Genre Blog: Short story

For this post, I will be looking at Drown By Junot Diaz. The theme I will be focusing on is sexuality, more specifically suppressed sexuality. Here are the passage I will be focusing on : “ He puts his head out the window again. Eat me, then! Yeah, Danny mumbles form the back Eat me. Twice. That’s it. The first time was at the end of that summer. We had just come back from the pool and were watching a porn video at his parents’ apartment. His father was a nut for these tapes, ordering them from wholesales in California and Grand Rapids. Beto used to tell me how his pop would watch them in the middle of the day, not caring a lick about his moms, who spent the time in the kitchen, taking hours to cook a pot of rice and gandules. Bato would sit down with his pop and neither of them would say a word, except to laugh when someone caught it in the eye or the face. We were an hour into the new movie, some viana that looked like it had been filmed in the apartment next door, when he reached into my shorts. What the fuck are you doing? I asked, but he didn't stop. His hand was dry. I kept my eyes on the television, too scared to watch. I came right away,smearing the plastic sofa covers. My legs started shaking and suddenly I wanted out. He didn't say anything to me as I left, just sat there watching the screen. The next day he called and when I heard his voice I was cool but I wouldn't go to the mall or anywhere else. My mother sensed that something was wrong and pestered me about it, but I told her to leave me the fuck alone, and my pops, who was home on a visit, stirred himself from the couch to slap me down. Mostly I stayed in the basement, terrified that I would end up abnormal, a fucking pato, but he was my best friend and back then that mattered to me more than anything....Since his parents worked nights we pretty much owned the place until six the next morning. We sat in front of his television, in our towels, his hands bracing against my abdomen and thighs.' I'll stop if you want, he said and I didn't respond. After I was done, he laid his head in my lap.” (Diaz, 103-105) Unfortunately, this is how our society works. Being homosexual has been viewed negatively for the last couple hundred years. There has been a negative stigma around “being gay” for far too long and it has impacted the lives of millions. Due to this stigma, many feel that they must suppress their sexual feelings and view themselves as immoral for even thinking that way. Many youth also struggle to “come to terms” with their sexuality and feel like it isn’t something that they can discuss with anyone, not even their friends and family. So they suppress these feelings to fit into society. That is what I believe that the narrator is struggling with here. I believe that he may be in denial about being gay and in turn is viewing it like it is the worst thing in the world to be “a pota”. Within the first paragraph of the story, we see “He's [Bato] a pato now but two years ago we were friends” (Junto, 91). So right off the bat, we see the narrator’s biggest issue with his former friend is that Bato is gay. I believe this is the reason that the narrator is questioning visiting Bato. I believe that he feels uncomfortable around Bato now because of his own sexual suppression. The narrator does not think of himself as gay because of the negative stigma and if he starts to doubt himself, then he would be in the wrong. With this point of view, the story had a whole new meaning for me. After my first time reading it, I thought the narrator was mad at Bato for leaving the ghetto because he was the only person the narrator had. The narrator explains that he doesn’t have a great relationship with his father (past or present) and he doesn’t speak to his mother about his life or feelings. Bato was the only one he had, even if they didn’t discuss their issues with each other. Although this might be one of the reasons he doesn’t go to see Bato, I fell the narrator's biggest issue is that he is uncomfortable with his own sexuality and blames it on Bato. He believes that is Bato never would have touched him, he would have never had questioned his own sexuality and would have led “a normal life”. If he goes to see Bato, he may question himself past the point that he may not be able to suppress is sexuality and become “abnormal” like Bato. Stories such as these show why it is essential to see homosexuality in a more positive light. This negative stigma is destroying people’s lives and they don’t know how to “fix themselves” when in reality they shouldn’t have to feel like they are in the wrong. Díaz, Junot, and Eduardo Lago. Drown. New York: Riverhead, 1996. Print.

