Title: Carry the Fire

Player(s) should be metaphorically “carrying the fire.” The idea is to protect and keep your fire throughout the game and stay alive.

The Board

Approximately a 4 by 3 foot board. Two inch squares that extend around the board to form a swirly path. The beginning point is titled “Darkness” and the end point is titled “The End of the Road.” Every few spaces reads “Draw Card.”

Gameplay

To start, each player is given 20 tokens. 10 of these tokens are survival tokens and the other 10 are fire tokens, the former representing overall player health and the latter representing the player’s overall compassion “level.” For each players’ turn, a die is cast and the player must move a corresponding amount of spaces along the board. If the player lands on a “Draw Card” space on the board, the player must draw from a stack of “Chance” cards and read their card out loud. Chance cards throw the player into a situation that they are out of control of and will ask them to either give up or collect one of the two categories of tokens (they typically concede or rescind 2 to 3 tokens). Additionally, players may opt to go down certain routes on the board to the “Scenario” locations, where they must draw a card from a separate stack of cards. The cards will present various scenarios, most of which will instruct the player between surrendering a certain amount of one type of token in exchange for the other. This way, strategy is introduced into the game. If a player loses all their survival tokens, they’re out of the game and pronounced dead. However, the goal is to reach The End of the Road with fire token still intact, and the player with the most fire tokens by the end of the path is the winner.

Explanation

Our game combines player strategy with an inevitable construct of luck, or lack thereof. In the book, the father and the boy face a series of unfortunate events that out of their control, such as rainstorms and earthquakes. Many of our scenarios reflect this randomness. However, one of the underlying conflicts worked into the novel is the boy’s unwavering compassion for life versus the father’s self-centered will to survive, and how both dispositions simultaneously interfere and cooperate with certain aspects of the human identity. In an attempt to recreate this conflict, we have made it so that the goal of the game is to collect fire tokens, but all fire tokens will be null and void should someone lose all their survival tokens.

Often in the book, the man and the boy must together come to a consensus of what the right thing to do is. When their cart is stolen, for example, they track the thief down and the father nearly shoots him, but the boy implores him to let it go. When they come across a feeble old man, the father wants to play it safe and show him no attention, but the boy wants to help him. In scenes like these, McCarthy means to demonstrate two divergent conditions of humans: kindness and selfishness. In such a desolate and dead world, decisions like these could mean life and death, and we made the game based on that premise. Accordingly, there are many scenarios that mirror real events in the book. Of course the Fire tokens are a direct reference to the “carrying the fire” motif that most notably appears in the novel at the end, when the man, dying, expresses his faith in his son’s ability to make a brighter world, even in the darkest of circumstances. In this sense, the boy’s compassion ideals triumph over everything in The Road as the most important saving factor. This was our reason for making the collection of Fire tokens the objective for the game; we want to make the statement that value of goodness in the world will always outweigh the benefits of selfishness. We imagine that while playing, players will have an earnest conversation about personal morals and how they affect our world.

Wes Matthews

Ms. Pahomov

English III/Air Stream

4-23-18

                                     Social Media: Perception vs. Reality

In just 15 years, social media has become a dominant channel for human interaction, with an estimated 2.5 billion active users currently. This ever-increasing statistic is reflective of a global society driven by technology and mass communication. With social media, there is general discourse and news dissemination that even the most forward-thinking minds from a century ago probably would not have been able to predict. With all its popularity and usage, it is necessary to ponder the effects that social media has on the individual, and therefore on the rest of society as a whole. Though there are a myriad of these effects to observe, one of the most recognizable is that social media often breeds complex facades that seek to compromise true character for outward appearance.

Humans have always been social creatures, and with very good reason. Social groups give people their sense of purpose, while the cooperation aspects help them maintain conditions necessary to live. For this reason, it is almost natural that people gravitate to social media; the posts, comments, and likes make many people feel validated by other people in the world. This sensation of validation, however, can become quite addictive to the average person, resulting in many social media users actively seeking it out. In fact, according to a study by California State University, receiving a like on Facebook is comparable to the neural sensation one feels after intaking a small amount of cocaine, as it triggers the amygdala, which processes the importance of events and impending rewards. Consequently, it is rather common for users to feel the need to tally a large amount of likes.  Just as cocaine addicts tend to do outrageous things to obtain the drug, social media users oftentimes go to measures far outside of their regular personality in order to get likes and attention, from pulling dangerous stunts to intentionally sparking controversy and anything in between. Actions like these can be dangerous and harmful, but an even deeper subproblem is that this leads to people living much of their lives in a facade realm in which they can develop dishonest traits and attributes of pretense. These changes, no matter how nuanced, could affect the way one is viewed by others, and could even affect self-perception.

