Double-Entry Journal - Weekly Homework
Name & Course Section: Jerrick Ventress 140.09
Week: 2
Reading / Viewing Assignment: Recitatif and History of Race
Date: 08-29-08
Understanding/Note taking: Identify thesis and
main points of article. Summarize text that is
intriguing, puzzling, or moving, or which connects
to a previous entry or situation. Note vocabulary
and major concepts.
Interpretation/reflection: Connect notes from the left side to
yourself and to the world around you. How do you “feel” about
what you read? What ideas does the reading stimulate? How
does it relate to the learning objectives indicated for the unit?
How does it impact you as a scholar/activist? Metacognition:
Examine how you’re “thinking” about this topic? Why was that
your first reaction? After reflection, how might you broaden
you perspective?
Recitatif (reading)
Race-less-ness, defined as a life without the
thought of race. “Recitatif” tells the story
of the conflicted friendship between two
girls; one black and one white. From the
time they meet and bonded at the age of
eight while staying at an orphanage,
through their re-acquaintance as mothers
on different sides of economic, political,
and racial divides in a recently gentrified
town in upstate New York. In the story, the
two main characters’ (Twyla and Roberta)
skin color is never revealed. Instead
Morrison depicts how society defines
themselves in opposition to one another.
Recitatif
I found the reading very intriguing. Especially the
significance of Maggie, “the kitchen woman with
legs like parenthesis”. To me, she is a target of
violence for the gar-girls at St. Bonny’s, mainly
because she is what I thought is light skinned. (Sand
colored) This story is all about racial stereotypes. By
making both Twyla and Roberta a "mix" of black and
white stereotypes, Morrison deliberately makes it
impossible for the reader to determine which girl is
white and which is black--just as Maggie's race
cannot be determined. While it is race that tears the
two friends apart, the differences between them are
so unclear that the reader does not even know which
is which. The girls, or women realize at the end of the
story just how reality and “the real world has changed
them”. When Roberta asks, “What the hell happened
to Maggie?”, I think she is really asking what
happened to them.
History of Race (reading)
There is not a definition or even a
characterization of race. “Race is a cultural
construct”. In the middle of the 20th
century, a new generation of historians
began to take another look at the
beginnings of the American experience.
Race originated as a folk idea and ideology
about human differences; it was a social
invention, not a product of science. It is
widely and popularly believed that in 1619
colonists brought Africans to the New
World as slaves from the beginning and
that Europeans were “naturally” prejudiced
toward Africans because of their physical
characteristics, specifically dark skin.
Consequently, the first Africans who
History of Race (reading)
In my opinion race shouldn’t be defined. Simply
because race simply doesn’t have a definition. We are
all human beings and should be treated accordingly.
Man created the characterization of humans, race.
Not Science.
History of Race (video)
I found the story of the Little Rock Nine to be very
interesting as this occurred about 30 minutes from
my hometown. The fact that they would close the
public schools instead of dealing with integration is
somewhat depressing though. I learned that there are
arrived in Jamestown were not initially or
uniformly perceived as slaves. They were
assimilated into the colony as laborers
under varying contracts like those of
Europeans. Some Africans worked off their
debts and became freedmen. Edmund
Morgan wrote, “There is more than a little
evidence that Virginians during these years
were ready to think of Negroes as members
or potential member of the community on
the same terms as other men. By midcentury, the colony was in a crisis. In 1676,
the most famous rebellion took place. Led
by Nathaniel Bacon, this uprising of
thousand of poor workers was the first
major threat to social stability. The
rebellion dissipated after the death of
bacon, but they soon recognized the need
for a stratagem to prevent such occurrences
in the future. The decisions that the rulers
of the colony made during the last decades
of the 17th century and the first quarter of
the 18th century resulted in the
establishment of racial slavery. There were
critical reasons for the preference for
Africans. As early as the 1630s, planters
had expressed a desire for African laborers.
The often wrote, “We cannot survive
without Africans!”
History of Race (video)
Court cases such as Brown v. Board of
Education and Plessy v. Ferguson helped
abolish racism throughout the U.S.
Congress enacted two significant measures
that, initially, were designed to overturn
race-based discrimination against blacks.
The first was the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
which barred discrimination in public
facilities and employment, and the second
was the Voting Rights Act, barring
practices aimed at disenfranchising black
voters. These Acts and Court Cases helped
bring to an end instances such as the Little
Rock Nine had to encounter. When the
Little Rock school board voted to integrate
their school system in 1957, the decision
still some public school, especially in suburban areas,
that are still segregated.
was not expected to meet much resistance.
The situation turned into a crisis, however,
when the Little Rock Nine, the nine
African American students who integrated
Central High, attempted to enroll in
September of that year. Arkansas Governor
Orval Faubus called upon the National
Guard to prevent them. The students again
tried and failed to attend later that month.
The following day President Dwight
Eisenhower deployed troops from the 101st
Airborne to Little Rock to protect the
students, who were admitted, but endured a
year of physical and verbal abuse. Little
Rock then took their final option to avoid
integration, and closed its public schools
the next year, 1958.