She's Getting More Like The White Folks Every Day

Certain elements of the story help the reader to understand the purpose of the this short story. The setting in the deep south of Memphis Tennessee plays an essential role in reinforcing racial inequality during the 1950s. The 1950s was a time of segregation. In fact, specifically in the state of Tennessee, the Jim Crow Laws were being implemented. These laws included segregation in schools, transportation, marriages, and public accommodations. Thus, racism was not only acceptable and legal, but expected in American culture. Additionally, Walker’s characters, The deacon and Traynor’s fans, reinforce the theme of the racism and exploitation. The deacon refers to African Americans as “you people” and “colored” (Walker). From the outset, the deacon exploits Gracie Mae by offering her a measly five hundred dollars for not just the recording rights, but for all of the records she made of the song. When Gracie Mae tries to get additional money for the purchase of her records, the deacon replies with a disparaging, “What white man—and don’t even need to mention colored—would give you more?” (Walker).

Lorraine Hansberry was the first Black woman to pen a Broadway play. In her writings, she wrote male characters, many of whom were male protagonists. Being the feminist that she was, many people saw Hansberry’s depiction of Black men in one of two ways; either as an unhappy retreat from her feminist concerns or as a negative representation of Black manhood. Throughout her career, in works such as “The Village Voice” and “Les Blancs” Hansberry’s wrote other male characters that showed a progressive, revolutionary movement towards a positive and withstanding view of Black masculinity.

In the short story “Drenched in Light” by Zora Neale Hurston, the author appeals to a broad audience by disguising ethnology and an underlying theme of gender, race, and oppression with an ambiguous tale of a young black girl and the appreciation she receives from white people. Often writing to a double audience, Hurston had a keen ability to appeal to white and black readers in a clever way. “[Hurston] knew her white folks well and performed her minstrel shows tongue in cheek” (Meisenhelder 2). Originally published in The Opportunity in 1924, “Drenched in Light” was Hurston’s first story to a national audience.

Instead of valuing the message one is sharing, society becomes hung up on the formality of the speaker. Hurston’s incorporation of this rough language highlights the hardships members of her community faced to move up in the ranks. They are judged immediately for their voice rather than the content of their ideas. Hurston plays off this stereotype in “Spunk” by recounting the whole story through the idiom of the rural South. Subconsciously, she is spreading awareness of the low economic and social status of her hometown and culture, and then busting the stereotype through the voice of the narrator. The voices of the townspeople mirror Hurston’s origins, and the voice of the narrator illustrates how far she had come in her education and success. Society should not stereotype minority groups because of their lack of resources that hold them back from what they are truly capable of. Unfortunately, critics such as Langston Hughes did not understand Hurston’s intentions. He “accused her of using the dialectic speech and the elements of folklore to degenerate her own people and to please whites, who expected unsophisticated language and behavior from African Americans,” (“Spunk” 296). Hurston along with the many other Harlem Renaissance characters were evidence themselves that the African American culture has unique elements that make it worth celebrating rather than a burden dragging the United States down.

But the most shocking aspect of this whole situation came in the form of the African American performer Bert Williams who was degraded to play roles while in blackface that made a mockery of black people and essential of himself which probably was hard for him to act out. Fortunately the practice of performing blackface ended in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Act. But there are other stereotypes that have prevailed during the 20th century and I have two which are- the angry black women and black men always being thugs. For the first stereotype a particular movie comes into mind that portrays the angry black women perfectly and that is Madea’s Big Happy Family where there was a scene of a black women character that was yelling at her baby’s father about child support and was rolling her neck, chewing gum and speaking loudly. Looking back on the scene I realize now how stereotypical that scene was and that it further perpetuated a particular idea about how African American women behave or

The early 1900s was a very challenging time for Negroes especially young women who developed issues in regards to their identities. Their concerns stemmed from their skin colors. Either they were fair skinned due mixed heritage or just dark skinned. Young African American women experienced issues with racial identity which caused them to be in a constant struggle that prohibits them from loving themselves and the skin they are in. The purpose of this paper is to examine those issues in the context of selected creative literature. I will be discussing the various aspects of them and to aid in my analysis, I will be utilizing the works of Nella Larsen from The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Jessie Bennett Redmond Fauset,

Another similarity is the mentality that African Americans had about the white people during that time period. They thought so highly of what the white people thought about them. Tretheway says in her poem “I could easily tell the white folks that we lived uptown, not in that pink and shanty-fied shotgun section along the tracks.” (Trethewey 6-10). She knew that she was already get by with being

