For our 9 November 2016 Class. . . ﻿

TORDA'S SUMMER 2021 TEACHING

For our 9 November 2016 Class. . .

10/8/2016

Because we lose this Wednesday class due to Veteran's Day, we need to make up the work in some fashion. Rather than meeting to discuss the reading this week, you should post a shortened version of your reading journal in this space.

TO POST: It's easy. Click on the the "Comments" button located at the top right or bottom left of this page. Then follow the simple directions. You can write your response in the dialogue box that pops up. To REPLY to someone's comment, click on, wait for it, the "reply" button.

WHAT TO POST ABOUT: This is basically a reading journal, but what I'd like for you to do is connect the reading in Tell it Slant and the essays we are reading for the day. I'd like you to talk about how these essays are both about the personal and the public and to discuss how the authors make this larger argument? What resources do they use--both personal experience and otherwise--to make their point.

14 Comments

Kaleigh

11/4/2016 08:34:50 am

Looking at Emmett Till: I found this essay incredibly interesting. I had never heard of Emmett Till before, so reading this essay gave me a bit of a history lesson. What I love most about this essay is how the author looks at this tragedy from two standpoints: public and private. The murder of Emmett Till was obviously a very public event; it was in the newspapers and magazines, and everyone was talking about it. The author learned about it from the magazine Jet. When the author begins talking about his relationship with the magazine, the essay becomes more personal. He gives us details about how the magazine would pass through his family before he got it, how it would open to the best stories automatically because of the previous readers. He tells us that “Jet was an image of the black world as I understood it then: secondhand, beat-up, second-rate. Briar patch and rebuke,” (28). The author uses the effects of Emmett Till’s murder to weave in and out of public versus private opinions and ideations. He will tell us how his family, or his neighborhood, or the general public felt about race issues, and then use a personal event to tell us his own thoughts and feelings on them.
Scenes From A Life in Negroland: I loved how this essay was broken up into sections, with every section beginning with a kind of question: are we rich? Do we know Ginny’s janitor? This really helps to set the author up for well-timed instances of theory making. For example, the author begins the first section and a half with personal experiences that establish racial and classist tensions between herself and her community. Although her family is African American, they are well-off, and so the lower class African Americans in the community resent her family, as well as the white people around them. This all comes together when the author asks “Whose privilege would you find more bearable?,” the white person’s, or the African American who had more opportunities than you? “Who are “you”? How does your sociological vita—race or ethnicity, class, gender, family history—affect your answer?” If the author were to simply ask this question with no personal experiences to add context, it would lose its impact. This demonstrates how the use of public versus private experiences helps to influence the creative nonfiction genre.

Jo-Ann

11/10/2016 12:08:34 am

I felt the same way about reading "Looking at Emmett Till"" I did really like how the author talks about passing the magazine down to family member and how they look and feel about black and white people and also can feel it between the rich and the poor.

Peter

11/8/2016 09:44:38 pm

"Looking at Emmett Till" (John Edgar Wideman): Wideman balances private and public elements of life early on in his essay when he describes his recurring nightmare as caused by Emmett Till. draws comparisons between what his 14-year-old self and Emmett Till would have carried in their pockets or wallets. In doing so, he ties himself to history via Emmett Till's murder. I also understood Wideman's conversation with his girlfriend as incorporating the private and the public, particularly when the conversation returns to his narration and he writes "I realize I'm doing all the talking, when what I'd intended to elicit was her spontaneous witness. What her memory carried forward, what it lost". By placing this this passage between accounts of Till's murder and trailing off into citing sources, the conversation becomes an example of his thesis that the U.S. has not fully reconciled the circumstances of his death. In this sense, Wideman utilizes the concept of the private and the public to question whether that lack of reconciliation is limited to specific details or the emotional and social implications beyond Money, MS as well.

"Scenes from a Life in Negroland" (Margo Jefferson): With each question that Jefferson starts the first three sections of her essay, she cues the reader to her historical self. It sets up her family's upper-middle class status to clash with the inequalities and prejudices of the early Civil Rights Movement. It is this clashing, combined with Jefferson's parents' attempts to shield their children from this prejudice, that the private and public are given the most attention. This became clearest when her family was intentionally given poor service in Atlantic City and opted to shorten their vacation. Jefferson brings attention to this clash between the public and private again when she describes meeting Betty Ann and feeling humiliated, followed by her father's comments on moving again. Both of these passage in section V highlight the intersection of race and class in the author's life. She uses this toward her thesis, that "sociological vita" influence how we treat others, by suggesting that no single identity shapes a person. At the same time, the author uses her experiences and her observations of her parents to point out that the Jeffersons are often forced to acknowledge race when entering public, and predominantly White, social spheres, as well as having difficulty confronting classism in their neighborhood.

