In this blog, you can post your own thoughts about race and performance in global popular culture. After a few weeks of absorbing and processing what we learned in the course, what images, texts, performance, music, etc. do you feel engage ideas of race and performance? How has your perspective changed since taking the course? Feel free to post links, song files, etc. Freestyle. No word count.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Final Thoughts- Race and Performance Freestyle
In this blog, you can post your own thoughts about race and performance in global popular culture. After a few weeks of absorbing and processing what we learned in the course, what images, texts, performance, music, etc. do you feel engage ideas of race and performance? How has your perspective changed since taking the course? Feel free to post links, song files, etc. Freestyle. No word count.
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Since taking this course I am more aware of the history as well as the presence of racism. During history the black society had to suffer a lot and today discrimination is still present. Just as I learned more about it in this class, others should discuss this topic a lot more as well, for example in school.
ReplyDeleteI recently found this photograph called “Breadline during the Louisville flood, Kentucky 1937” by Margaret Bourke-White on the internet:
http://www.masters-of-photography.com/images/full/bourke-white/b-w_living.jpg
It shows the contrast between the wealthy, happy, white American family, living the American Dream, and the African Americans having to stand in line for food, being poor and unhappy. African Americans can only watch the, as the picture says, “world’s highest standard of living” without taking part of it or even being noticed.
If African Americans by then still were not included into society, what did the 4th of July mean to them? The former slave Frederick Douglass tried to answer this question in his speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” in 1852. He said, that he is “not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary” and that this holiday only reveals to him the injustice going on in the country. By the time the photograph by Bourke-White was taken, African Americans, even so they are not slaves anymore, are not part of the community either. Therefore they cannot celebrate the declaration of independence, saying that they have the right for pursuit of happiness, because they don’t have it. They are not included yet.
Many people argue that racism is not one of the important problems to discuss anymore, but they are wrong. The following article of 2013 proves that as well: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/sport/gerald-asamoah-ueber-rassismus-vorfall-solche-leute-haben-doch-eine-schraube-locker-1.1750510
The article is about the famous soccer player Asamoah talking about the difficulties he had and still has to face just because he is black. He appeals to discuss racism now and that German people do not talk enough about everyday racism. And I think he is right. Discussing topics in class such as dressing up like a Jamaican made me aware of the fact, that people can be racist without meaning to. By not knowing, people accidently behave the wrong way, and we could easily change that, if people just learn about it. Asamoah definitely makes it clear, that now is the right time to explain racism especially to the children, since they are the new generation and have to pass the values of equality and respect on to the future.
I am really glad, that I took the course and learned so much more about race and performance. First slaves, then “separate but equal” and now still discrimination. We are on the right track but racism is not solved yet and everybody should be aware of it and should try to change it.