Works Cited: Race in the American Novel part 2

Works cited: Gries, Peter Hays. "Liberals, Conservatives, and Latin America: How Ideology Divides Americans over Immigration and Foreign Aid." Latin American Research Review 51.3 (2016): 23-46. Web. Krumholz, Linda. "The Ghosts of Slavery: Historical Recovery in Toni Morrison's Beloved."African American Review 26.3 (1992): 395. Web. Morrison, Toni. Beloved: A Novel. New York: Vintage International, 2004. Print. Rickford, Russell. "Black Lives Matter." New Labor Forum 25.1 (2016): 34-42. Web. Stowe, Harriet Beecher., and Elizabeth Ammons. Uncle Tom's Cabin: Authoritative Text Backgrounds and Contexts Criticism. New York: Norton, 2010. Print.

Literary analysis: Beloved and Uncle Tom's Cabin

I believe that Dehumanization is a crucial tool in UTC and Beloved to show the negative effects of slavery on slaves and that it was the foundation for slavery as a system. First, Let’s look at Stowe’s central argument as we discussed it in class. Stowe, a middle class, white, abolitionist wanted to show other middle class whites why slavery was wrong from a Christian moral standpoint. Her message can be summed up as such: Slaves are humans and slavery is morally cruel by the rules of the christian religion. So, if we are to save ourselves from damnation, we need to stop the cruel system of slavery. Stowe shows this argument by the presence of white, christian men and women thought the novel. Characters such as Mrs. Bird, Mr. and Mrs. Shelby, among others, who are all devout christians feel that slavery is morally wrong. Mr. and Mrs. Shelby, although they own slaves, treat them with respect and let them, for the most part, make their own decisions. None of the character who are depicted as “righteous” individuals, believe that slavery should exist and feel appalled by the thought of slaves being sold and seen as property. Any character who thinks that it is okay is depicted as “evil” However, you can see how deeply engraved dehumanization is in the minds of those affected by slavery. Even those who believe that slavery is wrong, see slaves as poor and unfortunate creatures. Thoses who do believe in slavery refuse to see slaves as human and only weigh their lives in gold. When looking into Beloved we see first hand how the dehumanizing effects of slavery mentally repress former slaves and even their children. Event such as “the milking” and slaves being whipped and treated like cattle create lasting scars, mental and physical in minds and bodies of former slaves. They are mentally anguished when they look into their past and it forces them to do things that many would see as “crazy” and unjustifiable. Nobody in their right minds would think that killing their child would be better than letting the child live. However, because of the inherent brutality of slavery, Sethe chooses to keep her child “safe” from slavery by killing the child. It is not in human nature to see death as better than life but the appalling effects of repression can twist the minds of those affected into believing otherwise. In conclusion, dehumanization was used in both novels to show the audience the effects of slavery on slaves, and how wrong it is to treat other human beings as less than what they are. Also, with the moral structure of american society, slavery couldn’t of existed unless the populus saw blacks as subhuman. Finally, we need to use these novel to show the effects on social and legal oppression and use that to make decisions on contemporary racial issues.

