Fact of Blackness by Frantz Fanon :: personal response essay

â€Å"The Fact of Blackness† by Frantz Fanon   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This article was an eye opener. After Fanon got away from the huge mind boggling words, I kind of felt for an extremely short second what it actually felt to be a black man. I myself am a unique mixture of races and I was fortunate to have grown up in such a way that I experienced my two main cultures vividly. I can laugh with George Lopez, and feel the pain, anguish, and laughter that are associated with a Mexican American heritage. The same goes for Larry the Cable Guy, I can laugh at what he says in his stand comedy routine, because I can relate with my Anglo culture. Going back to how Fanon explains his anguish of being labeled, it’s understandable, I’ve been there, but unlike Fanon, I learned to how to run with racial comments. However, I’m not black and cannot relate to his culture, or how bad for his time it must have been for an average black male.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I start with saying blah. I cannot in my mind imagine what it was for Fanon growing up, but he never embraces love for who his is. The racial slurs and dehumanization is in my opinion not reason enough to write hatred for what you are born into. Not once does he state philosophy on why it’s ok to be what he is. Instead he places himself into an â€Å"infernal circle† that he is embraced by white people in spite that he is black, but when he has an enemy they claim that it is so not because he is a black man.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  My own experiences tell me that every bit of what he says is true. I work at an inner city Walgreen’s, and I’m told to watch certain people because they look suspicious, when in fact the only crime they commit is being a minority. I’m sometimes told to not spend too much time on a Mexican customer, because they don’t contribute enough money to our store, and to focus on our money crazed white customers, who never get questioned opening up products. I used to get stopped In Walgreen’s when I was a freshman in High School. I had to leave my back pack at the door and only one of my companions could come with me at a time. However, I would see plain as day, white students walking in the store at leisure with their book bags on.

