Author: Abigail McFarren

I recently read an article for my Biblical Interpretations class on the “politics of sass”, written by Mitzi J. Smith. The article discussed instances when the police treated black women differently because of the tone the women took when the police were interacting with them. This reminded of the Danville Virginia. When the black citizens of the town expected to be spoken to with respect after slavery had ended. The example given in the article was a black woman who had been pulled over by police. The police officer asked what was wrong, he claimed she had an attitude. And she responded by saying that she did not understand why she was pulled over but was respectful of the fact that the police officer was doing his job. The situation escalated and the woman was arrested.

 

This situation is one of many examples of times when black women were mistreated because of their tone. There were many examples also given in Danville, Virginia. The instances however happened around 100 years apart from each other. This is an issue that is not going away and needs to be addressed because it provides different standards for the tone of black women versus white women. It is clinging onto the idea that black women need to address people in a tone different from white women.

While watching the documentary on the Civil Rights Movement for class last week I started to think more about the Little Rock Nine. They had always been an element of any class discussion or lesson on the Civil Rights Movement but I wondered what did they go on to do after graduating high school. A quick Google search uncovered an article from September of 2017 in honor of the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the integration of Central High School in Little Rock.

Melba Pattillo Beals became a journalist and now teaches Communication at Dominican University.

Carlotta Walls Lanier is now the president of the Little Rock Nine Foundation along with being a real estate broker and running a company with her son.

Elizabeth Eckford dedicated her career to the military serving in a variety of capacities.

Ernest Green became an influential financial broker on Wall Street.

Gloria Ray Karlmark worked in journalism and telecommunications.

Jefferson Thomas served in the army and ran a family business. He passed away in 2010 from cancer.

Minnijean Brown Trickey was a social activist and an assistant secretary at the Department of the Interior.

Terrence J. Roberts was the CEO of his own management consultant firm.

Thelma Mothershed-Wair worked in  a juvenile detention facility and in the field of education.

Many of them also received advanced from prestigious universities, which are outlined in the article linked below. I found reading about them further to be inspirational and uplifting. They all seemed to lead very successful lives after their difficult high school transition. I am glad I looked into this further because it showed that they were able to do good things after they played their role in the battle for integration.

https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/little-rock-nine-where-are-they-now

I attended the lecture given by Professor Shakes last Thursday. The title of the lecture was “African Futures, American Legacies: An Africana Perspective on Marvel’s Black Panther and Luke Cage.” The lecture focused on, as the title implies, the film Black Panther, which I have seen, and the Netflix Original Luke Cage, which I have not. Throughout the lecture Professor Shakes focused on how the popular culture portrays black people, largely focusing on the characterization from the film and show. I found her characterization very interesting because it was a topic I was not as familiar with.

 

One of the points that Professor Shakes made was that Black Panther shows what African countries may have been like if not for slavery and colonialism, but Luke Cage shows what it was like because of those factors. I found this interesting because these are two somewhat different representations of black culture but they both come from the same place, that white people largely affected the path and future of African and black culture. Black Panther features a fictional African country which has a huge technological advantages which are hidden from the rest of the world. Luke Cage focuses on warring black families in Harlem. The similarities between the two different portrayals may not have been evident without the comparison coming from Professor Shakes.

She also mentioned how various characters in Black Panther felt different connections to other black people around the world. Some felt the need to provide financial aid to poor people, of any race, while others thought it was better to help only specifically black people and to supply them with weapons so they could start a race war. However, Professor Shakes pointed out that the plot was not allowed to reach that conclusion and perhaps wished it had. She supplied that she thought the creators did not include this in order to maintain their white audience, as they may have been uncomfortable with a race war. I will admit I originally found the topic uncomfortable but as she continued the discussion I understood the merit of what she was saying. Overall, I found her perspective and insight on this topic very interesting and learned a lot from this lecture.