Contemporary connections: Beloved

For this section, I will be focusing on the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and the immigration issues in America 2017. To begin, let’s look at the BLM movement. According to Russell Rickford, an assistant professor of History at Cornell University, BLM is a new take on racial prejudices against African-Americans. It started in 2015, after the acquittal of George Zimmerman and became the main slogan of the riots in Ferguson, MO. Their main mission is to make everyone see that a “black life” is worth just as much as anyone else's. That means they are equal socially and legally. The immigration issues of 2017 are a form of racial prejudice against a minority group, but instead of it being African-Americans, it’s against anyone from Mexico, Central or Latin America, or anyone from the Middle East. The difference between these two groups is basically just where they come from: the problem with our immigration system is that America does not want to let anyone in who is not white, and as a result, we are denying access to our country. Refugees, not immigrants, were fleeing from Middle Eastern countries like Syria because their government was killing massive amounts of people, and America did not wish to let them in because the “Middle East is just full of terrorists.” The same type of treatment is given to those trying to come up from Mexico to find a better life in America; We shut them out and say that they are all “rapists and murderers”. In both instances, children are dying due to nerve gas attacks and having their families murdered in front of them, and are just wishing to flee to a better life where the are safe, but Americans “feel threatened by immigrants”. The correlation between these two events is cultural inequality for different people of color, and because of this, there being blatant aggression and violence toward these other groups. The problem isn’t even based on real issues like terrorism or statistics of crime, but rather just a fear stemming from generations of validated racism from white americans. Along with that, our government has made it abundantly easy to view anyone of color as a threat to white society. This prejudice and hate has become imbedded in our culture, and has affected the lives of a majority of our population. In Liberals, Conservatives and Latin America: How the Ideology Divides Americans over Immigration and Foreign Aid, Peter Hays Gries of the University of oklahoma looks into this issue focusing on latin american immigration. His main discussion looks at the ravine that separates liberals and conservatives on the issue of immigration and foreign aid. His research shows that liberals are much warmer to the idea of open, or rather, much more inclusive immigration system, where conservatives want to focuses on the issues in our country and don’t really want anyone else here. He believes that the racial issue for conservatives has to do with white domination and christian domination. Gries states “First, when it comes to general warmth toward Latin American countries, among whites it is differing attitudes toward proper race relations that matter most. Of our four ideological dimensions, only social dominance orientation is associated with feelings toward three Latin American countries, and differing liberal and conservative moralities of compassion and authority undergird this ideological cleavage. Second, white conservative preferences for tougher Mexico border policies are partially explained by white conservatives' greater average social dominance, but also by their greater average cultural traditionalism. The survey data reveal that cultural conservatives fear the impact of Mexican immigration on Christian values and a WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) American national identity more than cultural liberals do.” (pg. 24) However, when explaining why liberals feel differently, he states “Our 2011 survey data thus suggest that on average liberals feel greater compassion for the suffering of Hispanic immigrants, contributing to their greater opposition to social dominance and desire for a more relaxed border policy.” (pg 35) So, how does this connect to our readings? I would argue that both of these issues, especially the BLM movement, exist because some of the “american” ideologies rely on repression of other cultures to exert “american” dominance. This was central to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Even though Stowe wanted to show the issue of slavery as morally wrong for white christians, she had to show us the effects of repression on slaves to get her point across. We can also see the effects of this repression in Beloved, as Morrison shows us the deep psychological effects social repression had on the minds of former slaves. Although the issues of 2017 are not as “in your face” as slavery was, we still see how these racial prejudices are still deeply embedded in not only our social attitudes, but in our legal system and government itself. They exist in the mass incarceration of African american citizens and deportation due to the inability to feasibly obtain legality for immigrants. We need to use these novels and other similar stories to see how systematic repression can destroy the lives of the oppressed

Reader response: Beloved

Reader Response: On Goodreads.com, There was basically two responses, one, they loved it and it was fantastic or, two, the story was good but the style that it was written in gives you a headache and makes it a waste of time. EX: “It's heavy handed with its message, which ultimately ruins some pretty spectacular imagery. It’s also just a giant pastiche of people who can actually write, which makes it just feel disjointed and annoying since it switches between standard narration and stream of consciousness and surrealism in intensely awkward ways. It's not even like that switching between different narrative structures is inherently bad, but this book definitely does it in the most ridiculously annoying way of any book I have ever read.” by user Harpal On Barnesandnoble.com, the novel has an overwhelmingly good review. Almost all the reviews can be summed up by an anonymous user,” I didn't find it confusing - but it was deep and required you to sit with it sometimes to absorb it - which also seemed to me, intentional by the writer. I loved that about it.” On Amazon.com, the reviews were almost identical to those on Goodreads. The novel was very well received and can be summed up by user MM when he states “If you can allow yourself to put yourself in the place of a slave, as is described in this book, you can feel the humiliation, grief, indignity, disgrace, fear, degradation and submissiveness that was a slave. Through Toni Morrison's words, I felt these feelings. I don't know how they survived. This is a hard book to read, but I'm glad I did. I believe we all need to understand what was done.” Personally, I would give this novel a 4/5. I agree that the story is fantastic and that it succeeds in it’s mission to show the audience how slavery has more than a physical effect on slaves, but is a very hard story to read. However, I do not believe that there was any better way of formating the story then how Morrison has already done.