Many people use social media to post pictures of themselves or to show off their whereabouts. Not surprisingly, this has led to a generational uptick in narcissism levels. In a cross temporal study by San Diego State University, psychologists found a noticeable increase in mean narcissism levels that coincides with the 21st century rise of social media apps like Facebook and Twitter. Nearly two-thirds of the modern day college students who completed the inventory placed above the average narcissism score of students from 1979-1985. This suggests that social media has indeed affected the way people self-perceive, as there is now a large and accessible outlet to self-promote and aggrandize. In the same way users seek to be validated, people also seek admiration and praise for their live. This rather typical eagerness for compliments can manifest itself in a number of different ways, from posting an excessive amount of selfies to creating fabricated good tidings to announce. Either way, it is evident that the internet elevates people’s consciousness of how they are perceived, which often impels people to make themselves seem like more than what they are.

As is the case with many milestones of innovation, the net pros must be weighed with the net cons in order to arbitrate its actual utility. While social media can be considered a wildly important mainspring of both the social and economic sphere, at its core its main use is for the individual. Therefore, it is just as flawed as humans, as it works almost as a mirror to the insecurities, deep desires, and vanity issues of people in the real-world. It is essential to acknowledge the shortcomings of social media globally so that people are not caught up in a simulacrum universe, but rather focus on the true social world and all its functioning systems, which unlike social media, cannot simply be logged off.

I have been challenged in the past with the task of balancing the clarity of my argument’s points with my sometimes long-winded and wordy style of writing. Ms. Pahomov has brought this to my attention on multiple 2fers, and gradually I have tried to use the revision process as an opportunity to cut words or phrases that add nothing to the direction of my points. This is possibly my best 2fer because it accomplishes that to the fullest extent thus far, as it is probably my shortest 2fer as far as word count but still it has a lot to offer with the points and is directed to a thesis that I still think is thoughtful.

Works Cited

Eror, Aleks. “Social Media Has Created a Generation of Narcissists.” Highsnobiety, Highsnobiety, 12 Sept. 2017, www.highsnobiety.com/2017/03/14/social-media-narcissism/.

Campbell, W. Keith. “Is Social Media Turning People into Narcissists?” The Conversation, 18 Oct. 2016, theconversation.com/is-social-media-turning-people-into-narcissists-66573.

How Michelle in Southside with You and Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew show a major shift in relationship and gender dynamics

Though William Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew has been celebrated as an early example of romantic comedy, it has also garnered plenty of criticism from literary scholars and modern audiences for its seemingly misogynistic politics with women and courtship. In the play, a man named Petruchio tries to win both the heart and submission of his romantic partner, Katherine, the titular “shrew” of the play. Though Katherine is rather resistant to Petruchio’s efforts, he eventually converts Katherine from a headstrong and asocial woman to a overly obedient housewife by depriving her of necessities, such as food and sleep.

The 2016 drama film Southside With You displays a more modern and reformed idea of courtship. In the movie, a 28 year-old Barack Obama attempts to woo his colleague, Michelle Robinson, on an innocent summer date in the South Side of Chicago. Though Michelle is also rather resistant to Barack’s advances, his charisma and ebullient personality eventually win her over by the end of the date.

Though Barack and Petruchio may have similar goals in mind, their tactics are markedly different, and that is indicative of a major shift in worldview. They both want to win over a woman’s heart, but while Petruchio finds it perfectly fine to force Katherine into showing him affection through inhumane means, Barack is much more respectful of Michelle’s discretionary freedom. He is understanding of her reluctance and acknowledges that it would be abusive to use coercion tactics to achieve his end goal. This shows that though the concept of male pursuit is still very much alive, coercion is now generally looked down upon while the personal freedom of romantic partners is championed.

Petruchio: Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.

Katherine: If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

Petruchio: My remedy is then, to pluck it out.

