Popular+Cultural+Texts

= Home <> Toni Morrison <> Sojourner Truth <> Supporting Articles <>  Thesis and Critical Essay = = Popular Cultural Texts =



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**Thesis: "In both Toni Morrison's __The Bluest Eye__ and Sojourner Truth's speech "Ar'n't I a Woman?," the two "communicators" import orality in order to effectively create a form of emotive expression regarding racial and gender discrimination, persecution, and desire for conformity and equality and the effects these influences have on African Americans and societal progress as a whole." ** ===== = =   **Other popular cultural texts, which relate to our thesis, include:**


=**MUSIC** = media type="youtube" key="zxtn6-XQupM" height="241" width="300" align="left"

"Hard Knock Life" depicts how African Americans have to survive in the ghetto. Their everyday living is filled with trying to make ends meet, getting out of the ghetto, and survival of the fittest whether that is by stripping, selling drugs, going to school, or robbing.

media type="youtube" key="h4ZyuULy9zs" height="241" width="300" "Strange Fruit" describes how African Americans were hung by trees and considered the strange fruit during post slavery lynching. Holliday goes on to say that the bodies are swinging and you can smell them in the breeze. This was during the time that lynching was legal.

media type="youtube" key="UfoDh1XL2wo" height="241" width="300" "Justice for All" is ironic to the meaning of the song; the title makes it seem as if there is justice for all. Yet, in the song Metallica states that the "Hammer of Justice crushes you over power" and justice is lost, raped, and gone due to the fact that money, greed, power, and exploitation has corrupted the justice system.

=__**POEMS** __=

The night has been long, The wound has been deep, The pit has been dark, And the walls have been steep.

Under a dead blue sky on a distant beach, I was dragged by my braids just beyond your reach. Your hands were tied, your mouth was bound, You couldn't even call out my name. You were helpless and so was I, But unfortunately throughout history You've worn a badge of shame.

I say, the night has been long, The wound has been deep, The pit has been dark And the walls have been steep.

But today, voices of old spirit sound Speak to us in words profound, Across the years, across the centuries, Across the oceans, and across the seas. They say, draw near to one another, Save your race. You have been paid for in a distant place, The old ones remind us that slavery's chains Have paid for our freedom again and again.

The night has been long, The pit has been deep, The night has been dark, And the walls have been steep.

The hells we have lived through and live through still, Have sharpened our senses and toughened our will. The night has been long. This morning I look through your anguish Right down to your soul. I know that with each other we can make ourselves whole. I look through the posture and past your disguise, And see your love for family in your big brown eyes.

I say, clap hands and let's come together in this meeting ground, I say, clap hands and let's deal with each other with love, I say, clap hands and let us get from the low road of indifference, Clap hands, let us come together and reveal our hearts, Let us come together and revise our spirits, Let us come together and cleanse our souls, Clap hands, let's leave the preening And stop impostering our own history. Clap hands, call the spirits back from the ledge, Clap hands, let us invite joy into our conversation, Courtesy into our bedrooms, Gentleness into our kitchen, Care into our nursery.

The ancestors remind us, despite the history of pain We are a going-on people who will rise again.

And still we rise.

Maya Angelou

//Let America be America Again// Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-- Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-- And finding only the same old stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope, Tangled in that ancient endless chain Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay! Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. I am the worker sold to the machine. I am the Negro, servant to you all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-- Hungry yet today despite the dream. Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers! I am the man who never got ahead, The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream In the Old World while still a serf of kings, Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, That even yet its mighty daring sings In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned That's made America the land it has become. O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas In search of what I meant to be my home-- For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore, And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea, And torn from Black Africa's strand I came To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me? Surely not me? The millions on relief today? The millions shot down when we strike? The millions who have nothing for our pay? For all the dreams we've dreamed And all the songs we've sung And all the hopes we've held And all the flags we've hung, The millions who have nothing for our pay-- Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again-- The land that never has been yet-- And yet must be--the land where every man is free. The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME-- Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-- The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people's lives, We must take back our land again, America!

O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath-- America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain-- All, all the stretch of these great green states-- And make America again!

