...African American Literature November 4, 2015 The Legacy of the Tulsa Race Riot Greenwood, Tulsa Oklahoma, “Black Wall Street” In the early 20th century Greenwood, a neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was the most affluent and successful African American communities in the United States. The oil booms of the early 1900’s had many people moving to Tulsa for a chance at quick economic gains and African Americans hoped to prosper from the new industry as well. Tulsa, like many cities and towns throughout the US, was highly segregated, with African Americans settling into the northern areas of the city. The racial split gave African Americans the ability and motivation to make Greenwood a black entrepreneurial mecca. By 1920 black owned businesses were spread over a mile long. They included grocery stores, restaurants, and medical and law offices. The community also developed two daily newspapers. Greenwood Oklahoma’s success gave the town the popularly known name of “Black Wall Street”(Johnson). The hostile racism and success of the community lead the white people in Tulsa to develop spite and jealousy. These harsh feelings lead to one of the most damaging riots in history, killing over three hundred Oklahoma citizens and leaving over nine thousand homeless. The Indian Appropriations Bill was passed and signed into law in 1889, which authorized President Benjamin Harrison to open unassigned lands to white settlers. The passing of the bill lead to The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889...
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...The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 is considered to be one of the worst cases of racial violence in the history of the United States. It all started on May 30th, 1921, when a young black man, Dick Rowland entered an elevator being run by a 17-year-old white woman by the name of Sarah Page. The exact details of that short elevator ride are the cause of much speculation by it seems that as the elevator moved from the first to the third floor, the movement jostled Rowland into Page causing her to scream, “Rape!” So the question is, how can one singular scream directly ignite a small spark into a race fueled inferno? The events that transpired in Tulsa, Oklahoma began well before the first shots were fired or any bombs were dropped from above. This was...
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...Tulsa Oklahoma Race Riot Commission The Tulsa Race Riot began with a single shot fired in a lynching mob near the courthouse on May 31, 1921. Over two thousand White Americans crowded the courthouse with the intention to lynch Dick Rowland, a man accused of raping a white woman. Rowland had been heading to an elevator, where he worked, in order to reach the top floor colored restroom. On his way into the elevator, which had not stopped properly, he tripped and grabbed the arm of Sarah Page, a white operator woman. When a man heard her scream and saw Rowland running away from the building, he called authorities to report a sexual assault. To receive a fair trial, Rowland went to a court room in Greenwood, the black neighborhood of Tulsa....
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...3. What is the difference between a'smart' and a'smart'? My plan of action to convince the current Republican-dominated legislature of Oklahoma to provide reparations to the descendants of the Tulsa Race Riot would be to first inform the legislature of what the Tulsa Race Riot was: The Tulsa Race Riot, sometimes referred to as the Tulsa Race Massacre, was a tragic incident that happened in 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma's Greenwood District. A young black male and a white woman had an altercation in an elevator that resulted in false allegations and heightened tensions between the black and white people, setting off the riot. Greenwood, a thriving African American community, was completely devastated by the ensuing rioting, which saw houses and businesses...
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...predominantly white religious group, LGBT group, African American group, and Hispanic group- no other groups are mentioned) that represent students on campus are vying for funds to be allocated to them for their specific speaker. Because the LGBT group seemingly presented a better platform for their speaker, they received the majority of the money. The African American and Hispanic groups received less money. The predominantly white religious group was not mentioned as receiving money; however, a white group was mentioned as being at the riot and looking for a reason to loot and vandalize. The issue seems to have the following possibilities as to why the riot is happening: 1) racial/ethnic tensions already happening on campus seem to help spark the riot when certain groups did not get the money they wanted 2) the issue could also stem from a sexuality issue as the LGBT group received the majority of the money, yet the other groups are listed by race, the campus could have problems with sexuality and have issues with accepting 3) pride could...
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...Seminar Three Oral History Project Dorothy J. Klenow was a young girl but remembers some of the significant events that took place in her era. Dorothy was born in Iosco County November 21, 1938 which makes her 77 years old now. She lived through many different historical events from 1938 until now in 2015. Some of these are World War II, the Detroit Riots, and Marriage & Child-Rearing. Throughout this essay I’m going to touch upon all three of these historical events with a lot of facts about them and also with Dorothy’s words of remembrance of the historical events. The Detroit Race Riots that were held in Detroit, Michigan in the summer of 1967 was one of the most violent riots since Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968. The Detroit Race Riots stood as the largest urban uprising of the 1960s. Dorothy briefly remembers that she was there in Detroit when the riots started. She then had packed up the kids and left the city before anything to serious happened. That she didn’t want her or her family to be involved in the riot at all. Starting on “Sunday evening, July 22, the Detroit Police Vice Squad officers raided an after hours “blind pig,” an unlicensed bar on the corner of 12th Street and Clairmount Avenue in the center of the city’s oldest and poorest black neighborhood”. (Wang, 2007) There was a party that was taking place inside this bar that happened to be for two black men who had just returned home from Vietnam. Although the police had prepared for a few people who...
