Please Excuse Me While I Geek Out

A Raisin in the Sun takes place “Somewhere between World War II and the present”. Lorraine Hansberry’s choice of the word “present” is significant since it sends the message that her purpose for writing the novel is not yet fully achieved and that racial equality is a prevailing fight. She leaves her novel open ended in the belief that others will continue the fight against racial discrimination. Her faith in the future and the hope she possesses reminds me of my latest obsession with the TV show Super girl. For those who are unaware of who Super girl is, she is Superman’s cousin who was sent to Earth to look after him.  However, she instead faces many of her own villains and it is through her unyielding hope and determination that she always manages to pull through as a true hero.  This relates to Lorraine Hansberry’s faith she has in others since Super Girl is also someone who sends others a call to action to never lose hope in a better future. Although there may still be much to do in the battle against inequality, for now I will leave you with some wise words from the hero herself, “Now, in each and every one of you, there is a light, a spirit that cannot be snuffed out. That won't give up. I need your help again. I need you to hope. Hope... that you will remember that you can all be heroes. Hope... that when faced with an enemy determined to destroy your spirit, you will fight back and thrive.”

Green is Greed

Although most will argue that money is not the most important thing in the world, it touches everything that is. The more money you make, the more people you can help and the bigger impact you will have as exemplified by “nothing” getting in the way of Mama’s money being put towards Beneatha’s education to be a doctor. Correspondingly, Walter’s obsession with the check drives him “crazy”. This is symbolic of the damaging effects greed and desire can have on a person. This is also seen in The great Gatsby through Gatsby’s incessant desire for the American dream. Money is the key not only to “success” as in The Great Gatsby, but also the key to being able to aid others in A Raisin in the Sun.  The character’s necessity of money is much reflected in today’s society as well. Our society depends upon wealth in order to prosper. I would classify it as something close to oxygen on the “gotta have it” scale. But to measure real wealth, how much would you be worth as a person if you lost all your money? Ignoring what would be the majorly affected factors such as the necessities, would you still go out of your way to help others? I once read about a homeless man who lived on the streets in New York. When he found spare change on the ground, instead of saving it for himself, he used it pay off other’s parking meters so that they would not receive a ticket. So in terms of real wealth, how much value do you have?

Beautiful Little Fool

"It'll show you how I've gotten to feel about—things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. she told me it was a girl, and so i turned my head away and wept. 'All right', I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."

In this passage Daisy allows a glimpse into her character when she describes her hopes for her daughter to Jordan and Nick. Although Daisy is not a fool herself, her wish for her daughter to be one is due to the lack of value women received in the 1920's for their intelligence. Daisy implies that a girl can have more fun if she is beautiful and simplistic. After all, "ignorance is bliss". Not to mention, the absence of the father in this scene. Tom is not even pacing the hall with a cigar as the way dads were supposed to back in the 1920's. This signifies how Tom is withdrawn as a husband and fears intimacy as I read about in the psychoanalytic reading. Daisy's weeping shows her sorrow for her daughter who may in the future end up in a relationship such as her own and also her expected disappointment in her husband's lack of appearance. The placement of the word “boy” in the sentence is also significant. Since it comes prior to “girl” it signifies how daisy wanted a boy instead of a girl. A daughter may have had to face the same problems that Daisy endured for years such as her unfaithful husband. In The Great Gatsby era, Women were valued only for their looks and ability to be a good wife. Nobody wanted to hear what an intelligent woman had to say. Daisy wishes for her daughter to be “a beautiful little fool” because that would  make her the perfect wife and she would be able to have a  much better life than an intelligent girl in the 1920’s.

