So What Are You Anyway Lawrence Hill Summary

Released in 2001, Disney Channel’s The Proud Family was a Black cartoon frequently watched by children who grew up during its airplay. Not vulgar or satirical, The Proud Family centered around Penny Proud and her family as she grew up through her years. As a child, I innocently watched this show, but picked up on unintended implications based off of the character’s skin color. The main character Penny was a lighter skinned girl, who appeared to possess “more Eurocentric phenotypic characteristics (Steele),” exhibited more intelligence, wealth, and virtue, as opposed to her darker skinned best friend, Dijonay, who was associated with deviance and sassiness, while speaking with a more Ebonic style of talking and possessed a more “ghetto” name. Although the show attempted to provide an accurate representation of a “traditional African American family,” it still regardlessly instilled these stereotypes of the African American community into my mindset, which were not disproved in my mind until later in my life (Steele).

worried that they may wonder why she was there or question why a white person would be at

This story has affected me in a few ways. One of the ways was how children think and see the world. One of the ways is how children see and picture racial equality. They do this in a way that many adults are not readily capable of doing, or choose not to. From the story early on we are told of a girl named Kesha who distinguishes beyond the socio-typical distinctions of black and white, when she states, “‘Okay, peach with spots for you and brown without spots for me, except his one and this one on my cheek”’ (Paley, pg. 15). In another part in the story, the author says two children, Jeremy and Martha, playing a game of Guess Who? Jeremey asked

This was the argument between the two groups after which they went to Madame Re-Re’s beauty salon to clash and express their feelings in a musical and dance fashion. The song and dance off ended with both groups coming together to show that it is petty and when all is said and done we are all black, no matter what shade. Taken from an unknown source that said, ‘color issues within the race will hurt more than any issue with someone outside of the race.’ You would think that we would all be willing to fans happy to accept our own race but sometimes it’s totally different. In ‘School Daze’ Lee shows the black man and his refusal to recognize his African roots. An article titled ‘A house is not a home: Black students responses to racism in university residential halls. Says black kids have a more negative attitude towards each other than those of the white race. This is evident in School daze as it is an all-black college and you think it would be peaceful but it was the total opposite. School Daze also touches on the black man and his refusal to recognize his African roots, Dap, gets into many heated discussions on campus trying to enlighten his fellow

I have always thought and been taught that racism was a form of ignorance; people used stereotypes are the easy route, instead of looking at the individual outside of the whole. But Kelley’s thoughts on the topic rang very true to me—“Racism is knowledge…is learned behavior…” (7). When we are babies, we don’t notice or care if someone is of a different race, socioeconomic standing, sexuality; we just see them as people. It’s through repeated actions that we learn what separates us from the “other”. As a young child, my neighbor was my best friend. We played every day until I moved, but our families still kept in touch. It was until probably the 3rd or 4th grade that I realized he wasn’t like me, he had Down syndrome. Of course, that didn’t make a difference to me then or now, but I find it to be a striking example in my own life that as a young person, I was unable to see anything different about us, to me we were the same, we were

Omi and Winant explains how humans make judgments because of how they think and sometimes they make judgments according to what they see on the outside and grouping accordingly rather than thinking about it first. An example from Caucasia that shows this is, “All right brotherman, who’s the little girl?... she’s my daughter. Is there a problem...The cops didn’t believe my father, not even when he showed them a photograph of me and my sister that he kept in his wallet” ( Senna 60) .This quote shows how Birdie and her father were approached by two police officers while having quality time in a park; these officers made assumptions based on Birdie’s skin tone without thinking that she may be mixed and it proves Omi and Winant’s point because the officers’ perception of races are based by the shaping of race in society. The theme of racial etiquette in Caucasia proves what Omi and Winant are trying to say because people judge without thinking of the possibilities that one may not be the race that is perceived from physical appearances.

The first time the reader sees evidence that the children are of a different race is when they are compared as salt in pepper. Knowing that the children are different races raises the question of which one is which. In the argument that Twyla is a Minority and Roberta is a Caucasian, when the two children and their mothers go to church, Twyla’s mother goes and reaches to shake Roberta’s mother and Roberta’s mother scoffs and rejects the hand shake. In that time period, blacks were “less than” a white person, and for a white person to be seen shaking a black person’s hand is almost abnormal.

Imagine you’re a little black girl, living in one of the most segregated cities in the South. A city where you not only had to obey your parents’ rules, but the rules of revengeful white men, who would do everything in their willpower to make sure you would die, if you didn’t. What little girl do you know, would like to be exposed to this type of unnecessary chaos? Little girls are supposed to be having fun, playing with baby dolls, and learning their ABC’s, not worrying about whether or not they would become the next victim of rape or be lynched by the Ku Klux Klan.

