Regarding your behavior

Shantara Propst

University Student

African American Studies- Major

1234 5^th Ave SW Washington, DC 20012

Phone: (123)-456-7890

 

November 29, 2009

 

Kanye West

Hip Hop Artist and Producer

2345 6^th St NW Chicago, IL 26789

Phone: (098)-765-4321

 

Dear Mr. West:

Let me first start by saying that I am a fan of yours. I own all of your albums and mixtapes to date. I am writing this letter in respects to your recent outburst during the VH1 music awards. The incident has created tons of noticeable publicity for you but it has also brought up many questions regarding your career, who you are as a person, and the image you are showing the world of Black men who have acquired power.

 

My question to you on your behavior in this incident and the outburst before Mr. West is Why? Why did you feel it necessary to interrupt Taylor Swift’s thank-you speech? Why did you feel the need to tell the world the President Bush does not care about Black people? The later of the two was necessary and your intentions seemed genuine because the world could see the terror in your eyes as you spoke those words, but the Taylor Swift incident was not called for. You could have waited until an interview later to state your opinion; that was not the time, nor the place to say what you said. Even if it needed to be said you should have waited.

 

In my opinion this was merely a publicity stunt. One that succeeded past your expectations, because after the award show no one was talking about Janet Jackson’s performance, everyone was talking about you. In your chase for the spotlight you stole it from people who truly deserved it. Janet Jackson, Taylor Swift and even yourself. You fought someone else’s battle and lost your own. You lost your awards and you feel as if you may have disappointed your mother. Mr. West I think next time you should think long and hard before you act on a situation just for publicity.

 

One last thing I would like you to consider is the image you are sending the world of Black men in America. You are setting the tone for a new description of Black Men whom acquire power. An arrogant, cocky rude fool is the image that you are portraying. It is hard enough for Black men to succeed as is but, you are slowly but surely contributing to making this even harder for these brothers. THINK ABOUT YOUR ACTIONS MR. WEST! They affect more than just you.

 

Sincerely,

            Shantara Propst

Black Men and Public Space

Black Men and Public Space is an essay by Brent Staples about him realizing and understanding his own ability to alter public space in "ugly ways." The stereotypes of black men give many people, black and white, the impression that black men are dangerous. The act of a white woman clenching her purse while in the presence of a black man is not new. This action happens a countless amount of times a day, but why? I don't understand why black men are the only men that are stereotyped as bad or dangerous? There are plenty of white men that commit the same crimes that black men are stereotyped as commiting.

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS MY ENEMY

In Ossie Davis' The English Language is My Enemy, Davis explores the definition of BLACKNESS, by comparing its synonyms to the the synonyms of WHITENESS. He explains that the thesaurus of his choice has 134 synonyms for WHITENESS and the majority of those were favorable terms. BLACKNESS on the other hand had 120 synonyms, none of which were positive, 60 which were distinctly unfavorable and 20 that were directly related to race. Davis goes on to say that " When you consider the fact that thinking itself is sub-vocal speech-- you will appreciate the enormous heritage of racial prejudgment that lies in wait for any child born into the English Language. Any teacher good or bad, white or black, Jew or Gentile, who uses the English Language as a medium of communication is forced, willy-nilly, to teach the Negro child 60 ways to despise himself, and the white child 60 ways to aid and abet him in the crime." Davis opened my eyes to the fact that blacks are subconsciously debased by the language that we speak. When one thinks of black, the first thing in their mind might be one of the synonyms Davis found :" evil, wicked, blot, blotch, threatening, malignant, unclean, deadly." So it makes a black person like myself wonder, when a white person sees me is this what they are thinking? Is this definition engraved in their mind so well as to think that this is what it means to be black? I hope not, because even though the dictionaries define black in a negative light, I know that black is beautiful. And maybe if they looked past the dictionaries and what they were taught in school for the definition of black-- they could see this too.

Revelations: an anthology of expository essays by and about blacks. Pg 163-164

image: http://media.photobucket.com/myblackisbeautiful

Saving a Life

Ben Carson proved himself to be an extraordinary man when he tackled a procedure that most surgeons do not attempt because of the possibility for the patients full recovery is slim to none. Before performing the hemispherectomy I presume that he prayed to God, because he himself stated that God lead his hands throughout the whole operation. Carson was precise when planning the steps and the people who were to be involved in his surgery; he had Dr. Knuckey by his side and he was going to take twice as long as previous surgeons had taken. Dr. Carson beat the odds and the surgery was a success, he removed the left-hemisphere of young Maranda's brain and accomplished the impossible. Even though I do not plan on becoming a surgeon I do want to be a Doctor, and this story inspires me to go above and beyond, even if the situation seems impossible.



Revelations: An anthology of Expository essays by and about blacks. Pg 122

The Black Founding Fathers

"The Black Founding Fathers," an essay by Lerone Bennet, discusses the breaking away of Black Americans from white institutions. It all started with St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church, when Reverend Absalom Jones was told he could not kneel in the church. After the prayer was concluded the "first mass demonstration in black American history" began. Soon after this demonstration blacks from many other cities began to walk out of white institutions and established their own. With the formation of African societies, Black leaders emerged, Churches were established as well as fraternal orders, schools, and Black American culture. This was a time when Black Americans stopped following Whites and developed their own path.


