Premium Essay

Personal Narrative: The Black Lives Matter Movement

Submitted By
Words 501
Pages 3
It’s Not a Moment, It’s a Movement
I will always remember the racism. I was only about eight years old, but I will always remember running home from the bus crying. My peers would yell racial slurs in my face, attacking not only me but my family as well and make fun of me because my hair texture was “too black” for their liking. When I was younger I did not understand why. Why was there so much hate towards me? Towards my mom? Towards Black people in general? All because of our complexion. As I got older I became proud to be black. Despite all the racism that I have experienced in my life and what is to come, I will always be proud of who I am and what I am. I am very much pro-black. I have a huge desire to see the black race succeed even when society tries to hold it back. I want the oppression to stop. I want the justice system to …show more content…
I just want my people to be viewed as people. This is why I believe in the Black Lives Matter Movement.
The Black Lives Matter Movement is not something that was created to say that White lives, Mexican lives, Chinese lives or any life is less important than a Black life. It is solely a movement that broadens the conversation around state violence to include all of the ways in which Black people are intentionally left powerless at the hands of the state. To point out and to do something about how Black lives are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity. Anyone who tries to say, “All lives matter, not just Black lives!” is correct and has every right to think that. However, in my opinion they have no respect. People who say things like that are simply trying to take the attention away from where it is

Similar Documents

Free Essay

My Name

...the stages of drafting, revising, and editing before handing them in for a grade. I will give you all assignments in writing posted to Blackboard; also I will post all reading material on Blackboard or we’ll retrieve materials through online sources; thus there are no texts to buy for this course. Requirements You will complete approximately four graded assignments over the course of this semester – comprised of the following: 1. Politics, government policy, and/or social and cultural issues. Some of you may be interested and engaged in these matters already – such matters as economic theory and policy, immigration, gun rights vs. sensible gun regulation, health care policy, veteran affairs and funding, equal pay for women, women’s access to abortion and contraception, the right wing’s current attempt to defund Planned Parenthood; the Tea Party vs. . . . ALL government at large; race issues (the Black Lives Matter movement and all that it entails, especially policing in minority communities and minority profiling); voter rights vs. draconian voter ID laws and eliminating early voting; drug policies; foreign policy (involvement/intervention vs. isolationism; military involvement vs. diplomatic/economic solutions to conflict, e.g., the current debate...

Words: 1143 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

Slavery Narratives

...Describe the genre of Slave Narrative in his essentials on the basis of an example. What was the role of the genre for the abolitionist movement? Anti-slavery literature was very important for the abolitionists` fight against slavery. The Slave Narratives took a special importance because of the fact that slaves reported from the personal perspective. They described autobiographically how the life in captivity looked like. Consequently, they disputed the description of slave keeper, which were played down and romanticized. Frederick Douglass, one of the former slaves, wrote his story on his own, whereas some who couldn´t write and read (who were illiterate), dictated their stories to abolitionists. Those wrote and published these stories. Moreover, the Slave Narratives always were authenticated in preface and epilogues from whiteness. In the following part, I will quote many a time from the autobiography of the mentioned Frederick Douglass‘ “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass“ “Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder. It required extraordinary barbarity on the part of an overseer to affect him. He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers...

Words: 1435 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Dehumanization African Americans

...to discriminate against and disenfranchise Black people is the creation of the other category to describe African-Americans. They created this category using two main tactics. These tactics include: using religion to justify the dehumanization of black people and using white pride to ensure black people always remain the most disenfranchised group in America (always below poor white Americans). During the slave era, white people used the bible to justify the dehumanization of the black race. They claimed that it was god's will for black people to be slaves. Ta-nehisi Coates includes (in his article) a quote from Jefferson Davis on the eve of secession who argues that the “degradation...

