Miscegenation

In Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao we get a greater glimpse into the politics of phenotypes and authenticity in Dominican culture. More specifically in its relationship to blackness. In Irene Lopez, a Puerto Rican clinical psychologist’s essay, Puerto Rican Phenotype: Understanding Its Historical Underpinnings and Psychological Associations, she posits that, “Puerto Ricans who consider being “Indian” more beautiful, or more authentic, than being Black and, thus, often prefer to…

Every Tuesday and Thursday, my first class of the day is Politics of Black Identity, taught by Professor Cokley, and each day I get increasingly excited about the topics we will discuss in class. Every topic we have discussed in class has been very real and open minded subjects that have all had my brain working in new ways in order to determine my opinion on questions and topics I have never been asked or discussed before. Two issues we have conversed about in class that have stuck out to me…

Not Everything is Just Black and White Rosa Parks was raised during a time when segregation was normal and cultural suppression of African Americans was a way of life. On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks did something very simple that turned into something great. She refused to give up her seat on the bus riding home after work to a white man. Not to make a point or start a protest, because it had been a long day and she was tired. Her actions that day started a protest of the bus companies '…

ell’s story points out the racial tension in America through a seemingly outrageous analogy: aliens ask for all African Americans to be taken from the country in exchange for gold, fuel, and chemicals to restore the suffering environment. The story illustrates a largely racist America, with Washington jumping at the possibility of giving their black population to the aliens. America ultimately agrees to the inhumane proposal, sentencing their able-bodied black population to an unknown future.…

Mapping of Mulatto Exposition (or introduction)-Before the dialogue begins, the author gives a vivid visual description of the surroundings. The audience and reader is aware that the play takes place in a big house on a plantation in Georgia. Within the first few exchanges of dialogue between Norwood, (the owner of the plantation), and Cora, (his house slave and mistress), it is evident how he feels about and treats his own children that he has fathered with Cora. Complication and…

Increasing the admissions of people of color is a step towards diversifying a college campus. Applying the addition of different, rich cultures on into the curriculum on campus will further increase the understanding of each student’s unique qualities. Aside from bringing students from different racial and ethnic backgrounds together, campuses have a duty to provide stimulating courses covering historical, cultural, and social bases of diversity and community. Faculty and administration must…

Racial tensions in America have always been a prominent issue ever since the conception of the hypocrisy that “All men were created equal.” As times have changed, America 's views on the treatment of people of different cultures and the racial equality movement have taken flight. The world is constantly changing, and people of color are now more respected and equal than they have ever been in society. Zora Neale Hurston in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God touches on the topic of racial…

The movie Remember the Titans is an excellent example for sociological theories. Many topics can be observed within this movie, but two of the most prominent topics that we covered this semester are social structure, more specifically race and prejudices, and group processes, focusing on status construction. This movie takes place in a small town in North Carolina that has to deal with the shifting racial makeup of their football team, therefore high school, and therefore community. There is a…

The American criminal justice system is the epicenter that deals with cases portraying racism. People’s attitude towards this topic is divided into two points of view: discrimination is present when convicting a person from a minority or racism is no longer part of the criminal justice system. The first point of view, in “Criminal Justice,” Jesselyn McCurdy argues that racial profiling by law enforcements agents is based on purely racial stereotypes (45). She stresses the fact that the…

Racism has been around for many years and it is an issue that has never been fully resolved, although some may believe that it has. It is not uncommon to see crimes being mentioned everywhere but thanks to the media, we have seen the many incidents occurring recently involving white cops and black men, hence we have come to realize how racist we really are as a society and how big of an issue racism actually is even now. In the textbook Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory, we are…