By Isadora Torrano, Aline Bernardes, Aléxia Scotá and Victória Nunes
In the United States discussing about racism turns to
be a very polemic subject. But why is that?
Technically racism is a polemical subject everywhere,
but in the USA it comes from very significant historical factors. Since the
time when slavery was the main source of labor on the 17th century,
then the efforts toward the abolition during the 19th century and
the Civil War when the “Confederacy” (south) - which was up to the slavery -
and the “Union” (north) fought against
each other during four years – leaving over 600,000 soldiers dead - until the
confederates collapsed and the slavery was abolished (not actually abolished
until the 13th amendment – December 6, 1865).
After that the African Americans endured a harsh time
of racial segregation – starting in 1876 with the Jim Crow Laws (enacted in the
Southern and border states) that mandated a “separate but equal” status for
African Americans. Of course the treatment and the accommodations were far
inferior to those given to white Americans. At the same time several racist
groups as the Ku Klux Klan were created, causing a wave of attacks against
black Americans mostly in the southern states.
Mainly on the 60’s the black Americans community
(along with supporters) started to respond against all the periods of discrimination
and violence. One of the most important leaders of that time was Martin Luther
king Jr. which was a combatant against racial inequality through the
nonviolence, until he was assassinated at age 39. he’s still a symbol of freedom for people.
In 1964 there were the passage of the Civil Rights act
and the Voting Rights Act which influenced the demise of the Jim Crow Laws.
Nevertheless segregation continued for a long time. The things slowly started
to change on the 70’s, yet racism is still settled in a lot of places – even
now on 21th century.
There are plenty of media – books, movies and music - about this subject in particular and we think it’s interesting to talk about it.
On literature we have two
awesome books: The Help, written by
Kathryn Stockett which lead us to the lives of African American maids on the
early 60’s in the state of Mississippi and an aspiring writer who wants a great
story – together they decide to expose the stories of the inhuman conditions
the maids are treated ;
And The SecretLife of Bees, written by Sue Monk kidd. The book is set in 1964, south
Carolina. The story starts when Lily, a 14 year old white girl decides to leave
her abusive father’s house and ran away with her African American maid to
another city called Tiburon where they intend to find the owner of the
black-virgin-Mary image Lily’s mother had. They are introduced to the
Boatwright sisters who are great producers of Honey and also independent African American women.
Note: Both books have movie versions.
On cinema we have
three very interesting movies: TwelveYears a Slave, directed by Steve McQueen. It tells the true story of a free
African American, Solomon Northup who, in 1841, was sold as a slave and fights
against to be able to come back to his family;
Hairspray, directed
by Adam Shankman. It’s a comedy, musical film set in 1962, Baltimore. It starts
with Tracy Turnblad, an overweight high school student which dream is to
participate the nicest television show of the town. As a background - and with
great actors/actresses as Queen Latifah – we see fight of black Americans to
have their rights and integrate black and white;
And Remember theTitans, directed by Boaz Yakin. The Titans are an American football team
from Virginia that, in 1971, start to be trained by the African American coach
Herman Boone. The team – previously formed only by white teenagers – now is
integrated with black teenagers as well. They start against each other but
along with the movie we see the improvement of the team’s friendship. The movie is based on a true story.
Last but not the least, as an example of music
we have the genial song Strange Fruit performed by Billie Holiday which use the music to
protest against racism and, particularly the lynching of African Americans. The
song was originated as a poem written by Abel Meeropol as a protest. On it’s
lyrics we hear about a tree with strange fruits hanging on it, those fruits are
the dead bodies of black people lynched by racist groups.
After all this research we realized how bad the racism
actually was – and in some places still is. We know that the only way of this
to stop is with the help of people, to raise awareness of society, to teach
that we are all human beings and we are not different at all.
*All the researches on Wikipedia.
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