The depiction black struggles within Dunbar’s dialect poetry makes Dunbar’s poetry beneficial for the black race. For example, in “An Ante-bellum Sermon,” when Dunbar writes “But when Moses wif his powah Comes an' sets us chillun free, We will praise de gracious Mastah, Dat has gin us liberty; An' we'll shout ouah halleluyahs, On dat mighty reck'nin' day, When we'se reco'nised ez citiz', Huh uh! Chillun, let us pray!”, he is depicting a common feeling of African Americans. Although this poem takes place before the Civil War, and before Dunbar’s birth, both of Dunbar’s parents were ex-slaves, which gave him an understanding of slavery. With an understanding of slavery, Dunbar was able to depict the desire for slaves to be rid of the unjust system. Beyond that, the idea is still applicable to the time in which he lived. From one issue to another, people anticipate equality while in dire situations. Similarly, in “Song,” Dunbar depicts the harmful race relations from his time. Instead of the black experience being told from a sympathizer perspective, Dunbar has a better understanding of what it was like to be black in the 1890s. The competition and hate between flowers symbolizes the conflict between white and black people. Through this metaphor, especially at the end when they celebrate the death of all daisies when he writes “In de fiel’ de flags is wavin’ in a tantalizing’ way, Kin o’ ‘joicin’ case de daisies all is daid,” Dunbar depicts the hateful race relations of his time. Dunbar’s representation of black issues brings attention to them, which benefits African Americans.

     There is so much richness in Negro humor, so much beauty in black dreams, so much dignity in our struggle, and so much universality in our problems, in us-in each living human being of color-that I do not understand the tendency today that some American Negro artists have of seeking to run away from themselves, of running away from us, of being afraid to sing our own songs, paint our own pictures, write about our selves-when it is our music that has given America is greatest music out humor that has enriched its entertainment media for the past 100 years, out rhythm that has guided its dancing feet From plantation days to the Charleston…Yet there are some of us who say, “Why write about Negroes? Why not just a writer?” And why not-if no one wants to be “just a writer?” Negroes in a free world should be whatever each wants to be-even if it means being “just a writer…” (Hughes, 773)

This is explained by the reaction of each to a jazz orchestra at a Harlem night club. The music has a profoundly different effect on her than it does on a white person sitting next to her.

During the 1920’s a new movement began to arise. This movement known as the Harlem Renaissance expressed the new African American culture. The new African American culture was expressed through the writing of books, poetry, essays, the playing of music, and through sculptures and paintings. Three poems and their poets express the new African American culture with ease. (Jordan 848-891) The poems also express the position of themselves and other African Americans during this time. “You and Your Whole Race”, “Yet Do I Marvel”, and “The Lynching” are the three poems whose themes are the same. The poets of these poems are, as in order, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Claude Mckay.

In Hughes poem “Note on the commercial Theatre” he started off with an angry tone, upset that African American music was used by the whites, but the African Americans didn’t receive the credit for the artistic work: “You’ve taken my blues and gone you sing them on Broadway” (1043). Furthermore, at the end of the poem Hughes does expresses a powerful ending, our culture is beautiful, but you will never be me: “Black and beautiful and sing about me, and put on plays about me! I reckon it’ll be me myself” (1043)! Hughes poems focused on the urban cultures, while Zora Neale Hurston short story “How it feels to be Colored Me” focused on her as a woman who is discovering herself and her worth.

This judgment began unexpectedly to spread as African American music, especially the blues and jazz, became a worldwide sensation. Black music provided the pulse of the Harlem Renaissance and of the Jazz Age more generally. The rise of the “race records” industry, beginning with OKeh’s recording of Mamie Smith’s

The sexual nature of the blues is an assertion of power. This music is a feeling that celebrates pleasure and success of being yourself. As a matter of fact, the lyrics deal with self-pity such as losing your job and personal misfortune like overcoming hardships. The blues is hypnotic; it bridges tragedy with comedy through sex. With this in mind, it was dangerous for African Americans to speak out so they use sexual lyrics to voice their thoughts, “therefore the writers found it easy to smuggle them into their songs and to invest them with passably respectable meanings” (Johnson, G. p. 19). By the same token, some songs with erotic tone lyrics real meaning often spoke out against racism and protest. “Hellhound on My Trail” emphasizes

The idiopathic themes expressed in both, Langston Hughes and W.E.B Du Bois during their time period were expounded in great detail. One line from W.E.B Du Bois poem “The Song of the Smoke” said “For blackness was ancient ere whiteness began”, this shows the