(Act 2, Scene 1, Lines 222-225)

In this scene, Petruchio and Katherine are arguing somewhat comically as Petruchio plots his “taming” of her. He tells Katherine that she is too angry and compares her to a wasp. In response, Katherine says that Petruchio should then fear her sting, and Petruchio says that he will pluck her stinger out. This is Petruchio’s way of asserting that Katherine is powerless against him because he will always find ways to control her and stifle her disobedience.

In all likelihood, Shakespearean audiences would have laughed heartily at this scene, and it would not have offended many or garnered much controversy. This is because it was normal for men at the time to assert conjugal control, even if that meant threatening violence to their partner. This scene is a key example of the overbearing tendencies of men at the time of Shakespeare. Women were scorned and punished for trying to declare any type of control, just as Katherine is here.

Many modern romance movies are on the complete opposite end of the spectrum.

In Southside with You, Michelle Obama is depicted as a strong-willed woman, similar to Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew. One of the main differences between the two is how their willfulness is perceived. In this scene, Michelle, maddened by the fear that the date will cost her her job, fires up at Barack, saying that he should have been more respectful of her request to keep everything professional. Barack is silent the whole time Michelle is talking, carefully listening to her without trying to shoot her down, as Petruchio does to Katherine. Viewers of the film can see that Barack has is doing his best to understand Michelle’s point of view, though he may not agree with it. This major difference reflects a more modernized perception of how women should be treated—with unwavering respect as a peer and not property. Unlike the play, the film does not celebrate taming, but rather it seeks to put the lead male character and lead female character on a more equal level of control.

No shame but mine. I must forsooth be forc’d

To give my hand oppos’d against my heart

(Act 3, Scene 2, Lines 8-9)

This line comes from Katherine on the day of her wedding, shortly before Petruchio’s arrival. Petruchio’s tardiness to his own wedding makes Katherine go into a fit of both anger and sadness, as she mourns the fact that she is being forced by her father to marry a man that she does not have romantic feelings for. This is reflective of the marriage regime at the time of Shakespeare. Marriage was an extremely important cornerstone of societal structure, and unfortunately, women were often left disenfranchised from the process of courtship and marriage. Many women, like Katherine in this scene, were forced to marry men whom they did not love.

While this line may have been dismissed by the Shakespearean audiences as normal, audiences today would likely have much more empathy for Katherine. Marriage now is more of a consensual covenant, usually involving vows and legal documents. This alone shows a societal leap in ideology: women are now expected to have dominion over their own romantic affairs. This means that, in most cases, a father no longer decides whom his daughter marries, like Katherine’s father does for her.

The new system of courtship surfaces notably in Southside with You.

In this scene from the beginning of the movie, Michelle expresses her reluctance to Barack about going on a date, saying that it would make her look bad if she dates her coworker. Barack, understanding of her situation, then eases her angst by telling her that it is not officially a date until she wants it to be. Unlike Petruchio, he is considerate of Michelle’s disinterest and his pursuit subsides a bit. The mere fact that Michelle is able to express her disinterest to Barack shows a huge difference in power structure from Shakespeare’s time. Had Katherine told Petruchio she does not care for him, she likely would have been dismissed or perhaps even violently punished. Here, Barack is able to relent pretty quickly, without so much as a heated argument. Viewers should take close notice to this small scene because it illustrates the modern customs surrounding relationships: women have a much more prominent role in the courtship process, as they are more easily able to reject suitors without major backlash.

“Now, go thy ways, thou hast tamed a curst shrew”

(Act 5, Scene 2, Line 205)

This line is spoken by Hortensio at the very end of the play, as all the male characters feast cheerfully and commend Petruchio on his successful taming of Katherine. The most important detail modern audiences will notice in this scene is how Petruchio’s coercive abuse has earned him acclaim among all the men, as if he had proved himself a valiant and respectable man. The scene is communicative of the history of marital coercion, and how it was not uncommon for men to find coercion perfectly fine in a relationship. This play is an example of a larger historical pattern: love being won not with the heart, but with the fist.

Romance has conceptually changed for the better in this regard.