Liz Chappuis

11/11/2016 01:54:24 pm

Yes Peter I do believe John Edgar Wideman uses his essay to demonstrate that the U.S. has not fully reconciled the circumstances of Emmett Till's death. But I also see this essay as the author's way of reconciling within himself the death of his grandfather. In the beginning paragraph he talks about the monster that chases him in his dream and he tells us this monster predates Emmett Tills death. We later find out how his grandfather died when he was twelve.I think there is one of many personal sides to this essay.
In Margo Jefferson's essay I did notice how the parents tried to shield their children from the prejudices of society but I didn't quite know how to say it. I found some of their actions and explanations to be raw prejudice. They continually classified people by their color; accepting some and shunning others. Two examples come to mind. Lanova, the ' full blooded Indian' that came to camp and Ronnie, 'another Negro' in camp. Society tends to have racist views against these two cultures and so did the author as she speaks of herself and her mother 'speeding away' from them.

Allie Briggs

11/9/2016 02:13:40 pm

The readings for this week were interesting for a multitude of reasons. For instance Margo Jefferson’s “Scenes from a Life in Negroland” uses cues for the reader to set up the author, but not exactly outright tell them things about her. It shows her family’s upper-middle class status clashing with the Civil Rights movement, and the community around her. This sets the beginning ground of her way into showing the public and private aspects involved in the writing itself. This type of writing the public vs the private is intriguing, both offer such distinct views. The private personalizes the story while the public is a way to theorize the scenes. Her theory making was well timed and her personal experience makes the questions she asks impactful. As for the other story, “Looking at Emmett Till” uses public and private views to address race issues. Wideman weaves in and out of the public and personal aspects of his story. He uses widely known public events like the murder of Emmett Till to show a glimpse of his personal life; by using the magazine Jet we get a peek into his personal life during a public moment. He goes on to describe the way different communities react to the events and racial issues; his family, his neighborhood, the general public, all are described. He then describes his feelings on the issues, this take on the public and private was an interesting read. I think that using both is beneficial in this genre, it allows you to pursue different viewpoints on the same issue and bring different ideals into one piece or work. These authors utilized their resources well and it shows.

liz chappuis

11/14/2016 06:35:11 am

Allie, I like how you saw the public Vs. private side of this essay as her family's middle class status clashing with the Civil Rights movement. I saw it as her showing the reader how they tried to remove themselves from the public stereotypes. I did like how the author cues to alert the reader of important information. And yes, having viewpoint go from private to public does allow a much richer story to be told

Aly Kansaki

11/15/2016 04:02:22 pm

I agree that using different views, both the public and the private, give a greater impact on a story. I liked that the author of "Scenes from a Life in Negroland" uses the Civil Rights movement to contrast her own story of success, and that's what made it the most powerful. In "Looking at Emmett Till" I liked how you said the author shows the whole community's reaction; I thought the same thing, but I didn't know how to put it into words myself. This also opened my eyes to a different kind of writing style that could be useful in my writing.

Jo-Ann

11/10/2016 12:52:31 am

In the beginning of reading "Looking at Emmett Till" by John Edgar Wideman it was a stocking new in the beginning. The author explain the way it was the imagination of telling the story gave it a more powerful reading for me. I just like how he used the magazine show how the other family members would read it, and after they got to finish reading the mazagine he would get it. But in the beginning he talks about how his mother would not think of buying the magazine. I also like how the author puts in the story about the store and how the clerk would look at him. In this story the author has a lot of imagination, vision and also the feeling of other and how they were treated.

Liz Chappuis

11/11/2016 02:12:22 pm

Jo-ann I like how you noticed how the author explained the double- standard perspective of race through the magazine. A magazine is such a public forum, just screaming to be read. And it is also something that has been designed to attract a particular audience. In this case the Jet magazine 'was an image of the black world'(pg.28). Something I guess, in the personal sense, the author's mother was ashamed of but not shaming enough to take away her curiosity.

Aly Kansaki

11/11/2016 09:58:48 am

In John Edgar Wideman’s essay “Looking for Emmett Till,” it is definitely one of the sadder narratives that gives you chills and wish that race was never a thing to begin with. Humans believing other humans are different from themselves—I find that completely strange and ignorant. Looking for Emmett Till explores the death of a black child killed because he said something wrong to a privileged white lady. I liked how Wideman did not make Emmett Till a hero or a villain; he told his audience about his good side and his mischievous side, like any child would be especially growing up as part of a minority. He went through with the prank someone asked him to do and he was killed for it, while the two men who killed him were let off. The way Emmett was so unafraid of these white men reminded me of how Rosa Parks defiantly sat where she pleased, and for that reason I feel like I should know about Emmett Till and his legacy, but sadly this is the first time I’m ever hearing of him. I think John Edgar Wideman wrote this essay in order to get the word out that colored people still have souls, and to show that he is completely affected by this shameful killing of his friend. It connects the personal and public by relaying his personal feelings toward his friend, Emmett, and giving a wider view about what the public thinks of his death, and others as well. One woman even said, after he asked her what she felt of it, that a boy got lynched because he ran his mouth.
In Margo Jefferson’s essay “Scenes from a Life in Negroland,” I thought that it would be another poor black family that struggles in this society, but I was pleasantly surprised that they are of the upper class, and even had maids that help them with chores. I think that Margo Jefferson laid out the differences well in white wealthy people and black wealthy people. It is important to elaborate on the lives of the well-off black people because it shows even with the power of money, everyone will still treat you differently, that maybe Dr. Jefferson got his title on accident or something. The author set scenes about her days at an Indian camp and showed us the ways that she still struggled being a black girl, instead of telling us it was hard even with money in their pockets. What was also a great use of imagery was when she told us about her hotel experience in Atlantic City, the hotel employee saying they had no reservation and putting them in a room they had not paid for. On the other hand, it also shows a more positive message that not all colored people are the same. She sets a scene to show us that not everyone is the same, like her and Betty Ann were different but the same color, and she didn’t know if Betty Ann even had family, or at least not a mom or dad. This connects to the public verses personal essay because Margo Jefferson not only kept it personal to her own struggles, but she leaves us with different paragraphs highlighting what it was like in the 1950s and how the majority of people felt about their wealth.

