Making Connection between Black and White, Changing America and Civil Disobidience - Essay Example

Making Connection between “Black and White”, “Changing America” and “Civil Disobidience” In the American society, there have been a lot of efforts to ensure that Americans embrace change. But in spite of the significant progresses about making America equal and color blind, such positive efforts have had to face severe challenges throughout the passage of history. Now racism has turned into a silent and internalized issue. A lot has always been spoken in regarding to creating a better America that is democratic and executed equality of all genders and races. Each of the three articles, “Black and White” by Gloria Goodale, “Changing America” by Joel Swerdlow, and “Civil Obedience” by Henry David Thoreau interconnects to one another in the theme of the need for having change in America by having a democratic society which provides equal opportunities to people irrespective of their gender and race. These authors commonly discuss the problems of American society such as racial divide, immigrant problems, and assimilation of the people of other races into the mainstream white society. Though Goodale’s and Swerdlow’s approach to the problems of American society are more descriptive than prescriptive, Thoreau’s approach is quite prescriptive. He suggests that People of American society seem to be affected with a racial, cultural, political and religious identity confusion. Yet an American’s national identity is composed of a diverse but uniquely uniformed nationality including all of the contradictions. While the uniformity of the American nationality is ensured by a geographical unity, America is a heterogeneous society that contains diverse races, cultures, nationalities, religions, etc. Still American heterogeneous nationality is affected with a number of complexities. In her article, “Black and White”, Gloria Goodale addresses this racial divide within the heart of American society, whereas Joel Swerdlow, the author of “Changing America” depicts the changes that America’s racial identity has undergone and still is undergoing. On the other hand, though Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” deals with the sort of political protest an American should adopt in order to dissent what he or she does not support or think right. Though apparently Thoreau’s proposition “to withdraw from an evil” relates much to a man’s, especially an American’s, political life, such stance can help dispensing the racial divide in the American society. If an American, whether s/he is white or non-white, withdraws himself or herself from what he or she is unjust about racial issues, the divide between the races of American Society will significantly narrow down. According to Gloria Goodale’s Black and white paper, which examines the life of two families; one white and the other black, after swapping skin colors in order to air the issue of racism in America? (Goodale 446). From the reality show, it is evident that racism remains as an issue in the American society and people fear talking about it as the government assumes it has dealt with it (Goodale 446). In the reality show, a character named Lionel is reported to have said “Race is definitely still a factor in America” (Goodale 446). In order for America to experience change, issues like racism need to be addressed openly so that a solution could be reached upon. Referring to the confessional statements of the participants in the US society, Goodale draws her readers’ attention to the fact that racism has become a silent reality because “Nobody wants to talk about race because it makes them uncomfortable” (Goodale 446). She notes that though racism in the US society is silent, it exists in every sphere of life. Some of the white people may not experience its presence, Goodale article show that the Black people certainly feel it. It is possible that a black’s experience of racism is his or her overreaction to it. Angel, one of the participants of the show, expresses this comment as following: “Whites tend to underestimate racism…while blacks tend to overestimate it.” (Goodale 447) The claim that racism exists because the Black people think so seems to be true to a great extent. One of the white participants, Bonnie claims that “mental attitude is extremely important in determining experience” (Goodale 446). Therefore, the Black people themselves are responsible for self-victimization. The twelve years old participant Julian comments that it is very normal for a man to comment on people’s skin, as he usually comments on others’ hair, dress, lifestyle, etc. In Julian’s words, “Stereotypes are everywhere….You cant help but have an opinion about someone based on their hair or their dress or their skin color. Its just the way things are.” (Goodale 446) here one thing is evident that the racial divide in the US society exists in perception and in one’s mind. Even the Patrons who “discuss at length the virtues of keeping their white neighborhood pure” (Goodale 446) are the real instances of racism in the US society. Such self-victimization of the nonwhite people what Goodale discusses in her article is also evident in Swerdlow’s article “Changing America”. The common reactions, of the nonwhite students of J. E. B. Stuart High school, are “I dont want to be white”, “I don’t consider myself white”, “Whites act white and do white stuff”, etc. (Swerdlow 13). Indeed in reply to the question why they react so, one of the students answers as following: “White kids act different. They hang out differently. Whites are privileged. Theyre smart, do homework on time, run the student government, participate in plays and musicals, sell stuff, have parents who are involved in the school.” (Swerdlow 13) In fact, the attitude of such reactions is one-sided self-victimizing attitude of those students. Swerdlow characterizes such attitude as “an age-old adolescent dilemma: wanting to achieve versus wanting to be cool.” (Swerdlow 13) He guesses that those nonwhite students unconsciously indentify the crushing pressure of achievement as something ‘white’ since they think, though mistakenly, that the white students are more successful. Indeed the failure on the nonwhite students’ side turns into hatred for the white as a race, as Swerdlow comments, “If achievement—or at least too much achievement—is unfashionable and achievement, as they have defined it, is "white," then "white" is not cool.” (Swerdlow 13) If the nonwhite students did not have a negative attitude to white success, they