Words: 1226 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

The Legacy of Frederick Douglass’ Hardships and Courageousness

...influenced many famous abolitionists with his literary works, and this impact, coupled with his desire to write an expose about oppression in America, makes him a winning candidate. Although his published works, mostly autobiographies, received much acclaim from abolitionists, this paper explores the quality of Douglass’s work from a literary standpoint. To fully appreciate the impact of Douglass’s autobiographies, we must examine violent period in which he lived. Douglass, born in 1818, grew up as a slave on Colonel Lloyd’s plantation in eastern Maryland. At the time, abolitionist movements started gaining speed as popular parties in the North. In the North, pro-slavery white mobs attacked black communities in retaliation for their efforts. By the time Douglass escaped from slavery, in 1838, tensions ran high among abolitionists and slaveowners. Slaves published accounts of their traumatic escapes, and their lives in slavery, mainly with the help of...

Words: 2240 - Pages: 9

Premium Essay

Bibliographic Essay on African American History

...references, including Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Evelyn Brooks Higgingbotham, ed., Harvard Guide to African American History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); Arvarh E. Strickland and Robert E. Weems, Jr., eds., The African American Experience: An Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001); and Randall M. Miller and John David Smith, eds., Dictionary of Afro- American Slavery (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1988), provide informative narratives along with expansive bibliographies. General texts covering major historical events with attention to chronology include John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000), considered a classic; along with Joe William Trotter, Jr., The African American 1  Experience (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001); and, Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, and Stanley Harrold, The African American Odyssey (Upper Saddle River: Printice-Hall, Inc., 2000). Other general texts not to be overlooked are Colin A. Palmer’s Passageways: An Interpretive History of Black America Vol. I: 1619-1863 and Vol. II (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1998), which emphasizes culture; and, Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson’s Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black...

Words: 6155 - Pages: 25

Free Essay

Art Review

...artist proved that comics can be read and displayed in more ways than one. Kerry James Marshall incorporated his own comic strip into a site specific installation work that he presented covering the glass panels of the display cases in a museum. He titled this piece Rythm Mastr, produced in 1999-2000 the 20 (17 X 11 inch) double page, two-sided printed newspaper comics where made using a photocopy of ink drawing and design marker on paper. This piece is a representational narrative that Marshall uses to try and bridge the gap between modern art and African art. Throughout the comic strip there are many visual elements incorporated into the work, I will point out a few of these. One of the first visual elements that I noticed was the artist’s use of implied time and motion, which is defined as “non-moving image(s) that shows movement through the attributed present in the image.” For example take the stances of the figures and superheroes in the comic strip, each one has its own individual way of showing movement, whether it is the front foot being lifted off the ground, or the arms coming out from the figures sides as it is about to step forward. The artist does a skillful job of showing the implied time and motion this way. The second visual element that caught my attention was the dominant use of primary colors in the color scheme throughout the strip. The primary colors are red, yellow, and blue; they are described as being primary “because theoretically they cannot be made...

Words: 1233 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

Shards of Memories, Fragments of Sorrows: Mothertongue Transforming Spaces Occupied by Women in South Africa Through Theatre

...Africa through Theatre This paper sets out to explore how processes of theatre making employed by The Mothertongue project, provide spaces for women to remap their personal narratives. Mothertongue works from the premise that the development and subsequent performance of stories in theatrical processes affords women the opportunity to re-write and remap their personal narratives and in so doing insert their voices into the landscape of South African Theatre. In an attempt to redress the gender imbalances and androcentricism prevalent in post-apartheid theatre, this paper speaks to the relationship between theatre, liminality and communitas. I am interested in unpacking how collaborative processes of theatre-making provide spaces for women to remap their personal narratives. Remapping in this instance refers to processes of transforming lived experience through story. I address how, through engaging in ritual activities that are central to the stories performed, actors, audiences and the owners of the source stories are invited to physically participate in remapping and transforming lived experience. Linked to this is the choice of form(s) and how this affects or impacts on the performed stories as well as on the construction of performed rituals and ultimately on the processes of remapping personal narratives. I focus specifically on Mothertongue’s 2004 production, Uhambo: pieces of a dream. The production was an integration of theatre and visual art in the form of performances...