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest Final Scene Essay

In the final scene of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Chief Bromden is the main character. The only two characters in this scene are Bromden and McMurphy, and even though McMurphy would be considered the main character of the entire film, Bromden is the main character of this scene because he has the strongest desire. In fact, in this one scene, Bromden has many desires that to him, are life or death. Initially, after hearing rumours of McMurphy’s escape, when McMurphy returns to his bed, Bromden thinks that he has returned in order to escape with him. At this point, Bromden’s desire is simply to escape the ward. He then realizes that McMurphy has not returned to escape, but that he has actually been lobotomized. When he sees this, he smothers McMurphy to death, knowing that McMurphy would not want to live like this, or have the others see him in this state. At this point in the scene, Bromden’s desire is to protect McMurphy’s pride. Once he fulfills this, he returns to his initial desire, as well as what used to be McMurphy’s desire to escape. He achieves this by using McMurphy’s escape plan; lifting the impossibly heavy hydrotherapy console and throwing it through the window. In doing this, Bromden not only achieves his own desire, but also completes the goal that McMurphy was unable to complete. Throughout the movie, Chief Bromden’s status quo is that he is inactive and lacks opinions and feelings. All of the other patients at the hospital think he is â€Å"deaf and dumb†. McMurphy is the only one to later discover that Bromden is neither deaf, nor mute. Before the tension in the final scene takes place, Bromden seems too passive and nonchalant to escape on his own, and he definitely seems much too harmless to murder anyone. In this scene, Bromden is forced to change when he sees that McMurphy has been lobotomized. His respect for McMurphy, and despair that he has been lobotomized and is no longer the powerful leader he used to be initiates the change in Bromden. Wanting McMurphy to die with honour, and having others remember him the way he was, Bromden finds the power to smother McMurphy to death. After McMurphy is dead, Bromden still has the initial desire of escaping. Before, he had been waiting for McMurphy to escape with him, because McMurphy was more intrepid and gallant than Bromden, and would be able to lead him. Now that McMurphy is unable to escape with him, Bromden is forced to find the courage to escape on his own. In this scene, the stakes are very high for Bromden. If he does not escape, he will have to live miserably in the mental institution for the rest of his life. The stakes are raised when he discovers that McMurphy has been lobotomized. Now, he takes on the responsibility to do what he knew McMurphy would want him to do- not allow him to live and be seen as a lobotomized vegetable. If Bromden does not succeed in killing McMurphy, Bromden will feel like he has let down and humiliated McMurphy. Once Bromden has smothered McMurphy, the stakes are once again raised as now not only does he have to escape because he doesn’t want to live in the hospital for the rest of his life, but he also has to leave because he has just murdered McMurphy, even though he did so out of respect. If he does not escape right away, he most likely will get in trouble for the murder of McMurphy (and probably get lobotomized himself) , he will have to spend his life in the miserable existence of the institution, and he will not have fulfilled McMurphy’s and his own desire to escape. The main conflict that takes place in this scene is the fact that Bromden has such a strong desire to escape with McMurphy, but when McMurphy is no longer able to escape, it becomes much more difficult to Bromden. The audience fears that upon discovering that McMurphy has been lobotomized, he will not be assertive enough to escape on his own. Until it is confirmed that McMurphy has been lobotomized, the audi ence hopes that the two of them will successfully escape together, but when it becomes clear that this will not happen, the audience wonders how Bromden will deal with this. He resolves the conflict by finding the courage to escape on his own. Another conflict in this scene is the fact that McMurphy, who is the most outspoken and powerful patient in the ward has been lobotomized. The fact that he basically no longer has a mind of his own not only gets in the way of Bromden’s desire, but will also destroy any optimism and faith that any of the other patients have. This is also a conflict for Bromden because he knows that McMurphy would be miserable if the old him were to see the lobotomized him, and Bromden does not want McMurphy to be shamed. Bromden deals with this conflict by killing McMurphy, that way none of the other patients will see him in this state, and McMurphy will not have to live this way for any longer. The main twist in this scene comes when McMurphy returns. Bromden is relieved because he thinks that McMurphy has returned to escape with him, but instead he has been lobotomized and no longer has any desire to escape. This comes as a shock to both Bromden, because it is the opposite of what he has expected, and also to the audience, because seeing McMurphy in the state of being lobotomized completely contrasts the character of McMurphy that the audience has come to know. The technique of juxtaposition makes this twist extremely effective. McMurphy is a character who is always active, energetic, powerful, and lively. He prides himself on his non-alignment, so the audience knows that to McMurphy, receiving a lobotomy is the worst thing that could possibly happen to him. Another technique used to make this twist so powerful is the uncertainty of both Bromden and the audience. First, when the other patients talk about how McMurphy has escaped, both Bromden and the audience believe that this plausibly occurred. When McMurphy is seen returning, acting lifeless, by now we know how manipulative and calculating McMurphy is, so the audience is unsure of whether McMurphy has actually been lobotomized, or if he is just pretending to be obedient so he can return, and then escape. We do not know for sure that McMurphy has actually been lobotomized until Bromden discovers the scars on his head. This provides a real shock because up until now, both Bromden and the audience was pretty sure that McMurphy was just faking it and the two of them would end up escaping together. A secondary twist in this scene is when Bromden suffocates McMurphy. Although Bromden did this with the best intention for McMurphy, it is still surprising to the audience, because no one could’ve pictured Bromden killing anyone, especially McMurphy who he has so much respect for. As mentioned above, Bromden has many strong desires throughout this scene. His main desire is to escape the ward. His secondary desire is to make sure that McMurphy dies with honour and does not have to live being the opposite of the lively, outspoken person he once was. He fulfills both of these desires, and even though he is unable to escape with McMurphy, which was his original intention, he still is able to escape on his own, and free himself from the mental institution. McMurphy, on the other hand, does not have much desire in this scene. Throughout the film, McMurphy has more desire than any other character; he wants to be in charge, he doesn’t want to do work, he wants to help and lead the other patients in the ward, he is a hedonist, who wants to please himself, and ultimately, his main desire is to escape. Despite all of this, by the last scene, he has been lobotomized, and therefore all of his desire has been drained. He is now a vegetable, who is unable to and has no will to escape with Bromden. His lack of desire makes Bromden’s desire even stronger, because McMurphy was the most passionate patient of them all, but now he is basically brain dead. This ignites Bromden’s desire to put an end to McMurphy’s now meaningless life, and it further motivates his desire to escape the hospital, because he sees how it is able to drain even the most passionate and spirited person.

