Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Mahad M. Hassan
12/8/2010
Question 3
Why are we bombarded constantly with same negative and stereotypical narratives of
black man? Why are even the so called positive narratives and portrayals essential the same
modern variations on what Author Donald Boggle called (Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, and
Mammies & Buck) indentified as modern version of the like “coons” and brutal black “bucks”? I
believe the reason is that even this age of so-called (Post-Race America) racial enlightenment our
narrative of race still rests on somewhat shaky foundation drawn out of our past. The so called
stereotype of the black buck according to Bogle goes back atleast to The Birth of a Nation, D.W.
Griffith 1915 film that presented black men to use Bogle’s language as , “brutes, subhuman and
feral….. big baaddd niggers over sexed and savage “ ( Bogle 83-85).
“niggers”, he was making a point about how the white society of that day saw them. He was not
suggesting that we turn ourselves into modern-day black bucks. But many of us seem to have
confused his message. So in the year 200 we get the spectacle of Allen Iverson, the Philadelphia
76er and would be rap artist, insisting on showing down rapping can be by, “ Man enough to pull
black lifestyle to hipsters. Along the way, Mailer explains why from his point of view, American
blacks are uncivilized. “ Knowing in the cells of his existence that life was war, nothing but a
war, the negro ( all exceptions admitted ) could rarely afford the inhibitions of civilization, and
so he kept for his survival the art of the primitive, he lived in the enormous present, he subsisted
for his Saturday night kicks, relinquishing pleasures of the mind for the more obligatory
pleasures of the body” ( Mailer ). It easy to understand why educated yet unfiled whites might
trade a boring existence filled with middle-class responsibilities for a walk through America’s so
But to define such a lifestyle as black is to reduce black people to the status of
unthinking, violent, primal creatures. This narrative, it is worth noting, comes to us courtesy of a
self-declared friend of the black people. What Mailer is really saying is: even though black
people are simpleminded and uncivilized, we love you anyways, but in the way we might love an
Indeed, we might even love you more than our fellow whites, or at least would prefer
going clubbing with you, precisely because you are so crude, because you are so wild. But sadly
the joke of course is on us. For while the white hipsters of the fifties and sixties even today so
called “wiggers” can shed their so called “black” identity whoever they tire of. However, many
There is a scene in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man where the protagonist accidental bumps
into a white stranger, who responds with an epithet ( Ellison p 118-121). Angered, the black man
attacks the stranger violently, demanding an apology. Instead of apologizing, the white man
curses him out. Moved to rage by the stranger’s refusal to acknowledge his demand, the black
man beats him brutally and is at the point of slitting his throat but suddenly recovers his senses.
Shaken by his action, and by the fact he had come to the verge of murdering a fellow being, the
The horror soon gives way to human, as he observes, “Something in this man thick head
had sprung out and beaten him with an each of his life” (Ellison 119). Stereotypes do have a way
of taking on a life of their own. And sometimes they beat the life out of people- and not only or
even primarily whites, as attested by the fact that black men, murdered at six times the rate of
white men, are killed for most part by other black men and more than eight times more to be
cultural narrative of innate street toughness. It temps most of us with its acceptance of our
beingness, offering us a sad place that we belong in, the only place or so we are to make believe
that we alone can occupy. From the moment our brains are capable of cognition, we are primed
to embrace it as our presumed destiny. I am not talking about conscious conspiracy. The truth is
more mundane and also more insidious than that. For the conspiracy (if we choose to call it that),
it is unconscious one, yet it shapes our psychological environment and effects at times our
control and perception of reality. Movies, television, and radio bombard us with images of the
black with non-stop repetition of black man as a streetwise, trash-talking operator, as the polar
are constantly told to lower our sights, unless we are lucky and privileged, in the direction of
mediocrity. The natural reaction of many young black people is to feel threaten, intimidated, or
simply to be dismissive if you’re trying to do things that people around you have not done. It
wouldn’t be so bad if when people talked of acting black, they meant acting like a genuine and
dignified human being- acting like someone who is determined to stay out of jail, get an
education, and try to carve out a path through a world that only see us ending up in the basketball
America in the words of Malcolm X has sold a lot of us “a bogus bill of goods”,
convinced us that the only avenues available to us are hustling, selling dope, pimping, or
engaging in other illegal activities that general land many of us behind bars. Many who have
bought this bill of goods, owe it to themselves to reconsider, because what that says is, at the
base, you have very little confidence that you can do anything other than fail. We must face this
insidious fact, and then discover that you we are capable of more than they have us believe.
At this point, I have heard all the explanations: poverty, poor schools, low self-esteem,
high unemployment, lack of role models, self-hate, misdirected anger at white society, etc. But I
doubt that anyone really know why the disparity is so large, or what particular factors account
for what percentage of it- one way or the other. Yet it is clear to me, and I suspect to other
thinking people as well, that one reason has to the broader cultural environment, where racial
This is an extremely difficult thing to write and assess. Perhaps it begins for me in 2005,
when my best friend took his life. He was a young man of 19 years old, whose future it has
seemed to all of us who knew him would be unfailingly successful. He and I were close, as most
friends hope to be and we shared the same dreams and convictions, and were working hard
We may have evinced more conviction than intelligence or skill, and more youthful
arrogance than either, but we, nevertheless, had gone to school together- rode on several buses
everyday together in order to attend a better schools than our neighborhood schools, filled out
college application and tutored each other on the subjects we were each most apt back in high
school.
