Invisible Man - Identity Essay submitted by Doug Lee "Who the hell am I?" (Ellison 386) This question puzzled the invisible man, the unidentified, anonymous narrator of Ralph Ellison's acclaimed novel Invisible Man. Throughout the story, the narrator embarks o...

African Americans, with their traditionally African features have always had an uneasy coexistence with the European (white) ideal of beauty. Angela Neal and Midge Wilson argues that "compared to black males, black females have been more profoundly affected by the prejudicial fallout surround...

"Liberalism vs. Inegalitarian Traditions in American Political Culture, With Regards to Racial and Ethnic Minorities" American political culture is wrought with conflict over the competing traditions of liberalism and it's contradictory inegalitarian ideologies. Liberalism ho...

Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye Background Toni Morrison, a black American, was born in 1931in Lorain, Ohio. She grew up in an environment steeped in black culture. She had a family that encouraged her to be proud of her origins, believe in herself. At school she was the only black child in the c...

It has been said that historically, black women have been absent from much feminist theory, both in feminist literature and black literature. (Watkins, pp165) Two writers that are working to change this "HIStory", are Toni Morrison and Melissa Lucashenko. These writers' are both black...

PEARL'S SECRET Neil Henry's Pearl's Secret is a fascinating autobiographical journey of an African American man's search for his racial identity. Henry is a light-skinned African American man who tries to piece together a few scraps passed down in his family and many years of...

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: PUBLIC OPINION VS. POLICY When Justin Ketcham, a white college student from the suburbs, thinks about affirmative action, he thinks about what happened when he sent out letters seeking scholarships so he could attend Stanford University after being accepted during his senior ...

It seems unfair that the pages of our history books or even the lecturers in majority of classrooms speak very little of the accomplishments of blacks. They speak very little of a period within black history in which many of the greatest musicians, writers, painters, and influential paragon'' e...

The idea of blackness is not a simple experience to discuss. Blackness is not just the literal, visual complexion. It is also how blacks are socially and economically identified. One's blackness is almost always identified with one's skin complexion. Within the black community a hierarchy exist...

In the times of slavery, there were two popular stereotypes of a black female – the loyal mammy and the promiscuous temptress. The former represented an "adamantine, kind, unattractive, and sexless woman" and it justified "abusive treatment of black women on the grounds that th...

RACISM IN AMERICA Blacks were introduced to American soil during the 17th and 18th centuries via the triangular trade route, and were welcomed by whips, chains, shackles, and all the horrors of slavery. Slavery was legitimized by our government and continued for a few hundred years, taking a civi...

From years 1505 to 1870, the world underwent the largest forced migration in history. West Africa was soon to be convulsed by the arrival of Europeans and become the advent of the transatlantic slave trade. Ships from Europe, bound for America, appeared on the horizon, and their captains and sailor...

John Sayle\'s film, Lone Star, is about crossing borders, challenging the past, and dealing with the burden of history in both the personal and the public sphere. Painted on a very broad canvas, Lone Star is an epic film touching on many themes, including racism, illegal immigration, the corruption ...

The People, Leisure, and Culture of BlacksDuring the Harlem RenaissanceIt seems unfair that the pages of our history books or even the lecturers in majority of classrooms speak very little of the accomplishments of blacks. They speak very little of a period within black history in which many of the...

Theoretical Analysis PaperThe Life and Studies of W.E.B. Du BoisPhillip StaytonSocial TheoryProf. Wilcox11/13/2000William Edward Burghardt Du Bois entered the world on February 23, 1868. This was less than three years after slavery was outlawed. However, his family had been out of slavery for seve...

Spike Lee's representation of the severed relations between the racial groups that co-exist in the community of Bed Sty throws the question of "what is the right thing to do" and also "is there such thing as truth," right into our faces forcing us to grapple with them. With the presentation of oppos...