An Individual Confronting Oppression

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An Individual Confronting Oppression

• What is individuality?
• Lauren Sean Kevin Rebecca

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OutcastBy Claude McKay
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McKays Life

• Born in Jamaica
• Youngest of 11 children
• Sent at early age to live with brother to receive
  best education possible
• Enrolled at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama to
  study agronomy
• Experienced racism in America between the whites
  and that blacks that became main subject (with
  belonging) that he wrote about

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Outcast

• Arrived in the United States in 1912.
• In America, and during 12-year trip to Europe in
  1922, never felt that he found a place to belong
  in western culture
• 4eferred to Africa as almost a mystical place
  where
• his soul would sing forgotten jungle sounds and
  
• as a place of darkness and peace.
• In lines 6-8, acknowledges that he is forever a
  part of the western world, and even though he
  would like to be removed from it, he may never
  hope for full release and will forever bend his
  knee to these alien gods of the western culture

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Outcast, cont.

• Feels that because he has conformed to the
  western world, an innocence in him is lost that
  he cannot regain
• Feels as though something vital has gone out of
  my heart
• Ends poem by expressing feeling that because he
  is not living in native land that he is forever a
  middle-man trapped in massive gap between white
  man and black man in western world

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Lost SisterBy Cathy Song
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Cathy Song

• Hawaiian born of Chinese and Korean descent in
  1955 to an airline pilot and a seamstress
• Wrote Picture Bride in 1983 and won Yale Younger
  Poets Award and National Book Critics Circle
  Award Nomination
• Drew inspiration for book from her parents own
  arranged marriage, which greatly influenced her
  concepts of male-female relationships
• Wrote volumes of poetry concerning oppression
  against women in oriental culture and tradition

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Lost Sister

• Poem is divided into two sections describing the
  role women in China take by choosing their
  culture or choosing to be free and independent
• First selection describes how Chinese culture
  treats and thinks of its women and also praises
  these women for ability to endure
• And the daughters were grateful they never left
  home. To move freely was a luxury stolen from
  them at birth.
• ...they gathered patience Learning to walk in
  shoes the size of teacups, without breaking-
• As silent as the rooted willow, as redundant as
  the farmyard hens.

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Lost Sister

• Second section explains how some women break
  tradition and leave their homes for America
• ...relinquished her name, diluting jade green
  with the blue of the Pacific.
• In America, there are many roads and women can
  stride along with men.
• She swarmed the others to inundate another
  shore.
• Poem shows that even though America allows these
  women who escape a chance to be individuals above
  men, its not easy -- they still have to work
  hard for respect because they are Chinese women

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Lost Sister

• In the end, Song expresses appreciation for both
  women because they show great strength because
  they choose their own way of life and even though
  this makes them different they are still amazing
  Chinese women
• All women can learn from their examples and
  become strong as well
• You find you need China.
• You remember your mother who walked for
  centuries, footless--and like her you have left
  no footprints. But only because there is an ocean
  in between the unremitting space of your
  rebellion.

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The Train From HateBy John Hope Franklin
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John Hope Franklin

• Born January 2, 1915 in Rentiesville, Oklahoma
• Received PhD in history from Harvard
• Taught at several universities including NC
  Central University and Howard University

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The Train From Hate

• Story takes place about 1922 in heart of Oklahoma
• Public places (trains) were heavily segregated

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The Train From Hate

• Learns about oppression for first time when
  family forced to get off train because they
  boarded on coach reserved for white people
• Even though laws require racial separation,
  Franklin was in no way an inferior individual

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Letter From Birmingham JailBy Martin Luther
King, Jr.
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Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Born January 15, 1929
• Married former Coretta Scott
• Had 4 children with wife
• Skipped ninth and twelfth grades and entered
  college at the age of fifteen
• Has phenomenal lists of honorary degrees and
  awards
• Killed on April 4, 1968

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Letter From Birmingham Jail

• Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
  everywhere
• We know through painful experience that freedom
  is never voluntarily given by the oppressor it
  must be demanded by the oppressed.
• Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt
  the stinging darts of segregation to say, wait.

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Letter From Birmingham Jail

• Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed
  forever.
• Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial
  prejudice will soon pass away and the deep for of
  misunderstanding will be lifted from out
  fear-drenched communities, and in some not too
  distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and
  brotherhood will shine over out great nation with
  all their scintillating beauty.

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Conclusion

• Each individual faces oppression due to
  prejudices against physical traits that cannot be
  controlled
• Each individual finds ways to cope with trouble
• Outcast Author decides that he has no choice
  but to conform and must live with that choice to
  be accepted in a society that looks down upon him
  as an individual
• Letter from Birmingham Jail Author calls for
  change in society by using passive-aggressive
  means, not taking failure as option
• The Train From Hate Although author realizes
  that he is oppressed by his own ethnic
  background, it does not make him less of a person
• Lost Sister Some women choose to accept the
  role their cultures tell them to take whether it
  is fair to them or eats away at their
  individuality. other women fight against
  unreasonable expectations of women and leave
  everything familiar to them to be independent and
  express their individuality