The social problem of racism and discrimination in America existed long after the Civil War ended

“Segregation and Integration,” by Jacob Lawrence.

FROM A POVERTY OF SEGREGATION TO A RICHNESS OF DIVERSITY:

THEMES IN JAMES MCBRIDE’S THE COLOR OF WATER

Mary Fleming

Evander Childs High School

The social problem of racism and discrimination in America existed long after the Civil War ended. Discrimination was seen in different parts of America in the twentieth century. American literary writers clearly portrayed racism in America. Such writers as Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, and Gwendolyn Brooks expressed the theme of racism in America throughout their poetry and short stories. In his poem entitled, “America,” Claude McKay, a Jamaican-American poet of the Harlem Renaissance, expresses the divisiveness of American society:

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,

And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,

Stealing my breath of life, I will confess

I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!

McKay uses the literary technique of personification to describe America and his experiences within its society. Nourishment for him is the “bread of bitterness”. The speaker feels bitterness due to the lack of recognition and representation he encounters in America. He compares America to a tiger whose attack asphyxiates the speaker. Now, McKay reveals that America does not merely ignore the speaker but acts murderously, “stealing (his) breath of life.” Surprisingly, the speaker affirms that despite the injustice of life here, he still has a great attraction for life here. Still, later in the poem, the speaker envisions a future of doom for the country which had hurt and yet engendered so much passion in him:

Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,

And see her might and granite wonders there,

Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.

McKay’s poem reveals the racism and discrimination he experienced in America during the early 1900’s when racism was institutionalized by the United States Supreme Court under “Jim Crow” laws. For example, in Chicago in the 1940’s, African-Americans were not allowed to eat in restaurants with whites but were forced to go to the back door to place their order and then take the food home to eat. Also, in Montgomery in the 1930’s, African-Americans were forced to sit at the back of the bus or drink in separately marked water fountains than whites. This society of denial caused poets and artists to emerge to give expression to these injustices during the Harlem Renaissance in the early 1900’s.

During these years, there were cases of couples who intermarried among races, largely in the Northeastern part of America. An account of a Jewish-American woman’s experience assimilating to life in Suffolk, Virginia, in the 1920’s is chronicled in the novel The Color of Water by James McBride. Growing up in a dysfunctional family with an abusive father while trying to assimilate in a white society, the Jewish young woman is forced to leave her family, because she has no hope of a future there with an abusive father and due to the circumstance that she has had a relationship with an African-American boy with whose child she is pregnant. Not only will she be shunned by society for her pregnancy, but her family will disown her. The Jewish-American woman moves to New York City, aborts the pregnancy, settles, and eventually marries an African-American man.

The novel is written by her son, a half-white, half-African American man, and documents his struggle to uncover his identity. The novel depicts his life growing up half-white and half-black and trying to understand his mother’s race and color with his own. McBride depicts the discrimination that he, his siblings, and his mother face as black children with a white mother in a society unaccepting of interracial marriages or bi-racial children.

The Color of Water is an autobiographical account of James McBride and biographical account of his mother, Ruth Jordan. The reader learns of the effects of racism and discrimination on interracial families and children. Bi-racial children faced alienation, loss of identity, discrimination, confused identity, broken homes, and low self-esteem.

You, as students and readers of this novel, will:

Students will be public policy analysts
You will interpret social problem of prejudice as author sees it by reading the novel The Color of Water by James McBride
You will gather evidence to see if the problem of discrimination and racism against bi-racial adolescents really exists as author sees it, and you will use the internet to see if problem exists in America (i.e.: is the author right?)
You will evaluate the public policy that existed at that time
You will have the opportunity in this webquest to address the problem of racism and prejudice in this 21st century.

Task:

Students will create a power point:

1) 7 slides

2) music, video

3) presentation

Internet Resources:

1. www.lib.virginia.edu/usered/storytellers.net.blkconfed.htm

2. www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Delta/3843/blackconfed.htm

3. www.cas.suffolk.edu/english/richman/Boston/bosbib.htm

4. www.geot.nav.edu/tg/contents/support/vln4.refs.html

5. www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/Harlem/text/online_harlem.html

6. www.geotretown.edu/tamlit/collab_bib/harlem_bib.html

7. www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap9/9intro.html

8. www.eduscapes.com/42explore/harlem.htm

9. www.artlex.com/ArtLex/h/harlemrenaissance.html

10. www.riverdeep.net/current/2000/02/front.110200.harlem.jhtml

Process:

Divide into pairs.

Go to PPA and go through worksheets:

1. identify and define the problem in novel and as it existed in society: http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/worksheet1.html

2. gather evidence for both situations and complete worksheet for both author and society: http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/worksheet2.html

3. create their own public policy that will address the problem in the 21 century, e.g., scholarships, affirmative action, is it going on today. Use worksheet: http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/worksheet4.html

4. Use the Prince System to assess the relative support and opposition of various individuals, groups, and organizations for the public policy you have created for the social problem of racism in the 21^st century. Use the TIPS worksheets:

a. http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/prince1.html;

b. http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/tips/prince2.html;

c. http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/tips/worksheet10.html

PPA POWERPOINT EVALUATION CHECKLIST:

Title is clear and informative Yes No

The background color, text and font are easy to read/look at Yes No

The topic is related to a Public Policy Analysis Yes No

There are links to PPA steps Yes No

The hyperlinks are all relevant, accurate, workable and up to date Yes No

There was an internal consistency throughout the presentation Yes No

Pictures/Graphics/Animation/Sound are appropriate Yes No

Proper citations and copyright information Yes No

Content is factually accurate Yes No

Your presentation consists of a minimum of 7-10 slides Yes No

Grade A = all of the above

Grade B =

CONCLUSION

Students should have discovered the validity of the author’s experience or opinion of racism in America as it existed in Suffolk, Virginia, in the 1920’s. Students should have discovered the type of life experienced in Harlem, New York, in 1940. Students should have made a public policy and have evaluated it. In the next webquest, students will use the same procedure in the novel, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.

STANDARDS ADDRESSED IN WEB QUEST

ENGLISH:

ES #1: LANGUAGE FOR INFORMATION AND UNDERSTANDING

ES # 2: Language for literary response and expression

Es # 3: Critical analysis and evaluation

SOCIAL STUDIES

SS # 1: HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

SS# 3: GEOGRAPHY UNDERSTANDING

SS # 4: ECONOMICS

SS # 5: CIVIICS, CITIZENSHIP AND GOVERNMENT