Liz Chappuis

11/11/2016 02:26:20 pm

Aly, I also liked how Emmett Till was not portrait as a villain or hero. The author did a good job keeping him neutral and using him as the focal point when explaining the world around him. One spot in particular comes to mind during the telling of the actual murder by J.W. Milam. It appears to me that Emmett Till remained the same even at the moment of his death that 'Milam or Bryant, whoever struck first with the intent to kill, was the one who flinched, not him' (pg.40)
Keeping Emmett Till unchanged was a powerful tool used by the author to keep the focus away from Emmett and more on the society that murdered him.

Liz Chappuis

11/11/2016 12:51:55 pm

The two essays this week revolve around the topic of race. The essays were written from two perspectives. In the first essay, Looking for Emmett Till, we see how an individual has the ability to help define society by forcing it to look inward at their beliefs and practices. In the second essay Scenes from a Life in Negroland we see how an individual looks to society as a means of defining themselves.
The author of Looking at Emmett Till, John Edgar Wideman, wrote this essay as a catharsis for the nightmares he had experienced since being a boy. In his opening paragraph he first leads us to believe that the monster chasing him in his dreams is fourteen year old Emmett Till, a boy brutally murdered at the same age as he, in 1955, in Money, Mississippi. He then tells us how the nightmares predate the day he saw the battered and disfigured face of Emmett Till thus planting a seed of curiosity of how the monster might be something else.
The author identifies with his subject Emmett Till and uses him as a focal point, always coming back to him, using his story as concrete evidence for his argument surrounding the topic of race. His paragraphs alternate between fact, personal anecdotes, and philosophizing. He questions society as a whole, asking if “Denial is more acceptable to the majority of Americans than placing themselves, their inherited dominance, at risk. (pg.33). Later in his essay he begins to talk about his first experience with real death, the death of his grandfather. This is where we find out who the real monster may be. But when I look at the bigger picture, after seeing all the pieces, I wonder if the monster chasing him was of human origin at all. Or was it simply a metaphor for the fear he has toward societal behavior and their beliefs about his race.
In my opinion, Margo Jefferson ,the author of the essay Scenes from a Life in Negroland, wrote this piece as a way of finding her authentic self. She describes herself as being a third race thus giving her more credibility to her views on racism in the 1950’s. The author’s style of italicized sentences led me to believe this was her way of delivering or emphasizing important information. If these italicized sentences were strung together, would they define the real person she is? She wrote her scenes as chapters each telling us of experiences in her life. I felt a sense of organization in this piece like no other. The facts were delivered in a way that made me think she was both a person being subjected to racism as well as being a racist herself. The author posed poignant questions like ‘Who are “you”? ‘How does your sociological vita-race or ethnicity, class, gender, family history –affect your answer?’ (pg126). She used stories from her past to show the reader how she too was racist thus giving meaning to the idea that there is no such thing as a spotless race

Peter

11/12/2016 09:03:38 pm

In writing about "Looking at Emmett Till", I think that when you say that his dream is not really based on a human, you got to the point of this essay. Wideman's reflection on page 30 about his grandfather's death, "Stunned by how empty, how threatening the spaces of my grandfather's house had become, I fought during the daylight hours to keep him away" uses a personal experience to set up the quotation you referenced about denial on page 33. He's philosophizing that Emmett Till's death and others like it create a threatening emptiness that is shared and, thus, more public.

With regards to "Scenes from a Life in Negroland", I agree that Jefferson wrote this essay as a way to reconcile her past as in an upper-middle class Black family, but lines like the one where she raises the question about sociological vita made me see her trying more to highlight the many pieces of identity that come together to allow prejudice. Another example would be in section IV, when she writes "We thought of ourselves as the Third Race", where her use of the past tense gives the sense that she has become critical of that identity. I think she makes this clearer when she says "its members had education, ambition, sophistication, and standardized verbal dexterity". It suggests that it was an identity that treated class as what separated them from other races, while also, as Jefferson later mentions, ignoring the role of mixed-race ancestry and "passing" in what they saw as creating a "Third Race".

liz chappuis

11/14/2016 07:07:26 am

I do understand your thoughts on her regard to being a third race. It makes me sad to see the conflict between her beliefs and the reality she experienced. I believe she was being taught that education, ambition, sophistication, and standardized verbal dexterity was the key that would separate her family from racial inequities. The motel scene was powerful,it showed the reader how the public view didn't always match her family's view.