A Tribe of the Middle Passage

Going over the primary sources, I found myself caught between choosing a side between Hughes’ and Schuyler’s arguments in terms of how to represent black art. On my initial read, I thought they both made good points. While it is important to establish an identity in culture, does doing so imply that there is a difference between races? And if so, does that mean that one is inherently inferior? But especially today, I do know how important it is for a race to establish an identity in mainstream culture, and how important it is for them to cling to that. I think that that is why I eventually sided with Langston Hughes over Schyler. While the idea that a black artist should just be considered just an artist, I think that it is more important for a race to find their own identity among themselves. The Harlem renaissance allowed black Americans to stake a claim in their own world and gave the community something to rally behind. Saying that they are the same as any other artist takes that away from them, and does more harm for the community than good.

Kathleen Cleaver’s visit to the College was very fruitful and her presentation covered the history of the Black Panther organization. Cleaver was very intentional to try to unravel the misconception of the Black Panthers as a group that promoted violence. The Black Panthers did believe in the right to bear arms and one of their famous tactics was to follow police officers active in black neighborhoods and prevent violence by being present with guns. However, this tactic was in response to police brutality from racist police officers.

Cleaver stated that protestors wanted the Black Panthers to supply guns so they could retaliate for the death of MLK and ongoing police brutality. When the Black Panthers refused to support them that way, two carloads of protestors, including Black Panthers Eldridge Cleaver and Bobby Hutton, decided to act out in violence. In this act Bobby was killed and Eldridge Cleaver was to be arrested. Ultimately, the movement lost access to some of their leaders because of violence, so it makes sense that Kathleen Cleaver would be opposed such tactics and labels.

In the wake of the Florida school shooting just over a month ago, a lot of people have begun speaking out against the loose gun control in this country, and many others have started to really listen. The marches organized by the Parkland students, specifically, gained a lot of media attention and started a bit of a snowball effect in terms of protests and school walk-outs. However, as an article for Huffington Post by Sarah Ruiz-Grossman points out, the fast success of this anti-gun, anti-violence movement can bring into question why a relatively small group of white students are being listened to more than black victims fighting against gun violence. This is a very complicated issue, then, because the topic of gun control is finally being addressed very vocally nationwide, but why it is only now being addressed in this capacity when groups like Black Lives Matter have been trying to talk about it for years? This all comes back into class discussions of anti-black violence and demonstration to get political progress, but this time comparing the effectiveness of the demonstration based on the group’s race. Granted, this new anti-gun movement the Parkland kids kick started is very new and has hardly had enough time to make any lasting difference, and considering how popular in media coverage the Black Lives Matter movement was when it first started, so I’m a little hesitant to fully compare the two movements just yet. Still, there is clearly the sense, from my perspective, that many people see the Parkland kids’ movement as the first real protest against gun violence, which it definitely is not. And while I am glad that this issue is being addressed, I, too, am more than a little disheartened at the fact that it was ignored for so long simply because of who was presenting the issue.

Today was the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. People around the country were honoring what he’s done for the United States and the black community.

Today, there was an email sent out at around 4:40 PM stating that there would be a gathering in honor of remembering MLK at 7:00 PM. If diversity is so important to the college, why were students just now hearing about this event at 4:40 PM, the day of ? I would like to point out the black community as well for always talking about how we (black students and Wooster at large) have to stick together, but as I walked up to the event, there were about 12 people there and only 4 were black. I think it’s a shame for the community and college to contradict themselves on what their values are and what actions are actually being taken to accommodate those values.

This article made me realize how deep the roots of white supremacy ran in the world. America was already home to so many race issues, and beyond America, the same race issues were present. White people from Europe were trying to claim parts of Africa as their own, invading and colonizing. On a large scale, the struggle was between the workers/oppressed and the controllers/claimers. White people in the working class who suffer similar oppression under the privileged community were STILL siding with the upper class. In this case, lower class whites aligned with other whites in the name of sticking to their race. This idea of white supremacy was evident globally and in America. Racial separations at this time were stronger than class separations, even though class separations directly disadvantaged people of all colors in the working class.