Beauty The Queen

Appearance rules the world. The tan skinned and toned bodies on magazine covers, the sparkly and tall buildings lining the streets of New York City, the glamorous lives of stars such as Selena Gomez or Channing Tatum who are idolized for their hotness. I am guilty too of worshipping these “pretty things”, and I love doing it. Who doesn’t? Our idealizations and love for glamour and richness has pillared Beauty up on stilts. It sits there above us like a God and this perpetual knee-bruising worship has created a divide within our society between the successful and those who are not. It is the split between the rich and the poor, the pretty verses the pretty ugly. Beauty is the key to success. If you want to be rich then be beautiful, but make sure to follow society’s terms. You can do it too just like Kylie Jenner, and once you are admirable enough then you will make millions at your leisure. You can surround yourself with fast cars and money and people. You can drown in your riches, immerse yourself in the glamour of it all for we love glamour in only the most Gatsby of ways with “a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden”. Worship worship worship then drown, sink down into the standards you need and want to meet in order to be loved and worshipped too.

The Color of Hate

Eye struggled with the concepts I was faced with and the words that I read in The Bluest Eye. I could not bear the discrimination, the women's sexualization, the rape, the overall lack of happiness within the story. But my mind was racked the most by the reality of it all. Pecola's story of how she becomes victim to society due to her lack of power is very real.

"It's the same hate that's caused wars from religion
Gender to skin color the complexion of your pigment
The same fight that lead people to walk-outs and sit-ins,
It's human rights for everybody
There is no difference"~Macklemore and Ryan Lewis Same Love

Pecola is raped and impregnated by her own father, abused by both of her parents, and has close to zero friends because of her family’s status. Thus, she carries with her the shame of her family which causes society to look down on her. The society which victimizes her and uses her to feel better about themselves. It is not her fault that she is raped, yet the ideological lie that she “asked for it” comes up from an adult within the book showing the amount of insensitivity that can come from a person. The society uses her to create their own personal “fantasy” where they are “strong”, “well behaved”, and “mature” people while in reality they are not. We are not. This issue of blaming others and being too much of a coward to face the reality of our situations is an issue prevalent today. We must not shy away from the harsh truths we are given but face them before “it’s much, much, much too late”.

The Portrait of a Lady Man

Kehinde Wiley (pictured above) is a New York-based painter who is widely known for his naturalistic paintings of people with brown skin in valiant poses. He claims his goal is to "tie the urban street and the way it's been depicted with elements that are not necessarily coded as masculine" as shown in his "Portrait of a Lady".

Portrait of a Lady

Kehinde Wiley has become famous due to his paintings of classical works mixed into contemporary images, where black males replace the former subjects such as a non black king or queen. His paintings are huge and tend to be very detailed as if trying to draw as much attention as possible to the race of the man in the painting. The largeness to his paintings compares with those from history since back then nearly all paintings were crafted at that size to be displayed. Through this Kehinde alludes to the detailed history behind race and sex through a great amount of detail within his artwork. Kehinde blurs the lines between gender, replacing images of women with men and giving these men feminine characteristics. He sends a message for equal ways not just for black men, but women too. His art is often criticized for the femininity of the men within the paintings. Art critics have claimed that the men are portrayed as gay which has caused him to receive quite a bit of hate. However, they are missing the real message to his art. It is the idea that not race, gender, or sexuality should be determining factors of someone’s value or importance and to shed light on this issue our society has struggled with for centuries. 

As Quiet as it's Kept: Rape and Sexual Assault

“In our day, it’s just become something you shut up about. You deal with it. It happens.” 

Sexual assault, "as quiet as it's kept", occurs every year victimizing anywhere between 300,000 to 1.3 million people according to the CDC. However, no definite number exists for this statistic since nearly 54% of sexual assaults are not reported! One of the most prevalent faults today is the casualty and lack of importance we have allowed to lessen such major issues. Victims become afraid of speaking up or are unaware of what truly occurs due to the societal standards that are instilled through its youth. The problem becomes concrete when you realize that since you were a ten year old child, you have either been being told to "cover up" because "you don't want to distract the boys in class" or you have been told that "it's not you who is to blame. It's their fault for not dressing 'appropriately'." The first of course being the mantra that has been chanted into every girl's mind and the second being the excuse that has been made and taught to all the young boys. A woman should not be raped and then told by a judge that it is her fault since her clothing was too sexy, tight, short, revealing, or provocative. As a whole, respect should be taught from a young age because people cannot control whether or not they will be sexually assaulted. We could all wear burqas, but that isn't going to stop it.