Words: 7672 - Pages: 31

Free Essay

French New Wave

...An artistic movement whose influence on film has been as profound and enduring as that of surrealism or cubism on painting, the French New Wave (or Le Nouvelle Vague) made its first splashes as a movement shot through with youthful exuberance and a brisk reinvigoration of the filmmaking process. Most agree that the French New Wave was at its peak between 1958 and 1964, but it continued to ripple on afterwards, with many of the tendencies and styles introduced by the movement still in practice today… French New Wave The New Wave (French: La Nouvelle Vague) was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of classical cinematic form and their spirit of youthful iconoclasm. "New Wave" is an example of European art cinema. Many also engaged in their work with the social and political upheavals of the era, making their radical experiments with editing, visual style and narrative part of a general break with the conservative paradigm. Using portable equipment and requiring little or no set up time, the New Wave way of filmmaking presented a documentary type style. The films exhibited direct sounds on film stock that required less light. Filming techniques included fragmented, discontinuous editing, and long takes. The combination of objective realism...

Words: 10418 - Pages: 42

Premium Essay

Uncle Toms Cabin Thesis

...dating back to the 1600’s in Jamestown, Virginia. In the 1850’s, slavery was widespread across the Southern states viewing blacks as inferior, which made the action morally acceptable in their eyes. Within the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was established, allowing slave catchers to travel into free states to capture runaway slaves and stating that private citizens must assist in capturing the slaves or else they’d be fined or jailed. Harriet Beecher Stowe, American author and abolitionist, found the idea of taking part in such a wrongful system as the one that was put into effect by the compromise, to be completely immoral and wanted nothing to...

Words: 952 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Art and Story Proceedings 2004

...Arts and the Education of Artists: Art and Story CONTENTS SECTION ONE: Marcel’s Studio Visit with Elstir……………………………………………………….. David Carrier SECTION TWO: Film and Video Narrative Brief Narrative on Film-The Case of John Updike……………………………………. Thomas P. Adler With a Pen of Light …………………………………………………………………… Michael Fink Media and the Message: Does Media Shape or Serve the Story: Visual Storytelling and New Media ……………………………………………………. June Bisantz Evans Visual Literacy: The Language of Cultural Signifiers…………………………………. Tammy Knipp SECTION THREE: Narrative and Fine Art Beyond Illustration: Visual Narrative Strategies in Picasso’s Celestina Prints………… Susan J. Baker and William Novak Narrative, Allegory, and Commentary in Emil Nolde’s Legend: St. Mary of Egypt…… William B. Sieger A Narrative of Belonging: The Art of Beauford Delaney and Glenn Ligon…………… Catherine St. John Art and Narrative Under the Third Reich ……………………………………………… Ashley Labrie 28 15 1 22 25 27 36 43 51 Hopper Stories in an Imaginary Museum……………………………………………. Joseph Stanton SECTION FOUR: Photography and Narrative Black & White: Two Worlds/Two Distinct Stories……………………………………….. Elaine A. King Relinquishing His Own Story: Abandonment and Appropriation in the Edward Weston Narrative………………………………………………………………………….. David Peeler Narrative Stretegies in the Worlds of Jean Le Gac and Sophe Calle…………………….. Stefanie Rentsch SECTION FIVE: Memory Does The History of Western Art Tell a Grand Story?……………………………………...

Words: 117240 - Pages: 469

Premium Essay

Cost Management

...........................................................3 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY GUIDE............................................................................3 MEETING COMMON CORE STANDARDS.............................................................3 THE SLAVE NARRATIVE GENRE...............................................................................3 HISTORICAL OVERVIEW..........................................................................................................4 DURING READING.....................................................................................................................6 SYNTHESIZING DISCUSSION QUESTIONS.......................................................................9 ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES.......................................................................................................9 ACTIVITIES FOR USING THE FILM ADAPTATION........................................................ 11 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES................................................................................................... 13 ABOUT THE AUTHORS OF THIS GUIDE.......................................................................... 13 Also available in a black-spine Penguin Classics edition Copyright © 2014 by Penguin Group (USA) For additional teacher’s manuals, catalogs, or descriptive brochures, please email academic@penguin.com or write to: PENGUIN GROUP (USA) Academic Marketing Department 375...

