe and reflect upon the racist world around him. Racism is so insidious that it prevents Richard from interacting normally, even with the whites who do treat him with a semblance of respect or with fellow blacks. For Richard, the true problem of racism is not simply that it exists, but that its roots in American culture are so deep it is doubtful whether these roots can be destroyed without destroying the culture itself. “It might have been that my tardiness in learning to sense white people as "white" people came from the fact that many of my relatives were "white"-looking people. My grandmother, who was white as any "white" person, had never looked "white" to me” (Wright 23).