How the Complicity of White people is damaging the Black Community
In the story Native Son, by Richard Wright, we follow the life of Bigger and how he gradually turns to madness. Bigger's entire life is plagued by white supremacy. He lives in a rat infested home because black people were redlined and not given enough money as white people. As a good deed, he is hired by a white man by the name of Mr. Dalton to work as the family's chouffer. Bigger would then go on to accidentally kill Dalton’s daughter and feel as if he has to take the life of his girlfriend in order to keep her from telling the police. Even though his actions are inexcusable and unjustifiable, everyone can agree that white supremacy played a big factor in who he became. Though Dalton tried to do a good deed of taking Bigger in and giving him an opportunity to change his life, that simple is not enough. Mr Dalton is representative of the white community and how they have given bandaids to fix the gaping wounds of problems that the black community has faced as a result of racism. Even though Bigger is just a fictional character, he is based on the gothic element of complicity and the horor it still inflicts on black people.
Something very evident of this complicity is the disproportionate amount of black people jailed for the same crimes as white people. A great example of this is through people being jailed for marijuana. Though smoking marijuana at the same rate, “Black people are 3.6 times more likely than white people to be arrested for marijuana” (ACLU News & Commentary). This definitely is something that needs a change because it demonstrates that if black people can be targeted for something as minuscule as smoking weed then there is no way of knowing what kind of incidents could take place because the police are purposefully going out of their way to jail black people.
Another example of White complicity is the amount of descrimination in the workforce. Though people should be viewed for their merits and skillsets, statistics show a very different reality. There was a study conducted by University of California Berkeley and the University of Chicago using black sounding names and white sounding names, and of the 45,000 job applications that were sent in the people with black sounding names were called back 10% less despite having similar resumes as the people with white sounding names (Young, Robin, and Serena McMahon). This should definitely be changed because black people should not have to be discriminated against just because of the name that they were given when they were born. Then on top of that, our names are our identity and who we are and should not be eradicated in order to get a good job.
In conclusion, white complicity is damaging the black community and it needs to end. If not, it will continue to cause black people trauma and then a lot of people will become just like Bigger, and in the end everyone ends up getting hurt.
- Daylan NailerWorks Cited
“ACLU News & Commentary.” American Civil Liberties Union, www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/a-tale-of-two-countries-racially-targeted-arrests-in-the-era-of-marijuana-reform/.
Young, Robin, and Serena McMahon. “Name Discrimination Study Finds Lakisha and Jamal Still Less Likely to Get Hired than Emily and Greg.” Name Discrimination Study Finds Lakisha And Jamal Still Less Likely To Get Hired Than Emily And Greg | Here & Now, WBUR, 18 Aug. 2021, www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/08/18/name-discrimination-jobs.
Ms.Harris
ReplyDeleteENGL 2016-44378
12-3-21
Reid Guirlando
Love is dangerous
I believed there is a potential correlation between the way that slaves lived in a relationship stand point with the way African American's lives in a relationship today in modern day. Slaves went through some of the worst of history, They were used and mistreated for years and was subject to horrible activities. They were taken and traded away from their home country and brought to a new land. The passage alone just to get to the United states was hell but that was just the start of what was yet to come. While here, they were overworked, beaten, slaughtered, malnourished and completely mistreated physically in every way imaginable. Not only were they abused physically, but emotionally and psychologically.
Being a slave has so many challenges, and there are multiple of those challenges that has affected modern day life's of African Americans. Back in the slaves time, a dangerous challenge was simply love, getting attach to someone, finding your soul mate or even having children's. This was so dangerous for the fact of losing them. Fear overwhelmed everything and knowing your soulmate or your child can be taken away from you with it being 100% out of your control is scary. Its scary to think that someone you love so much is being beaten, whipped, abused physically and offend time sexually and you cant realistically prevent it without being punished even worst.
Even after slavery was so called “abolished”, slavery was still being practiced through a form of share cropping. Thousands of African American left without anywhere to go and no hope of finding a job, farmers would have former slaves live on there land for free basically and work for them for near to no money. Those that moved away to cities or other towns still were subjected to the racist acts of the United states and battle to where they are today in modern civilization
.There is a glaring discrepancy between the single parent rate among African Americans in the United States compared to any other race and culture. The single motherhood rate among African Americans in the United States is 67%. That is an insane amount of children who have to go through that. For every African American child you see, there is about a ¾ chance that they are growing up with parents that are not together. The reason for this popular occurrence of single mothers among African Americans is related back to the fact of historically speaking, that fear of commitment could have resonated from slave days to modern day and impacted the culture as a whole.
All and all, there is obviously a problem, but I believe there is a solution. It might not happen overnight but in due time I feel like the African American community can overcome this obstacle, just as they’ve overcome every other obstacle that has come their way.
Work cited
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_family_structure#:~:text=About%2067%20percent%20of%20black,into%20a%20single%20parent%20household.