We studied various documents, and even if they were all about different “inner topics” (from slavery to gang war), they were all strongly linked: they were all about people who have been, and are, rejected, feared insulted, and even hated, because of their religions, colors or origins.
But what exactly have we learned from these documents?
How racism is expressed in the arts?
Through this paper, I will first analyse the different documents we studied, before explaining how racism is expressed in the arts.
We started the year by studying Norman Rockwell.
Having an essay to write about him, I surely did some research about him.
I was looking at some of his paintings, and I have discovered what happened to Ruby Bridges.
She was only 6 when she was assigned to the William Frantz School, which was an all-white school.
During her ride to school, people were yelling, throwing food at her, insulting her and threatening her.
It is racism that causes genocide and civil war, but children are way more impressionable, and no child should live what Ruby Bridges went through.
But she stayed up and proud, and I strongly believe that she is one of the strongest symbols of the anti-racism fight in the United States.
We then went to watch “The Butler”, a movie about the black butler of 7 different Presidents (from Eisenhower, in 1957 to Reagan in ?).
Even if the movie was not only about racism (there were also some family and love stories), a major part was about it.
By following Cecil Gaines a butler in the White House and Louis and Charlie Gaines, Cecil’s sons, who were respectively, in the movie, a part of the Black Panthers organization and a soldier in the Vietnam War.
Seeing how mean people could get against someone, just because of their color was quite impressive, but it also made me feel quite uncomfortable.
The two most disturbing parts were for sure the diner scene, where some young adults are bullied and beaten, just because they are not sit where they should be, and the attack of the Freedom Riders’ bus by the Ku Klux Klan.
The Ku Klux Klan is a hate group, who is against the Blacks, Jews, communists and the immigrants.
Even if the KKK is not as potent as it used to be, a few people die each year because of it.
Our biggest project was certainly the Freedom Writers.
We studied both the movie and the book.
They are both telling the stories of 150 students of the Wilson High School, where thanks to their teacher, Mrs. Gruwell, they learned how to express their troubles by writing it.
They were at first unfriendly toward each other, because they were all parts from different gangs but they became closer and closer, until where they came from was not a problem anymore.
The book, which is full of small diaries, written by the students, is in a certain more interesting, because even though each story is quite short, the book is not just focused on 4 or 5 characters, it is really about the 150 students, despite the movie which is really just about a dozen students.
January 2014
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