But for some time before his death, troubles grave had laid hold of my friend. Not only
did the world (United States) stubbornly refuse him his place; it despised him for his intellect,
and scourged him for his skin color. Of course, I know this nation despises and scourges me, too,
but I am different from my friend in that took me nearly no time to despise this nation and
decided to accomplish, in time, with patience and by become indestructible, what I might not, in
the moment, achieve by force or persuasion. My friend did not despise anyone. He really thought
that people were good, and that one had only to point out to them the right path in order to have
Before his death, we had quarreled very bitterly over this. I had lost my faith in religion,
in right paths; if there were a right path, one might be sure that whoever was on it was simply
asking to stone to death- by all the world’s good people. I didn’t give a damn, besides, what
happened to the miserable, the unspeakably petty world. There is probably not handful of decent
He said that it seemed to him that I had taken the road which ended with more deaths,
sorrows, tyranny, and blood. So I told him, one day, you’ll realize that people don’t want to be
better. So you’ll have to make them better. And how do you think you’ll go about it? He said
nothing.
He asked me another a question? What about love? His question threw me off guard, and
frightened me. With indescribable authority a nineteen year old, said love! I smiled a little. Told
him that he better forget about it. The moment I said this, I regretted it, for I remembered that he
was in love: with a young white girl, whose family were not happy with their courtship.
He looks at me and I wanted to unsay what I had said, to say something else. But I could
not think of anything which would not sound, simply like fake consolation. I never saw my
friend frightened as he was that day. We had come through some grueling things together, and I
had never seen fear in his face – one borne out of despair and unwilling resignation of hope. He
was my best friend, and for the first time in our lives I could do nothing for him; and it had been
I wanted to take it back, but I did not know how. I would have known how if had been
insincere from the start of our conversation. But, though I know now that I was wrong, I did not
know it then. I had meant what I had said and my unexamined life would not allow me to speak
otherwise. I really did not, as far as I know, believe that love exists, except as useless pain. I will
never forgive myself for what I said to him—or did to my friend, nor do I want to.
Question 1
The obvious question is "Why bother?" Even if forgiving does make you feel better, the
road is so arduous, the process potentially so difficult. There must be easier ways to release
oneself from emotional turmoil than to embrace the one who harmed you. And what of those
who have already been deeply traumatized by wrongdoing or betrayal? Dare we risk making
For some people, forgiveness is part of the process that helps to set their world right
again. For others, it is a step that can only be taken - if at all - once a sense of normalcy and
development. If the injury is deep, attaining a state where one is free of resentment, where one
can consider embracing one's tormentor, can be an arduous, even painful, process - which is only
one of many reasons why you might ask whether certain people, certain acts, should be forgiven
at all.
Professor Luskin, sees forgiveness as a route to personal freedom, a way of rejecting the
anger and resentment. He suggests that practicing forgiveness may even lower your blood
pressure, while relieving other ailments - physical and mental - traceable to the stress of chronic
anger.
Luskin tries to explain what forgiveness is and what it is not. It is not giving up the ability
to hold people accountable or letting wrongdoers off the hook. It does not mean forgetting the
wrong that they did, or becoming complicit in continued abuse. It does not mean turning your
head as a pedophile abuses children or a violent husband batters his wife. Obeying religious
principles is only one of countless possible human motivations for walking down the path of
forgiveness. There are those who want to save or resurrect a relationship with a parent, a lover,
or a spouse.
And the price of resurrection is often forgiveness - a forgiveness that, in some sense, may
be harder to grant than forgiveness to a stranger. For a stranger, even a stranger who murders
your daughter, had no relationship with you to violate. He committed a terrible act; but there was
prescription for forgiveness does not assume the perpetrator meets the victim halfway, or even
that she cares whether she is forgiven or not. He believes forgiveness is worth the effort, quite
apart from anything the guilty or offending party might do. And that effort, as laid out in four
This stages, conceptually are straightforward enough. First comes the acknowledgment of
anger; for anger - and its effects on a person's mental and emotional well-being -- must be
stripping away the defenses that keep pain at bay, you must be prepared for the resurfacing, the
reliving, of trauma as scars that never properly healed are exposed anew.
Second stage according to Luskin comes the decision to forgive. Implicit in that decision
is a commitment to forgo even small attempts at revenge. Luskin suggests that you might want to
come up with your own definition of forgiveness, one that fits the particular circumstances of
your case. At any rate, in the second stage, you are opening yourself up to the possibility of
The third stage begins the process of implementing the decision to forgive, which most
likely means engaging the person who caused your distress. It is also the phase in which you
accept the pain but then begin to move on, perhaps with the help of a supreme being. You may
try to put yourself in the other person's shoes. You may even offer a gift, a small token, such as a