Mindi Hayes
Essay 2
English 1050-400
Professor Briggs
A Day When Color Won’t Matter
Two influential speeches given some 150 years apart both preaching the same thing of trying to
finds ways to come together and to stop seeing each other for anything else except who we are as
individuals. In 1852 Fredrick Douglass gave an incredibly humbling speech and said “We have
to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future” (Douglass pg.
464). I believe that in 2008 President Barack Obama was mirroring the same thoughts we he said
“I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them togetherunless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories but we hold
common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place,
but we all want to move in the same direction-towards a better future” (Obama pg. 476). Will
there ever be a time that we don’t walk down the street and judge someone based on their color,
their sex or their religion? Will there ever be a time that the past will be the past and we won’t
hold what others did in the past against those that stand next to us today?
When is it that diversity, in a negative aspect, is learned? Is it instilled in us from the beginning?
For most of us the answer would be no, or there wouldn’t be sweet picture of two toddlers sitting
in the sand with their arms around each other, one child being black, one child being white,
neither one of them knowing there is a difference, or neither one of them caring. Young children
don’t recognize those differences, so when do we learn it?
I believe we can be taught a type of racism through different events in history. “Oral histories
offer the personal perspectives of people who are caught up in the history of their time.” (George
and Trimbur pg. 484). We can learn from the fictional character Annie John, created by Jamaica
Kincaid. Annie is a young black girl growing up in Antigua. She is conflicted about being proud
of where she lives with her family, and feeling the need to defend her ancestors that were slaves.
Annie is studying the events of Christopher Columbus and can’t help but feel some resentment
towards him for his part in slavery. As Annie is looking at a picture of Columbus you can get a
sense of pleasure that she feels when she studies the picture and says “His hands and feet were
bound up in chains, and he was sitting there staring off into space, looking quite dejected and
miserable…How I loved this picture-to see the usually triumphant Columbus, brought so low…”
(Kincaid pg. 500). If this were a real life scenario, and the comment would have been made out
loud, wouldn’t that have made a great teaching moment? Yes he participated in slavery, not that
it made it right, but that was the ways of the world back then. We should forgive him for his part,
and be grateful for what he did do.
What was it about that photograph that made Annie look at it differently than say the white girl
sitting next to her? They both studied the same book, they both heard the same stories, yet their
views, feelings and thoughts on Columbus, and the picture could be completely different. Alan
Trachtenberg says “what enables an image to represent history is not just what it shows but the
struggle for meaning we undergo before it, a struggle analogous to the historian’s effort to shape
an intelligible and usable past” (Trachtenberg pg. 490).
When we look at pictures of past and current events that are showing diversity issues we know
that the picture does not speak the same way to every single person. We can take for instance the
picture of the black boy giving all the police officers in Baltimore bottles of water as they stand
around to try and restore peace, or the picture of the young black boy embracing a white cop on
the streets of Ferguson. To me that picture is a boy sees no color, he sees someone who he was
told would protect him, he is holding on to him in hopes of finding safety during a violent time.
His parents probably taught him to see everyone for who they are not what color they are.
However, would the person in Ferguson who is struggling with the white cop/black person issue
feel the same? Or would they look at the picture in disgust that the young boy didn’t reach for
someone who wasn’t against them?
We have come so far as a nation since Douglass’ speech in 1852, yet it seems there is still so far
to go, to stop seeing people for the color of their skin and only for who they are as people. When
some of individuals of different races will stop holding the past against the white people they
may stand next to. In a time when our world is so uncertain we need to find a way to lift each
other up not tear each other down.
I truly have never thought much about racism directly impacting me until almost two years ago.
My daughter began to date and started dating the nicest young man. I didn’t think much of their
relationship being something that stood out to people until I had one of the other cheer mom’s
turn to me at an event and asked how I felt about my “daughter dating a black boy. Aren’t you
worried they might work out and then they will have to deal with people always looking at
them”. I turned to her and said that I didn’t think people could do much worse than what she had
just done. If the young man treats my daughter the way she should be treated, would work hard
to provide for her and loves her, what more could I possibly ask for? It is astounding to me that
people really do still feel that mix race couples should not exist. Ashleah Hudson said in the
discussion for week 3 that “Obama’s topic of racism in this nation is very powerful and I think it
is great how he talks about how his own family is very diverse. Obama’s speech is to try and get
our nation to look at this topic in a wider perspective. Instead of thinking about people as whites,
blacks, and Asians we need to be thinking about the other more troublesome issues that surround
us”. That is exactly where our thoughts need to focused, not focused on my daughter’s
boyfriend’s skin color. I was blessed to welcome this young man in to my family and I blessed to
be welcoming my first grandchild in a few short weeks.
This class has brought so much to my attention that I have paid attention to, but have never really
stopped and thought about, and actually had to put my feelings and thoughts in writing. The
issues dealing with signs meaning one thing in English and another in Spanish. Photographs
taken and purposely not explained so that they only tell one side of the story. Tours called slum
tours that basically parade people that live in poverty. I had no idea tours like this even existed.
Posters from around World War II that exploit women in a very negative fashion. I am grateful
for the opportunities this class provided, the opportunities to open my eyes and really see the
diversity that is around us. I appreciated what Courtney Healey said in our week 1 discussion
post when she said “When we are comfortable and in our homogeneous groups, we tend to be
more relaxed and we are not worried that we might say or do something different that would
upset another person. With diverse groups, we are able to understand and learn more about
others perspectives. We may need to work harder, and change our ways of thinking about
different groups or individuals, but if we do, we will expect to learn more about our own
surroundings that we may not have seen before.”
Works Cited
Douglass, Frederick. "What to a slave is the Fourth of July?" George, Diana and John Trimbur. Reading
Culture 8th Edition. Pearson, 2012. 460-475.
George, Diana and John Trimbur. Reading Culture 8th Edition. Pearson, 2012.
Kincaid, Jamaica. "Columbus in Chains." George, Diana and John Trimbur. Reading Culture 8th Edition.
Pearson, 2012. 498-503.
Obama, Barack. "A More Perfect Union." George, Diana and John Trimbur. Reading Culture 8th Edition.
Pearson, 2012. 476-483.
Trachtenberg, Alan. "Reading American Photographs." George, Diana and John Trimbur. Reading Culture
8th Edition. Pearson, 2012. 489-495.