01 April 2011
Walter's Dreams Diminish.....
After watching this clip, discuss in your groups how it is possible to have laws on paper that are not enforced in practice. What examples of hypocrisy do we see in government and policy in the 1960s and still today? How can this double standard be stopped? Or can it be? Now imagine Raisin in the Sun's "Walter".... Think about the frustrations he feels. Does understanding the environment help you to understand him a bit more? How does a generation of people move beyond these kinds of things that were done TO them, AROUND them, and BECAUSE of their skin color? Or do they?
30 March 2011
Louis Armstrong & the Harlem Renaissance
Louis Armstrong was born in 1901 in New Orleans, Louisiana and died at the age of 69 in New York. He came to prominence in the 1920s as an "inventive" cornet and trumpet player and was a foundational influence in jazz.
Armstrong had what many, today, would refer to as a traumatic or dysfunctional childhood. Out of this environment was born a desire to succeed, be admired, and make people happy. Louis learned at an early age that music could lead to fame and money. He and his friends would sing for nickels and pennies on the streets of his native New Orleans and he saw how popular the musicians who played the funeral and celebratory parades were with the public. On New Year’s Eve in 1913, when he was only 12 years old, Armstrong was caught firing a gun into the air and sentenced to a boys home for orphans. It was here under the guidance of Peter Davis, who ran the home, that Armstrong learned how to play the cornet and he was soon playing picnics and parades. Later in life Louis returned year after year to the same orphanage to spread his joy to whoever was staying there at that time. He never forgot Peter Davis.
With his instantly recognizable deep and distinctive gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general.
Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over," whose skin color was secondary to his amazing talent in an America that was severely racially divided. It allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for a person of color. While he rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, he was privately a huge supporter of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.
__________________________25 March 2011
Raisin in the Sun & the "Jim Crow" South
Describe this picture of "Jim Crow" and discuss in your group how you feel when you look at it. Are the feelings positive, negative, happy, entertaining, degrading, or something else? Why?
If you were to learn that this image represents a white man dressed up with black paint on his face, meant to mimic the black man, does that change your thoughts about the image at all?
A little background information:
The minstrel show was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface. Minstrel shows lampooned black people in mostly disparaging ways: as ignorant, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, and musical. The minstrel show began with brief burlesques and comic acts in the early 1830s and emerged as a full-fledged form in the next decade.
Watch 2 examples of an old Minstrel skit.
As you watch it, think about the following items:
1. Is this type of entertainment appropriate or not?
2. What is the message behind this type of entertainment?
3. Should it have been allowed?
4. What was its purpose?
5. How did it make you feel as you watched it?
6. And finally..... would you have felt differently if you were an African American watching this?
Now look at the following images associated with "Minstrel entertainment".
Are these images examples of FREEDOM OF SPEECH or are they examples of BIGOTRY?
How far does FREE SPEECH "cover" you?
Or are there consequences of our exercising our Freedom of Speech? What are the consequences of things like the MINSTREL SHOWS and these ads?
Should there be a "limit" to our freedom of speech?
A Raisin in the Sun
In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln signed the
Sure....they could move NORTH because things must be better there, right?!
13 December 2010
The Role of Media in our Lives
Do we, as the human race, have the power to block out what they are telling us and make our own decisions and choices?
Who is ultimately responsible for what the media "feeds" us?
Think about "messages" that the media has given you in the past about a story or a situation or a group of people. Have any of these messages ever angered you?
How far does a journalist go to "get a story"; or how far SHOULD he go to get a story?
And now the 6 million dollar questions:
SHOULD THE MEDIA EVER BE CENSORED?
What about this example of a regular radio broadcast in Rwanda prior to the genocide of 1994:
"You have to kill the Tutsis; they're cockroaches.
All those who are listening, rise so we can fight for our Rwanda. Fight with the weapons you have at your disposal: those who have arrows, use arrows. Those who have spears, use spears. We must all fight.
We must all fight the Tutsis. We must finish them, exterminate them, sweep them from the whole country. There must be no refuge for them.
They must be exterminated. There is no other way."
Here is an example of the media attempting to SWAY its audience:
Here is an example... MOSQUE AT GROUND ZERO
How do we BLOCK it out and make our own decisions?
10 December 2010
Part 2- In Class Writing
The Power of Words
Meet Don Imus, radio talk show host:
Meet the Rutgers University Lady's Basketball Team:
During a discussion about the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship, Imus characterized the Rutgers University women's basketball team players as "rough girls" commenting on their tattoos.
His executive producer Bernard McGuirk responded by referring to them as "hardcore hos". The discussion continued with Imus describing the girls as "nappy-headed hos" and McGuirk remarking that the two teams looked like the "jigaboos versus the wannabes" mentioned in Spike Lee's film, School Daze; apparently referring to the two teams' differing appearances.
IMUS: That's some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos and—
McGUIRK: Some hard-core hos.
IMUS: That's some nappy-headed hos. I'm gonna tell you that now, man, that's some—whew. And the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute, you know, so, like—kinda like—I don't know.
McGUIRK: A Spike Lee thing.
IMUS: Yeah.
McGUIRK: The Jigaboos vs. the Wannabes—that movie that he had.
After some outrage from the initial repeated reports, Imus dismissed the incident as "some idiot comment meant to be amusing".
Imus immediately issued a statement of apology:
I want to take a moment to apologize for an insensitive and ill-conceived remark we made the other morning regarding the Rutgers women's basketball team, which lost to Tennessee in the NCAA championship game on Tuesday. It was completely inappropriate and we can understand why people were offended. Our characterization was thoughtless and stupid, and we are sorry.
Imus said, "Our agenda is to be funny and sometimes we go too far. And this time we went way too far. Here's what I've learned: that you can't make fun of everybody, because some people don't deserve it."
Should Imus have been fired?
Is there ever an "appropriate" time for name-calling?
What effect can name-calling have on society?
Here is what poet Maya Angelou had to say on the subject; as you listen think about the words of her poem "The Calling of Names" that we have analyzed earlier today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n9Pq1LNLwM