Skip to main content

                         "I Am Not Your Negro" by James Baldwin.







In this piece, American civil rights activist and author James Baldwin discusses racism in the United States in the 1960's.  It's a radical narration about race in America based on his personal essays from the 1950's and 1960's.  It is also a reflection of civil rights leaders, Malcom X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Medgar Evers.

“You never had to look at me. I had to look at you. I know more about you than you know about me. Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

This particular quote resonates with me because it reminds me of how certain individuals can be biased or racist against a single person or group without even speaking to them.  This quote examines some of the assumptions made about African-American's in the 1960's through the eyes of James Baldwin.  It depicts the end of racial discrimination and radical segregation in the United States through the Civil Rights Movement.

“History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history. If we pretend otherwise, we are literally criminals."

This quote reminds me of the Washington Post article "The long history of violence against Asian Americans that led up tp Atlanta" by Jeff Chang.  The article was written in the present.  It discusses how Asian Americans have been dehumanized throughout history.  The horrific events endured by Asian Americans I'm sure have not been forgotten.  It would be criminal to forget these tragedies.






Civil Rights Movement: Timeline, Key Events & Leaders - HISTORY

Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 9, 2021 at 8:56 AM

    Hi Kara,

    I liked the quote you pulled out about the faces we make at each other allows us to already know about a particular person if so accurate. Being a white American I really have not had to experience this myself but I am trying to put myself in the shoes of an African American and trying to think about how I would feel if I am simply going to the grocery store or going to get a coffee and having to get all these faces looks at me. This really opens my eyes to how privileged we are as White Americans and how much we need to do better as a society.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

  In Sickness and in Wealth of "Unnatural Causes" (video) This video documents some of the disparities and inequalities we are facing in the United States of America.  The video is time stamped in 2008.  At that time, 2 trillion dollars is being spent on healthcare and 47 million people are without healthcare.  A couple of important questions are addressed.  Firstly, Is inequality making us sick? and Why are we getting sick?   This video mentions that lack of health insurance is not the cause of illness.  It addresses other factors such as access to income, education, and social determinants of health to be some of the main causes of illness.  Per the Louisville, KY study, living in a more affluent area allowed a greater life expectancy, more resources to manage stress, ability to buy healthier food, access to child care, and opportunity for vacations. Social gradients of disease were mentioned.  The top tier has better health and the bottom tier has worse health and excess d
2 comments
Read more
       Abolitionist teaching and the future of our                         schools (video).                              Bettina Love author, We Want to Do More Than Survive,  Gholdy Muhammad author, Cultivating Genius, Dena Simmons author, White Rules for Black People moderated by Brian Jones of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture come together to share their common interest in abolitionist teaching.           I really appreciated Gholdy Muhammad's approach to abolitionist teaching.  Her model has four goals in mind.  Identity, Skills, Intellect, and Criticality.  This model keeps the whole child in mind and creates equality for all students with each goal building upon the other.  Bettina Love adds, "abolitionist education is starting over, evening the playing field, and a push for all humanity."  Abolitionist teaching is a way of life.  We need to abolish the education system that is oppressive.  Steering away from standardized tests, state mandates, out
2 comments
Read more