would not grow any anti-white racial sentiment and would be more successful. Probably referring to this very situation, Bonnie in the reality show in Goodale’s article commented: “If you have nothing and you feel youll achieve something if you work hard, then youll achieve more than if you think you wont” (Goodale 446). Joel Swerdlow, in Changing America, confers to Gloria Goodale’s view point on the need for America to have change in terms of bringing equality to various races and gender (Swerdlow 11). In Changing America, Joel provides by saying, “America is a country of immigrants, but also a country that sometimes hates immigrants” (Swerdlow 12). Joel shows the discrimination that exists among natives and immigrants in America. He continues by describing how they both view each other and concluded that the immigrants, usually tried to assimilate in the American society through aping what they did (Swerdlow 11). He even describes some instances of other immigrants losing touch of their background. Joel holds a discussion regarding being white or black and receives shocking comments (Swerdlow 11). In as much as racist’s thoughts are commonly held by the elders in the society, he discovered that the young people had hopes of changing such notion, “Young people whose backgrounds span the spectrum of human cultures are becoming normal American teenagers and in the process they will change America” (Swerdlow 12). Joel observes that in a country with different races, a possibility exists in the young that can result in changing America to a society where equality exists (Swerdlow 13). One thing is clear in both Goodale and Swerdlow’s article that though racism in its concrete sense exists in the US society, a significant part of racial discourses evolve from the nonwhite people’s self-victimization from the behaviors of white people who are even unaware of any racial offense in their behaviors. Then how should this problem of racial divide be addressed? Indeed Thoreau’s theory of non-offensive self-withdrawal from evil can help much in this regard. Though Thoreau is concerned more with political affairs, his theory also can be applied to social sphere. According to Henry David Thoreau, the problem of a democratic government is that it is run according to the monopoly of the majority. Since the American government is a democratic government, it is quite normal that she would be run according to the will of the white majority. Therefore, in order to bring changes according to what he or she thinks right, one should withdraw oneself from this government (Thoreau 374). The possibility of a nation shaped to observe equality among its people irrespective of their gender and races, will only be possible if the government offered numerous support in a democratic way. Henry discourages that democracy in a government cannot be achieved through the majority controlling power as it results to oppression of the minority group: “But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand” (Thoreau 375). He describes the government as hypocritical in serving its people as it sometimes turns to use physical force to ensure some of its rules are followed, “Thus a state never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his sense” (Thoreau 376). In a democratic American society, everyone will be able to exercise equal rights for every group in the society irrespective of gender and race, which is what Henry advocates. Henry describes America as needing change. The question whether the US government should adopt race-aware positive means or race-blind positive neutrality to the races is a dilemma. Ethno-racial diversity appears to be another complexity of American identity. America at a time, wants to unify her nation on a common national platform, but it continues to support and at times, directly provides initiatives in different governmental sectors to retain the diversity. Indeed, the problem is not as easy as it seems to be at a first glance. Here the question that arises is whether America really wants to grow a race-neutral American identity or not. In fact, contributing to the American ethno-racial diversity, the American white majority not only attaches a stereotype-based black identity to the minor ethnic populations but also it creates an unbridgeable gap between the white majority and other ethnicities. The interpolation of African-Americans as ‘black’ by the dominant culture has often been an object of satire by different critics. Critics claims that though the ethnic and identity tends to be destabilized and to be assimilated into a broader American identity, white society-imposed stereotypical black identity impedes these processes of destabilization and assimilation. In such a dilemma, the US Government should let the history go on its own way, while yet supporting the unprivileged ethnic population with the “package-privilege help” in various sectors such as education sector, health sectors and job sectors, etc, because these packages for the ethnic population, -though affirms their racial identity- will help them to be assimilated more with the American identity. All these three authors advocate the need of change in the American society after seeing the indifferences that exists between various races and genders, and between its people and the government (Goodale 446). They point out the flaws as they exist in three areas: inequality in gender, race and an existence of a civic government. It is only through change that the American society can be able to be shaped to have a democratic society that provides equal opportunities to all people irrespective of gender and race. According to Thoreau, A person is not “obligated to devote his life to eliminating evils from the world, but he is obligated not to participate in such evils” (Thoreau 374). The application of such theory in the personal life of an American who is aware of the racial divide can peacefully sustain the American Melting pot in which the races will turn into another uniformed and single race. Swerdlow marks this melting pot as following: “Whether they want to end up "white" or not, the kids here know theyre in a blender: People of different colors and textures go in, and a mixture that appears homogeneous comes out.” (Swerdlow 12) Works Cited Goodale, Gloria. “Blac and White.” The Christian Science Monitor. 3 March 2006. Web. 23 November 2012. Swerdlow, Joel. “Changing America.” National Geography. September 2001. Web. 23 November 2012. Thoreau, Henry David. Civil Disobedience. 1848. Web. 23 November 2012. Read More