Critical Commentary: Beloved

Critical commentary In her essay, The Ghosts of Slavery: Historical Recovery in Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Linda Krumholtz shows how the story of Beloved is Sethe's healing ritual to overcome years of mental slavery, even years after she has been physically free. In simple terms, it is about the way that Sethe overcomes the guilt of killing her child and the painful memories of slavery. Krumholtz describes the style in which the novel is written, that being that the most traumatizing event (the killing of her child) is the deed that is not spoken of until the end and that it is repressed from the novel similarly to how Sethe’s own mind represses it. Sethe’s struggle to cope with this memory is silent throughout the novel until she is directly faced with it and it almost destroys her. She tries to give everything she can to Beloved, even her life. She does this to justify what she did, not only to herself, but to Beloved as well. Krumholtz adds quite a bit to my understanding of the novel. When I was finished reading, I felt like the novel was told almost in the style as from someone with PTSD ( Post- traumatic stress disorder). I say this because of all of the flashbacks and the way those flashbacks are portrayed. They almost never tell you when something happened or how long ago, making it seem like those events are still happening in the minds of the characters. Both this analysis and Krumholtz work very well together bring another light into the strange novel that Beloved is.

Genre Blog Post: Poetry

For my poetry genre post, I will be looking at racial prejudice in The Lynching by Claude McKay. Due to it being a fairly short poem, I will include the whole of it in my post. It can also be found in The Norton Anthology: American Literature shorter 8th edition V.2 1865 to present on page 927:

The Lynching by Claude Mckay

1 His spirit is smoke ascended to high heaven.

2 His father, by the cruelest way of pain,

3 Had bidden him to his bosom once again;

4The awful sin remained still unforgiven.

5 All night a bright and solitary star

6 Yet gave him up at last to Fate's wild whim)

7 Hung pitifully o'er the swinging char.

8 Day dawned, and soon the mixed crowds came to view

9 The ghastly body swaying in the sun:

10 The women thronged to look, but never a one

11 Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue;

12 And little lads, lynchers that were to be,

13 Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee.

According to Eji.com, a website focused on relieving social injustices and covering many different social movements, past and present, states that, between 1877 and 1950, at least 4,875 reported lynchings happened in the southern United States to cause racial terror. So this piece would be hitting on a very real and contemporary issue at the time of its publication in 1922.

What is interesting about this piece is that not only can you see the vivid hate African-Americans had for White Americans at the time, but the audience also begins to feel this way by the amazing descriptions portrait in the poem.  To begin, we can see how much pain this caused. For example, the first two lines of the poem “His spirit is smoke ascended to high heaven. His father, by the cruelest way of pain”. The reader can easily visualise a man burning in agony and his soul ascending after strenuous torture. Then we are shown how white men and women, in lines 10-13, come to see the corpse, to dance and feel no sorrow towards it. The work is extremely effective in completing its task of making the audience feel repulsed at the actions within and to let them know that this is what African-Americans (at the time) were facing on a daily basis. It create the sympathy need to bring about change.

This poem shows just how far we have come with correcting social injustices but there are still many other issues related to race that need to be tackled such as wrongful imprisonment, discrimination, among others.  

Works Cited

"Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror." Equal Justice Initiative. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.

McKay, Claude. "The Lynching." 1922. The Norton Anthology: American Literature. Shorter 8th Edition ed. Vol. 2. New York City: Norton, 2013. 927. Print. 1865 to the Present.