The History of the Freedom Riders Movement

In 1961, men and women from throughout the nation arrived in Washington, D.C., to end Jim Crow laws  on interstate travel by embarking on what were called â€Å"Freedom Rides.† On such rides, racially mixed activists traveled together throughout the Deep South—ignoring signs marked â€Å"For Whites† and â€Å"For Colored† in buses and bus terminals. The riders endured beatings and arson attempts from white supremacist mobs, but their struggles paid off when segregationist policies on interstate bus and rail lines were struck down. Despite these achievements, the Freedom Riders aren’t the household names like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., but they are civil rights heroes nonetheless. Both Parks and King would be heralded as heroes for their roles in ending segregated bus seating  in Montgomery, Ala.   How They Started In the 1960 case Boynton v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregation in interstate bus and rail stations unconstitutional. Yet segregation on interstate bus and rail lines in the South persisted. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a civil rights group, sent seven blacks and six whites on two public buses headed for the South on May 4, 1961. The goal: to test the Supreme Court ruling on segregated interstate travel in the former Confederate states. For two weeks, the activists planned to flout Jim Crow laws by sitting on the front of buses and in â€Å"whites only† waiting rooms in bus terminals. â€Å"Boarding that Greyhound bus to travel to the Deep South, I felt good. I felt happy,† Rep. John Lewis recalled during a May 2011  appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Then a seminary student, Lewis would go on to become a U.S. congressman from Georgia. During the first few days of their trip, the mixed-race group of activists traveled largely without incident. They didn’t have security and didn’t need it—yet. But on May 12, Lewis, another black Freedom Rider and a white Freedom Rider named Albert Bigelow, were beaten when they tried to enter a whites-only waiting area Rock Hill, South Carolina. After arriving in Atlanta on May 13, they attended a reception hosted by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. But the celebration took on a decidedly ominous tone when King alerted them that the Ku Klux Klan was organizing against them in Alabama. Despite King’s warning, the Freedom Riders did not change their course. As expected, when they reached Alabama, their journey took a turn for the worse. A Perilous Journey On the outskirts of Anniston, Alabama, members of a white supremacist mob showed just what they thought about the Freedom Riders by bashing in their bus and slashing its tires. To boot, the Alabama Klansmen set the bus on fire and blocked the exits to trap the Freedom Riders inside. It wasn’t until the bus’ fuel tank exploded that the mob dispersed and the Freedom Riders were able to escape. After a similar mob attacked the Freedom Riders in Birmingham, the U.S. Justice Department stepped in and evacuated the activists to their destination of New Orleans, averting more potential injury. The Second Wave Due to the amount of violence inflicted on Freedom Riders, the leaders of CORE were faced either with abandoning the Freedom Rides or continuing to send activists into harm’s way. Ultimately, CORE officials decided to send more volunteers on the rides. Diane Nash, an activist who helped to organize Freedom Rides, explained  to Oprah Winfrey: â€Å"It was clear to me that if we allowed the Freedom Ride to stop at that point, just after so much violence had been inflicted, the message would have been sent that all you have to do to stop a nonviolent campaign is inflict massive violence.† On the second wave of rides, activists journeyed from Birmingham to Montgomery, Alabama in relative peace. Once the activists reached Montgomery, though, a mob of more than 1,000 attacked them. Later, in Mississippi, Freedom Riders were arrested for entering a whites-only waiting room in a Jackson bus terminal. For this act of defiance, authorities arrested the Freedom Riders, housing them in one of Mississippi’s most notorious correctional facilities—Parchman State Prison Farm. â€Å"The reputation of Parchman is that it’s a place that a lot of people get sent ... and don’t come back,† former Freedom Rider Carol Ruth told Winfrey. During the summer of 1961, 300 Freedom Riders were imprisoned there. Inspiration Then and Now The struggles of the Freedom Riders garnered nationwide publicity. Rather than intimidate other activists, however, the brutality the riders encountered inspired others to take up the cause. Before long, dozens of Americans were volunteering to travel on Freedom Rides. In the end, an estimated 436 people took such rides. The efforts of the Freedom Riders were finally rewarded when the Interstate Commerce Commission decided on Sept. 22, 1961, to ban segregation in interstate travel. Today, the contributions the Freedom Riders made to civil rights are the subject of a PBS documentary called Freedom Riders. In 2011, 40 students commemorated the Freedom Rides of 50 years before by boarding buses that retraced the journey of the first set of Freedom Riders.