Unlike Taming of the Shrew, Southside with You ends on a precious note of romance and the power of wooing with charm and chemistry. There are very few words in the last scenes, allowing room for body language to come to the forefront. After a long date with ups and downs, Michelle and Barack share a special moment after he buys her chocolate ice cream, which she mentioned was her favorite dessert earlier in the date. Though Michelle’s infatuation with Barack had become gradually more evident throughout the course of the date, this act is the one that finally wins Michelle over. It is important to note how Barack did not use any type of coercion to romance Michelle. Instead, he used his naturally alluring personality, which distinctly sets his actions apart from that of Petruchio, who does not even seem to have a genial conversation with Katherine throughout the whole play. In the end, things work out favorably for both Barack, the pursuer, and Michelle, the pursuee, which truly highlights the contrast in what 21st century movie-goers want to see in a romance film: gentle courtship that ends in consensual happiness.

Both of these works can be interpreted as romanticized capsules of real-life attitudes when it comes to love. While it tends to be very easy to overlook entertainment history, by analyzing the romantic works of a time period, one may arrive at a deep understanding of how relationship ideals and gender roles have evolved over the course of time. Truth be told, The Taming of the Shrew and Southside with You are not that different in that they both use the plot device of a man pursuing a woman. However, with the rise of modern feminism and an always maturing civil culture, these movies offer two opposing archetypes of how that should be done. The ideological divergence here is evident, and it may be a guide in objectively studying where the impressive change has come and where change is due next.

“What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?”

Robert Hayden

I.

I saw my father and two men hang their overcoats on the rack, drooped like wet anthers on a matte flower as they proceeded into my humble home. Their footsteps impressed the floor all at once in a proud symphony as they made their way to the dining room, where they sat themselves down at a roundtable in jolly laughter and hearty enthusiasm. Their echoes became giants through the classic Corinthian-white halls, traveling lightspeed as I sat wide-eyed watching them brag themselves out the boredom of that winter Sunday. I was spellbound by the thickly dressed ebb of their baritones, though I knew not much of the matters they speak on. Manly matters, I supposed. The bellycheer and conversation flowed as patient as tree-sap runnels, eventually finding its way to the familiar discussion of manliness—a discourse in which their stubborn egos would war relentlessly under the table. I saw battle in their eyes, broad-shouldered armies resting at attention in the buds of their pupils. Here, I learned the bane of all men; I learned of pride and power, of braggadocio and esteem defense. I gazed on in fear, in intrigue, in bloodrush fanaticism against my own father. For a small pocket in time, he did not seem like the same person. He was not the ripe-hearted hero I had once imagined him to be. He was a mere man, crowned with the halo of hubris that would soon change the way I thought of him, and thought of myself.

This was the day I first confuse love with fear of my father. I learned his percussive footsteps, heavyweight yet spacious like redwood branches falling to the ground in rhythm. When I was in trouble, they were the stimulus inspiring shockwaves of nerves and regret. When I was virtuous, they were more like a forewarning of his impending presence, snapping my conscience into full-fledged attentiveness.

His usual declaration to me was, “I’m going to make you into a man.”

“A man?” I thought, “Only God can make a man.”

I found out the hard way what make a man meant in his mind. I have early memories of his command to stop putting my hands on my hips, which he designated as a feminine pose. For a long while, I could not even define the word feminine, but from the sober tug of his voice I could tell that it is something no man should be. The look in his eyes when he chastised me over trifles is one of shame, something I learned to perceive in his deeply hickory and full iris. When they interrogated me, I, too, felt shame well up inside. I felt like an impostor of a man before I was given the chance to become one, or know what it meant to be one. In that shame was the simple irony that I had at one point in time studied and revered my father, with pure lovelight and high regard. Now, I dismissed him as a contemptible and prejudice autocrat, drowning me out in his antagonizing eye.