Words: 7281 - Pages: 30

Premium Essay

Assorted

...wall of literary structure. * If we miss one detail of the story,it would be incomplete comprehension for the readers. * The most important reason why we study literature is not about “what” but “How”.(Literature statement should be beyond peripheral) * Theme * Main idea of literary work is usually a structural decision,comparable to an architectural decisions. * consistency of the chosen theme/ex:”Native”/Filipino * Literary Terms 1. Symbol 2. Simile 3.Metaphor 4.Images 5.Diction 6.Denotation/Connotation * Literary Genres * are determined by literary technique, tone content & by critics’ definitions of the genres * a category , type or class Literature 1. Allegory : A narrative w/c litetal meaning corresponds clearly &...

Words: 1452 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Afro-Americans In West Germany

...Afro-Americans in Germany The free-of- Jim-Crow ambience in Germany had influenced Afro-American soldiers so much that their “experiences in postwar and Cold War West Germany thus proved pivotal in the struggle against racial discrimination in America” (Hön and Klimke 1). America’s contradictory attitudes of leading the free world and at the same time hosting institutionalized racism was targeted by “the Soviet and Eastern German propagandists” (Hön and Klimke 2). What worsened matters, Jim Crow segregations were carried out in German communities. “The failure of African-American units thus were attributed to the African-Americans, and in the cases where black units achieved successes, credit went to the white officers leading them” (Schroer 47). However, “in May 1946, for the first time a majority of white Americans polled agreed that “Negroes are as intelligent as white people”” (Schroer 71). 1964 showed examples of the American government’s handling of the problem of racism producing “The President’s Committee on Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces, Final Report: Military Personnel Stationed Overseas” (Hön and Klimke 3). One of the most important examples of collaboration between GIs and civilians in fighting for racial equality was “the “Call for Justice” meeting...

Words: 1546 - Pages: 7

Free Essay

No File

...Canterbury Tales Webquest Today you are going to research background information about Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales. Anything not completed in class should be finished for HW. - Use the links to answer the questions listed below. - Please PARAPHRASE your answers rather than copying and pasting information. You may type your answers directly into the document and print when finished. 1. Geoffrey Chaucer 1. What kind of writer was he? He is a realistic writer. 2. What were the years of his birth and death? Born 1340/44, died 1400. 3. Where was he from? London, England 4. What was his “masterpiece”? The Canterbury Tales http://www.bartleby.com/65/ch/Chaucer.html 2. What is a pilgrimage? (You should already know this from our vocab. quiz.) A pilgrimage is a journey or search of moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith, although sometimes it can be a metaphorical journey in to someone's own beliefs. 3. Define prologue. The preface or introduction to a literary work. http://www.webster.com (or other dictionary site) 4. Where is Canterbury? Canterbury is located in Kent county, south-east of London. It is home to the Caterbury cathedral, the burial site of King Henry IV. What famous...

Words: 1953 - Pages: 8

Free Essay

Community Development

...USA Tourism can serve as a vehicle for sustainable community development by contributing to equity and social justice. This happens as tourists learn about marginal groups through educational tourism, engage in development projects with host-area residents, undertake pilgrimages that bring greater meaning and cohesiveness to an ethnic identity, or encounter stories that transform their view of social injustice and spur further action to reduce inequities. Tourism planning can produce a sense of reconciliation when it brings historically divided groups together. An example is found in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, where a group of white and African American residents are collaborating to develop tourism projects designed around a narrative of reconciliation, while they use the process of tourism planning to work towards racial reconciliation within their community. This case illustrates strategies tourism planners employ and challenges they face when they envision tourism as more than merely a means of economic growth. Keywords: heritage tourism; Mississippi Delta; racial reconciliation; social justice; sustainable community development The advantages of tourism to rural communities are generally painted as economic: developing a tourism industry brings in ‘‘fresh’’ dollars, provides jobs and offers opportunities for local entrepreneurship (National Agricultural Library, 2008; World Travel & Tourism...

Words: 13627 - Pages: 55