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...Question: 1(a) Write a detailed account of the Burma Road Riot in Nassau, Bahamas. So many of the most dramatic and significant social events in the Bahamas history were played out on the stage of Bay Street and, as a result of these events, Bay Street was turn into a place where Bahamians came together in display of unity and a place where they sought to act out dissenting viewpoints. The Nassau Riot in 1942 was a short- lived spontaneous outburst by a group of disgruntled Laborers according to source A. Before the riot of 1942, Bay Street could safely be called, a white controlled space. Although many blacks walked the sidewalks and even, when funds afforded it, shopped in the finer stores on Bay Street. It was with the knowledge that they were just visitors. Even though some blacks were allowed to work in the stores on Bay Street, the choice jobs were not available to them. A man who was admittedly colored could not even talk to a lady of a white family. Color separated the races in housing, education, occupation, and in social intercourse. Two Bases were to be built in Nassau, Oakes Field know as the Main Field and the other in the western end of the island know as Satellite Field. These two bases were to be constructed by the Pleasantville...
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...This forum focuses on the debt crisis in Greece (the 2010 EU/IMF “bailout” and subsequent austerity measures), as well as the various challenges that have been posed to the violence of neoliberal “adjustment.” The brief articles presented here have been solicited from observer-participants in the debates and protests, but also in the intimacies and banalities, defining everyday life in crisis Greece. The outlines of the crisis are widely known. Indeed, Greek society and its travails have never before been so visible to the global media eye. The aim of this forum is not so much to fill in this familiar outline of crisis with ethnographic detail as to trouble its parameters. The first section Debt, Responsibility and “Reform” treats debt not as a statistical fact, but anthropologically as a complex discourse on morality, responsibility, obligation and reciprocity. Against the breathless synchronicity of “breaking news” and (endless) speculation on the denouement of the crisis, these pieces insist on historicizing and globalizing. Piercing the blatant Orientalist tropes dominating international and often domestic reporting, they plumb the social, political and economic forces that have led to the current impasse, but also the political efficacy of “crisis” itself in legitimating the agenda of “structural reform.” The second section Precarity and Protest centers on the escalating violence of the crisis and the emergent politics of protest. The December 2008 revolt, which first...
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...Geez, there were many names given to these undead. Some called them demons, others called them lost souls. With all these names, I found only one that was truly worthy; Zombies. It was a simple word. At the same time it was the most complicated word to enter any human language. I mean just think about it... You say that word to anyone before the outbreak and what would they think of? They would, think of those horror movies or comic books where, for no reason what so ever, zombies appear all around the globe in an instance. That's not how it happened for us. There were signs for over two months. It's just that no one took the time to put the pieces together. I kind of did. I knew there was something more than what we were told about the riots and outbreaks, but I never even thought of the possibility that zombies were the cause of all our troubles. We were all caught off guard. You know, I never did believe that humanity deserved this. We have done... a great deal of horrible things to our own specie, our brothers and sisters....
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..."Burma Road” has been described as the very first sign of a popular movement in the Bahamas, and in the 1988 memoir of Randol Fawkes (The Faith that Moved the Mountain), he features the birth of the labor movement to the 1942 riots: "As long as Fort Fincastle rests on that immovable rock in our capital city," he marked, "parents shall tell their children, and their children shall tell their own of the saga of Burma Road." For most of the Bahamians Burma Road refers to the 1942 riots over pay for the men who worked on the wartime air bases in Nassau. Two rioters were killed by the British troops, more than 40 people were incapacitated and hundreds were arrested, but those unmatched events also led to long overdue transformations. Explosives were used to puncture through the limestone hills behind the caves to provide fill for the new airfield. But there are more important parallels between what is going on in Burma today, and what took place in the Bahamas 65 years ago. In those days it was illegal for employees to “pool “against their employer. But when the airfield project began mopping up some of Nassau's unemployment, two proto unions came together to form the Bahamas Federation of Labor, which Fawkes later led. As a teenager he recalled the events of June 1, 1942: "When we reached the corner of Marlborough and Cumberland streets we heard a large shout. On looking toward the hilltop we saw hundreds of ragged black workers moving downhill towards us.. Some walked swiftly, blowing...
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...Nathan Kotylak: Individual Error or Mob Mistake? A look at the 2011 Vancouver Riot On March 13th 1964 Kitty Genovese was murdered outside her apartment as more than ten residents in the apartments above watched her die and did nothing. In the late thirties and early forties Adolf Hitler convinced men and women to effectively exterminate two thirds of the European Jewish population. On June 15th 2011, over 100 people were arrested for disorderly conduct by fighting, looting, and even burning police cars after the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals, most notably Nathan Kotylak, seventeen year old student from Maple Ridge. What do these three situations have in common? They all involve the mob mentality in both an active and passive sense. While Kitty Genovese was being murdered, many residents in the apartments above displayed the bystander effect and followed Cialdini’s principle of social proof. They all followed the lead of similar others and did nothing to address the situation in hopes that someone else would deal with it. Germany ruled by Hitler was the most extreme example of social proof and also showcased the demonstrative tactics used by Hitler to control the minds of citizens. The Vancouver Riot followed a similar path to both scenarios- like those who watch Kitty be stabbed to death over a 30 minute time span, some Vancouverites did nothing. Like the thousands of Hitler followers who killed innocent civilians, some acted in ways that went against their moral and ethical frameworks...
