America's+Greatest+Crime+Reflection

 In my final paper, I did not really get a chance to discuss the impact of race in America and the impact that learning about struggles related to race had on me throughout the year. Reading __Invisible Man__, __The Bluest Eye__, __Democracy in__ America, and to a slightly lesser extent, __Brown__, made me reconsider many of my notions about race and about the impact and legacy of race in our country as well as its residual effects in today’s society. “America’s Greatest Crime” begins with a poem by Countee Cullen that speaks louder than any prose in giving a brief example of the impact of race on a young child. This one isolated experience in which a young boy the narrator described as his equal in age and size, called him “nigger” and clearly viewed him as inferior. This experience came to be a defining moment that eclipsed several months of residence in Baltimore. I put this next to a quote from __The Bluest Eye__ as well as a photo of youngsters becoming the next generation of shoe shiners and oppressed peoples in this country. While Countee Cullen’s poem did give an example of the impact of prejudice and racism on a young boy, Toni Morrison’s entire book was a study of race from the perspective of a girl who wanted blue eyes more than anything in the world. Pecola, and the rest of the world, believed herself to be ugly and hideous. Part of what I see in this is that she lived in a society where her skin color made her ugly and inferior but what Pecola did was to internalize that ugliness. Part of the tragedy of Pecola’s condition is that she does not think “why does society treat me like this?” but instead thinks “what’s wrong with me to make society treat me like this?” She internalizes all her doubts and insecurities and decides that the only way to improve her condition is to be somebody else, somebody that is not poor and black. From here, this page takes a turn and I looked more at the coexistence of blacks and whites in society and in government. Thomas Jefferson and Alexis de Tocqueville, both of who I drew quotes from, believed that permanent lines would be drawn in our country between blacks and whites and that a comfortable coexistence was close to impossible. To accompany these quotes I used two striking images, one by Gordon Brown (a different one that the Prime Minister of England) and one that was used in //the Charlotte Observer//. I believe that the first photograph depicts a line between America, represented by the flag, and all that it has to offer and the reality of the black condition in America (especially when the photograph was taken). The flag seems to show promise and is a historically symbolic and optimistic object and whereas the flag //should// elicit some feeling of pride, we are drawn to the African American woman in the foreground, whose America consists of misery, a broom, and a mop. The second photograph is one of Dorothy Counts on her first day in an all white school shortly after the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision. Everything is black and white; the photograph, the people in the photograph, and the contrast between the malicious laughter of peers and teachers and the face that depicts anything but happiness or laughter on the face of the brave but isolated Dorothy Counts. Above the photograph is a quote from Dorothy Counts as she looked back on her experience. I concluded this page, whose overall purpose was to look at the personal impact of race and racism in our country, with the lyrics to the song “(What did I do to be so) Black and Blue” as well as the MP3 file where this song is sung by the famous Louis Armstrong. The plaintive melody accompanied by strikingly hopeless and miserable lyrics such as “I'm white inside/But that don't help my case/Cause I can't hide/What is on my face,” make you feel, or at least appreciate, in some small part the degradation and hopelessness felt by African Americans due to racism.

BUMPING BACK