Langston Hughes **

=__LITERATURE __=

**
 * William Wells Brown, “The Negro Sale" [[image:book1.jpeg width="151" height="151" align="left"]]

 "The Negro Sale" is about one of President Jefferson's child, born into slavery and later escaped. This novel depicts how slaves are sold into slavery through auction and racial conflict in the South. **

Richard Wright, "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow, an Autobiographical Sketch" **"The Ethics of Living Jim Crow, An Autobiographical Sketch" is Wright's life in the South during the Jim Crow era.



 Victor Sejour "The Mulatto"
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">"The Mulatto" features central themes that where prevalent in many African American writers works: sexual abuse, rebellion, brutality, the impact of persons being mixed, and antislavery protests.

=**__<span style="color: #800000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 170%; text-align: center;">ART __**=

Tennessee. - Men at the meeting of the Colored National Convention Held at Nashville, April 5th, 6th, and 7th, 1876.

Speaker at an Outdoor Political Rally (ca. 1896-1907)

First African American Vote (1867)

Anti-slavery meeting on the Boston Common (1851)

=**<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Bibliography **=

Angelou, Maya //Maya Angelou: Global Renaissance Woman.// Dr. Maya Angelou, 2009. Web. 11 Dec. 2009 <http://mayaangelou.com/>.

//Digital Schomburg Images of 19th Century African Americans: Antislavery Meeting on the Boston Common (1851).// The New York Public Library, 1999. Web. 11 Dec. 2009 <http://digital.nypl.org/schomburg/images_aa19/aa19c_info.cfm?qlaa1107>.

//Digital Schomburg Images of 19th Century African Americans: Speaker at an Outdoor Political Rally (ca. 1896-1907)////.// The New York Public Library, 1999. Web. 11 Dec. 2009 <http://digital.nypl.org/schomburg/images_aa19/aa19c_info.cfm?qlaa1107>.

//Digital Schomburg Images of 19th Century African Americans: Tennessee. - Men at the Meeting of the Colored National Convention Held at Nashville, April 5th, 6th, and 7th, 1876.// The New York Public Library, 1999. Web. 11 Dec. 2009 <http://digital.nypl.org/schomburg/images_aa19/aa19c_info.cfm?qlaa1107>.

//Digital Schomburg Images of 19th Century African Americans: The First Vote (1867).// The New York Public Library, 1999. Web. 11 Dec. 2009 <http://digital.nypl.org/schomburg/images_aa19/aa19c_info.cfm?qlaa1107>.

//Google Products.// Google, 2009. Web. 11 Dec. 2009 <http://www.google.com/products?q=William%20Wells%20Brown%2C%20%E2%80%9CThe%20Negro%20Sale%22&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wf>.

Holliday, Billie //You Tube.// YouTube.com, 25 Nov. 2006. Web. 11 Dec. 2009 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs>.

Jay Z, //You Tube.// YouTube.com, 1 Mar. 2007. Web. 11 Dec. 2009 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxtn6-XQupM>.

//Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes.// Poem Hunter, 2009. Web. 11 Dec. 2009 <http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/let-america-be-america-again/>.

Metallica, //You Tube.// YouTube.com, 11 Dec. 2007. Web. 11 Dec. 2009 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfoDh1XL2wo>.

//Million Man March Poem by Maya Angelou.// Poem Hunter, 2009. Web. 11 Dec. 2009 <http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/million-man-march-poem/>.

//Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.// University of Arkansas, 2003. Web. 11 Dec. 2009 <http://uagreeks.uark.edu/185.htm>.

Piacentino, Ed //Southern Spaces.// High Point University, 28 Aug. 2007. Web. 11 Dec. 2009 <http://www.southernspaces.org/contents/2007/piacentino/print/TMPoldpsnhrj9.htm>.

//University of Gloucestershire.// University of Gloucestershire, Oct. 2008. Web. 11 Dec. 2009 <http://www.google.com/products?q=William%20Wells%20Brown%2C%20%E2%80%9CThe%20Negro%20Sale%22&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wf>.