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...Big brother isn’t watching you A riot mostly occurs in reaction to a perceived grievance or simply out of dissent. Void and community spirit has since forever been in an everlasting fight because of the human mind and its diversity. When rioters act it is due to a feeling of being mistreated in a divided society where an inability to provide success for all human beings is valid. But instead of labelling rioters as mindless, we need to ask ourselves why they are led to the conclusion that starting a riot is the only way of gaining attention. That is why Russell Brand, English comedian, actor, radio host, author and activist, who now lives in Los Angeles, California, commentates on English riots and why they occur. His commentary is posted in the British newspaper called “The Guardian”, where he also tries to explain the rioters’ motive for the 2011 UK riots. First Brand starts of by explaining how he no longer lives in London and how some may find it bizarre for him to comment on matters in his homeland. However, Brand feels strongly connected to native country and finds it necessary to comment on the 2011 UK riots, as he himself feels deeply afflicted by them. In addition to his attachment to his homeland and therefore the rioters, he initiates his commentary with an explanation of how he never actually had interest in the fictitious theatrics in reality TV. Expect when he was working for Big Brother, a reality game show, where contestants are continuously monitored...
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...her. Laura used to be able to fill a room with laughter but now the tides have turned. She was happy but now she is suppressed by her husband. John expected that when he married Laura she could make him happy because of her kindness and humor. However that wasn’t what happened. Instead of him becoming happy, he turned Laura into a hostage, whom got psychologically broken down. John no longer respects Laura’s opinions. He only does as he pleases. When the riots, which they saw on the TV as John was abusing Laura, came to their street Laura found her gemstone, which is called the tiger eye. Personally I think the remote control to the TV is a symbol of John’s control of the relationship. He has the remote control meaning that he has the power to control the TV and Laura. “The tiger eye, creates harmony out of chaos,”(line 109). This obviously means that she can use it to gain or create harmony out of chaos, and so she does. The tiger eye is a symbol of what existed before their marriage and therefore symbolizes therefore. The riot breaks into the store bellow their apartment and John walks downstairs and gets beaten up. When Laura goes down to the ground floor she notices John lying on the ground all bloody and begging for help. Laura looks at her gem and gets the courage to leave John...
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...Big brother isn’t watching you The persons who join these riots are often people who the society forgot or gave up on; people who need to get a kick in their lives. In fact they need to face the consequences of their actions and their destructive behavior. The English writer, Russell Brand explains the rioter’s motive for the 2011 UK riots. Russell Brand lived in the London before he moved to Los Angeles. In fact he explains the riots as if he has been a part of the happening among these people. Through the text Russell Brand describes how he felt and how he was affected by these people and their destructions. In his article on the Guardian website, he’s attitude is very sarcastic to underline his dissatisfaction to the UK government. In fact his text has an overload of sarcasm and irony to describe his position on the riots. His approach to the 2011 UK riots is the fact that it has been a common problem, which must be solved together. Russell Brand is very astonished by the fact that the rioters are being describes as “mindless”, unacceptable”, “unjustifiable” and disconnected from the cities they live in. This indicate that it is very strong words which is used against these riots, they are placed outside the community. Russell Brand agrees on the fact that it is unacceptable the things that these riots have done. But his opinion is not to focus on all the unacceptable things that these riots have done, instead the government should but in their interests why these people...
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...Low Visibility The short story Low Visibility written by Margaret Murphy is about a woman called Laura who is married to the very aggressive husband John. She lives her life in fear and violence, but instead of making resistance she chooses to appear invisible. The short story has a third person narrator. Already in the first line of the short story we get a clear view of the characterisation of both John and Laura and how their marriage is: “John is watching TV, one hand on the remote control, the other on her thigh. She keeps very still.” It tells us that John is in total control. He has the control over Laura, and he is watching TV. Laura is not; she is just forced to be there because of her fear to John, but she accepts the situation by keeping still. The narrator tells from both John and Laura's viewpoints and thoughts. You can tell by the characters’ thoughts of each other that there are no love between them. Laura has not always been the invisible girl; her marriage with John has given her a new personality. “She wishes she could protest, but has forgotten how. Every muscle in her body trembles with the effort of keeping still.” This quote shows that Laura really wants to protest against John’s opinion to the protest in TV, but she has forgotten how to do it. A flashback shows us that Laura gradually have changed during their marriage. She did not notice that something was wrong with their relationship until at was too late. We do not know the actual reason why...
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