Revelations: An Anthology of expository essays by and about blacks. pg. 105-109

Never African Again

To deny your race, is to deny yourself. In Never African Again, Gerald Early told the reader  "Our profound past of being African, which we must never forget, must be balanced by the complex fate of being American, which we can never deny or, worse, evade. For we must accept who and what we are and the forces and the conditions that have made us this, not as defeat or triumph, not in shame or with grandiose pride, but as the tangled, strange, yet poignant and immeasurable record of an imperishable human presence." Many African Americans today are unsure of who they are as an African. We call ourselves African Americans but we do not really  know about the African side of being an African American. History books leave out our history, with the exception of briefly mentioning slavery and the civil rights movement;therefore we grow up without knowing who we are, and the power and strength of the people that we came from. We, as the next generation of African American leaders, must learn who we are completely as a person of African descent and as an American so that we do not deny our Past nor our Present, for these to elements combined will help map out our future.

Never African Again, Gerald Early--Revelations

Barack Obama-http://www.getreligion.org/wp-content/photos/barack_obama2.jpg

Picture 1- http://www.kids.ct.gov/kids/cwp/view.asp?a=2573&q=392862 

Their Eyes-Sense of Community

In Their Eyes Were Watching God there was a great sense of community. Hurston wrote about neighborhood friends convening in one location almost everyday to talk about everything and nothing at the same time. In the South this sense of community in African American culture is still present. In Hickory, North Carolina there is more than one location to convene partly because this area is not as small as the communities present during the time of Their Eyes. Many of the men gather in the barber shop, or Uncle Johnny's fish camp; and the women usually are together at someone's home cooking and gossiping. Community gatherings give African Americans a sense of belonging in a world that hasn't always accepted them. It gives them a chance to relax and finally be themselves.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston wrote on a topic that is still seen in today's society. Many call the discrimination of others within the same race colorism, but in the South, African Americans have termed it as the Light Skinned complex. In Their Eyes Hurston illustrates a character by the name of Mrs. Turner, she is a lighter skinned African American woman with some Caucasian features. Mrs. Turner dislikes all Blacks who are darker than her and 'bows down' to those who are lighter than her. This event is not new to the African American community we are always criticizing each other for the complexion of our skin, the texture of our hair and even the our facial features. This has led many African Americans to taking steps in changing there appearances. Some of these steps have been as small as getting hair relaxers, others are more extreme such as in plastic surgery. I believe that since for so long African Americans have been told we weren't beautiful and we don't belong we have gradually changed our perception of beauty. We criticize each other for what we were given at birth instead of embracing the natural and unique beauty that we were blessed with.

Muliculturalism: Diversity in Medicine

A seemingly normal day in February 2009, marked the shortest doctor's visit my grandmother has experienced in her nearly 60 years of living. She walked in the office signed in, and in a matter of moments a nurse called her back to a room. After the nurse screened her she left, and my grandmother waited patiently for the doctor. When the doctor entered the room he simply looked at this old, tired looking black woman and said, "I don't treat negro skin, but there is a colored doctor about three hours away that should be able to help you," then he was gone. Now I ask you why should my grandmother, or any person of color for that matter, have to drive three hours to see a colored physician? According to Vijayo Rao and Glenn Flores, African Americans make up nearly 13% of the U.S. population, but we are poorly represented in the medical field (African Americans are only 4.4% of all physicians and surgeons). I believe that some aspects of the American society are indeed diverse, but the medical field still needs another seminar or two on diversity; seeing as though the 4.4% has remained constant for the last 40 years (Rao). African Americans have the ability to make up a higher percentage of the physicians and surgeons of this country. We have proven ourselves worthy to become business owners, lawyers, and even the President of the United States. So what is holding us back from becoming physicians?

Sources: http://www.nmanet.org/images/uploads/Journal/OC986.pdf Vijayo Rao and Glenn Flores

Pictured: James Derham, the first African American to practice medicine.

Post Racism

"America, a post-racial society," sounds good to the ear but is this statement possible? There have been mixed emotions and comments about the issue but in the opinion of many; America is far from being a post-racial society. We have come along way from slavery and Jim Crow laws, but as a nation we still have a long way to go before we can even begin to think of ourselves as "post-racial." According to Elizabeth Landau from CNN,"you may be more racist than you think." The article is on a study that was done on how people "unconsciously harbor attitudes, even though they see themselves as tolerant and egalitarian"(CNN). If this study is true America can not be post-racial because racism is still present, even though it is not seen.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/07/racism.study/index.html

Photo found in the New York Post, February 2009.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/new-york-post-racist-cartoon-2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/%3Fp%3D19615&usg=__Bo3HwQuP8duL9mPCYMggCozK01A=&h=284&w=504&sz=110&hl=en&start=2&tbnid=obYH3qWOg2eBgM:&tbnh=73&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpost-racist%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den