http://www.npr.org/2012/01/16/145175694/legal-scholar-jim-crow-still-exists-in-america
As you listen, think about Baldwin on "innocence" and Coates on the "Dream" (and on what he calls the "tradition" of destroying the black body). Take notes while you listen.
Also, read this: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/new-jim-crow-war-on-drugs
Come to class having:
- shared with me on Google Drive/Docs all of the work you currently owe me. By Monday that will be: a total of three weekly response papers and three weekly journal entries.
- Three discussion questions (on the interview; on connections/correspondences/similarities between Alexander/Baldwin/Coates/Lorde, on differences/contrasts between A/B/C/L; anything else connected to our reading/listening for this class)
- prepared yourself to talk for two minutes on Michelle Alexander
For your weekly response, I want you to pick a pair of quotes (one from Coates and one from Baldwin) that appear to speak to each other, and compare/contrast.
Here's an example of such a pair of quotes:
“They
are in effect still trapped in a history which they do not understand
and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They
have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that
black men are inferior to white men.Many
of them indeed know better, but as you will discover, people find it
very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed
and to be committed is to be in danger. In this case the danger in
the minds and hearts of most white Americans is the loss of their
identity. Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one
morning to find the sun shivering and all the stars aflame. You would
be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval
in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one's
sense of one's own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the
white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar, and as he
moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their
foundations.” (Baldwin)
“And
there it is—the right to break the black body as the meaning of
their sacred equality. And that right has always given them meaning,
has always meant that there was someone down in the valley because a
mountain is not a mountain if there is nothing below. [...] You
and I, my son, are that “below.” That was true in 1776. It is
true today. There is no them without you, and without the right to
break you they must necessarily fall from the mountain, lose their
divinity, and tumble out of the Dream. And then they would have to
determine how to build their suburbs on something other than human
bones, how to angle their jails toward something other than a human
stockyard, how to erect a democracy independent of cannibalism.” (Coates)
While you're thinking about your pair of quotes, remember this rule of thumb: when you're writing, ALWAYS go for what’s going to surprise your reader.
Anyone can look at the Baldwin and the Coates and see the similarities: both letters to loved ones, both talking about institutional racism, et cetera.
Saying that they’re different--and pointing out how they're different--is the more surprising, and better--and more impressive, because it takes more work, and more likely to get a better grade, because more impressive--claim.
In the pair of quotes above, for example, Baldwin and Coates are saying very similar things, but their emphases, I think, are subtly different. Coates chooses to emphasize the physical violence done to the black body, for instance, where Baldwin might focus a bit more on cultural or mental or spiritual violence--harm done to black identity.
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