Anne was immediately confused by their presence because they seemed to be just like her except for skin color. On one occasion all the children were playing together in the lobby of a movie theater. Anne was with some local white children playing, but when it was time to enter the movie lobby the white children went in one direction and Anne went in after her friends. Her disapproving mother quickly stopped Anne and they left the theater. Before this instance Anne had never considered the coincidence that all the white children watched the movie from the bottom terrace and all the African America children from the top terrace. While thinking about the difference Anne realized that the bottom terrace and side entrance was much more luxurious than the raggedy top terrace, where she and her mother usually sat (38-2). After this the difference in skin color became much more apparent to her in everyday life. Anne was motivated to find the answers as to why she was treated differently because of the color of her skin.

Understanding this will help one realize how they are. In the article, ‘Speaking in Tongues,’ Obama mentions a girl name Joyce from college who was part Italian, part French and part Native American and states her struggle with people trying to label her. “I’m not Black… I’m multiracial… Why should I have to choose between them? …They’re the ones who are telling me I can’t be who I am.” (Smith, 2008) In this quote, Joyce tells that she is multiracial, meaning she is accepting all roots. When she says that people are trying to tell her she can’t be who she is, she is not agreeing to make others comfortable. However there are also people that do not want to accept their roots, specifically their genetics. In the previous article, ‘DNA rewrites history for African-Americans,’ Henry Louis Gates Jr. did not want to embrace the fact that he was 50% white and 50% black. ““I’ll never see my family tree in quite the same way,” Gates says on the PBS show program, “I have the blues. Can I still have the blues?”” (Willing, 2006) After discovering his true heritage, Gates did not want to accept his ‘new’ identity, but instead rejects it, unlike Joyce. When he denies his identity it only hurts him because he does not recognize his entire

This transcript discusses the Clark Doll Experiment, a study conducted by Dr. Kenneth Clark and his wife Mamie in 1939 to test children’s self-perception related to race. This transcript talks about how the test was done on mainly African-American children, using two dolls, a black and white one. It then briefly talks about the short film A Girl like Me, and its director and creator Kiri David. Along with that, the article explains how this experiment helped persuade the Supreme Court during the Brown V. Board of Education case in 1954 to desegregate schools. By providing proof of the psychological damage that was being done to black children attending segregated schools. Going back to the discussion about Kiri Davis’ film, it talks about how she used the same experiment, and got close to the same results as Clark did when he conducted it. This article continues talking about Kiri Davis, and an interview that was done with her mother explaining

It is evident that no matter how hard we try to avoid it race plays a major role in today’s society. Your race and/or nationality and skin color plays a lot in how you are seen and perceived by the world. The first thing you see when you look at a person is their skin color, which just

I decided to complete the Diversity Interview by utilizing a classmate that I have worked with on several occasions. The work we performed together has always been professional; we have never had discussions that delved deep into each other’s backgrounds. This person is of the opposite sex and is visibly a different ethnic group from myself. I am an American- African male and she is an American – Mexican/Irish. This interview is being done in order for me to understand what it is like to be in her “skin”. During the interview I asked questions about ethnicity, race, gender, and socioeconomic status.

One of the most stimulating aspects of early education is observing and supporting young children as they develop their individual identities. This development takes place within different social contexts where issues relating to human diversity and difference impact significantly on children’s understandings and ways of being in the world. Arguably, our education begins when we are first able to detect causes and consequences, and continue to form the basis of our identity, behaviours and knowledge of the world around us. Glover (1991) in the early 1990s found that as 2-3 year old children became aware of difference they simultaneously develop positive and negative feelings about the differences they observe. For example, racial awareness impacts on their perceptions of skin colour and on their preferences in the social relationships they initiate and foster with other children. An Australian study conducted by Palmer (1990) exemplifies how preschool children were able to make negative judgements based on racial characteristics of young Aboriginal children. Children were reportedly saying ‘You’re the colour of poo… Did your mum drop you in the poo?’ This observation suggests that children as young as 2 years old are becoming aware of diversity and differences of others, and these judgements children are making are often affecting their ability to make sound judgements of others

Another interesting part of the film was the naivety, innocence, or innate humanity of Julie’s daughter, Ellen. When questioned about her brother’s differences from her, Ellen believes the only difference to be that he is a boy and she a girl. The concept of racial discrimination is completely absent from her mind which