These
children that I’m talking about did not live through the slavery that their
parents endured, so with this idea of inequality simply being something that
many people can’t really understand in general, these children had access to
really no reasoning behind these laws (in other words, they couldn’t really
comprehend where the laws were stemming from). With that said, all they had to
rely on were the stories of their parents as some kind of explanation as to why
this was occurring. However, all of these “stories” came with a lesson of who
and what to avoid and how to respond and behave. This is saddening to me
because, as we’ve learned in Infant and Child Development, the stories that
children are able to hear and produce themselves are their connectors to and
creators of their lives; it is through these stories that they have to make
sense of their world. Sure they can come up with their own stories and define
their own lives, but it seems incredibly hard to do at a time like this. As much
as kids wanted to ask “why,” and to formulate a story, there wasn’t really much
reasoning or much the parents could say to inform and comfort their child about
what was happening.
Charles
Gratton, a man whose story was told in this book, talks about being “programmed”
in the truths of Jim Crow. He talks about how it’s just the way things were
then; it was just the environment. “To challenge white people was just the wrong
thing to do” (pg. 8). The children were basically forced to behave certain ways
therefor disallowing them to fully create a life for themselves (they were automatically
deemed inferior). Things that most people would consider doing never even
crossed into the minds of these children because they had been programmed to
not being able to do certain things.
This is
why Dr. Martin Luther King was such a great influence; he provided these people
and children with a different definition/story for their life. They aren’t
inferior, there is hope. Gratton says whenever he would hear him speak, it
would touch him from the inside because Dr. King would put things into words
that he simply did not know how to express. Gratton had been unable to
formulate the words to express his freedom story, his story of who he was and
what he wanted because he had been so programmed to think a certain way and
speak a certain way.
It's unfair for the children of that generation to have to go through their lives under false pretenses. How are they supposed to formulate their own ideas of the world when it is forced upon them by segregation and racism? When I read this I think of the movie The Truman Show with Jim Carrey and how his entire life is planned out for him. He’s unaware that it’s all a set up so he accepts it for what it is, until he finds out that his entire life is a TV show that he can choose to either stay in or leave. That’s probably not a good analogy for this situation, but it makes a little sense to me. The effect of these children’s lives being shaped by segregation laws are clearly shown in Brown v. The Board of Education when a young African American child was told to choose between two dolls to play with: a white doll, and a black doll. The child chose the white doll from among the two because it had been taught throughout segregation that white was better than black. Was it the child’s fault for thinking that way? No. It was society’s blunder. With laws giving whites the right to better water fountains, better buses, better restaurants, nicer bathrooms, and better schools, what can be assumed by African Americans children other than that whites were somehow superior? It wasn’t something to be questioned by them, but they merely started to accept it.
ReplyDeleteI found the stories of how black children were socialized into the system of Jim Crow heart wrenching as well. I can’t even imagine how these children felt being told that society completely devalued them. I also can’t imagine how difficult it was for the parents to have to teach this lesson to their kids. Being taught the ways of Jim Crow certainly had damaging and possibly even lasting effects on children. As the doll experiment conducted by Kenneth and Mamie Clark (as referenced in the above comment) demonstrated, black children in the 1940’s preferred playing with the white dolls over the black dolls. Furthermore, when asked to identify which doll was “bad” or which one was “good” most of the children answered black and white, respectively. While this is not surprising given the way black children were socialized into Jim Crow, it is surprising that recent versions of this experiment have produced similar results. The fact that many black children still have negative perceptions of themselves speaks volumes to the continued socialization of black children into a society were white is still the “norm”, though it seems that today the issue seems to be more covert racism than overt racism experienced during Jim Crow.
ReplyDeleteHere is a link to one of the more recent versions of the Doll Experiment:
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/New_doll_test_produces_ugly_results_2919.shtml
Did the action of "disallowing" the children to behave in certain ways and partake in social activities shape African American culture? Although I am completely against oppression of all forms--slavery, Jim Crow Laws, denial of access to health care--I believe that the good coming out of such denial is often overlooked. Without the oppression that blacks experienced, I am weary to believe that they would have such dynamic churches and culture. By forcing them to be different, blacks chose to engage in the world in very unique ways, and I find it to be quite beautiful. African American music is uplifting and boisterous, an escape from white subordination. I don't think that the music would be as inspirational and happy if it were not for the culture that they were partly forced to shape. I've recently spent a lot of time thinking about why differences are considered "bad". In Urban Community Health class, my Health Equity Internship, and this course, the emphasis is often focused on how these differences make the world unequal and what larger mental and physiological implications this has. Unfortunately, oppression is always going to taint the lives of many in various degrees and forms. I think that we need to fight for justice and equality, however the gifts that the oppressed often give the world as a result of these different lifestyles needs to be acknowledged and appreciated.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed that you elaborated on the effects that the laws of segregation had on the children during the era of Jim Crow. I would like to analyze how these effects have been perpetuated in the present day? Unfortunately, the remnants of racial etiquette are still lingering. My parents spent most of their adolescent, teenage and young adult years directly experiencing the immense racial segregation during the era of Jim Crow in Mississippi. Thus, they have instilled the ideology of being culturally aware and acute when dealing with race and racism. For example, as a young child, I have vivid memories of seeing a flag that slightly resembled the American flag flying in the front yard of a person’s home. I began to inquire about this flag and its meaning. My father was meticulous and slightly guarded in his explanation of the symbolism of the confederate flag, and the pain it perpetuated. In having experienced this era, my parents tried to shield my siblings and me from knowing the harsh realities of Jim Crow. They educated us on this era without enacting a biased or subjective perspective. Although Jim Crow was of the past, the perceptions related to race and racial identity that was heavily manifested in this era are still present.
ReplyDelete