The years turned like pages of the same book under my father’s house as he chaptered his mannerisms into sanguine obsessions. Everyday, he made me a “man,” as if the maturation to manhood were a Rocky training montage. I had digested the stigma of wearing flip flops, the humiliation of the color pink. I found repercussion in picking nosegay flowerheads from the ground and then knew that to my father, masculinity was not something that grew like foliage, but an inborn fire. I could not bring myself to reconcile with what he thought I should be. Sometimes, it felt like he wanted to rid me of sincerity, for I was not born as an emotionless slab of concrete he seemed to be. I was very much so a lover who saw paradise in all things sensitive and kid-gloved, and the only shame I had about it was that I knew that deep down he was disappointed in me, so I thought. I could not emotionally handle this shame and so it turned to conviction as my relationship with him grew standoffish, especially when I nestled under my mother for all the empathy and acceptance he would not give me. During this time, we were two plates of simultaneous drift apart, unable to synchronize the passage of time and movement. I thought that was just the way it had to be. Our happiest moments were like phantoms of a distant past, our laughs like dying ripples in runnels of muddied water. We were two of a kind, with a strict boundary of love and contempt dividing us. Then, I would have sworn that I knew everything there was to know about my father. I would have sworn that I that I was innocent and he was guilty, I was the victim and he was the offender. The truth is, I was indeed a victim—but my own ignorance was my only offender.

II.

The climax of our cold war came last August, when unbearable humidity cloaked our days only to have the heroic breeze disrobe it at night. The heat that day had made my house a house full of hotheads, which meant no good for both me and my father. He sat on his kingly couch, swamped with sweat and temper, his thickened brow quivering with tension as angst ran rampant through the household. I, marked with the same temper, had an unusually low tolerance for annoyance that day as well, and so the inevitable always has its way.

My dad noticed my casual wear, my flip flops and faded pink shirt. It was a cardinal sin of mine. I knew it would draw a reaction from him, and yet I did not care enough to avoid it. I was ready for his worst, as I had stiffened my ego so that he may not crush it. I expect him to strike, to spike his breath and raise up from his seat disturbed.

But worse. He dismisses me, his unattending eyes deciding to focus on something of more significance. His following words pierced me like the very head of a knife ready for bloodletting.

“I can’t believe one of my sons would wear flips flops. How can a man wear flip flops this much?”

The gravity in his voice sunk my shadow deep into a trembling blackness. Time became a bony oblivion. I was not mad. I was not filled with hate. I tried so very hard to be filled with nothing—not possible. But in that moment, the mocking was worse than a beating. It was worse than anything else he could have thrown at me. There, I saw a man knee-deep in his pretense and pride, all his inhibitions twining like beeswax angles in unarmed warfare. I had been rejected by my fomer beloved idol, who I then concluded was not changing, and would never change, even for the love of me. I could not stand it. Fueled by fires of embarrassment and dejection, I stormed off alone to pity myself in my misfortune.

My poor mother saw it and immediately understood what had happened, but did not chase after me. I see this now as a balking tactic. What she would soon disclose to me was her discovered secret, an intelligence that was in turn kept secret from him. I sought her out and asked her to help me cope with the situation. I retrospectively owe her much thanks, for it was her who assured me that my father’s love for me could never be snuffed when I needed the assurance most. I asked her anxiously why he was like this, what had molded such an irreversible blemish in character. Her spirit was visibly broken to pieces at my hopeless pleading. I could see she had a tentative answer, not because she was uncertain, but because the truth might not have been a truth I needed to know. It, in fact, was.

When she began to talk, it was in her tale voice that is the sound of wind thickening through the sky. It was soothing, it was intelligent, and it signaled that the uninhibited truth shall be told. She told me of her suspicions from hints she had gathered gradually over the years: my father, an excellent student and very charismatic young boy, had a teacher in 8th grade who he had a rather close bond with. The teacher had numerous times invited my father over his house for minor menial labors and conversation. The teacher, as my father had accidentally recounted in an absent-minded recollection, was murdered in his home in 1988 for allegedly being a predator on young boys (she, perhaps very wisely, left the connection up to me). And though the pieces of mystery come together as such, my father had never confessed to being sexually abused. Out of fear, maybe, out of embarrassment, out of denial. I understood my mother’s point: perhaps ego is just his disguise of deep pain.

It at last hit me that that was the dawn of his spiritual necrosis, his enduring and mute philosophical suicide.

I leveled my breath as a spiteful silence mobbed my throat’s pit. Between the distracting knot in my throat and the stubborn weakness in my legs, there was a masquerade ball of emotions all dying to dance, my gut the dancefloor beneath all those anxious feet. In that moment, of all the emotions I felt, I above all felt sorrow. Not a pity-sorrow, but the sorrow of realizing that I foolishly assumed that my father was a pastless villain. Throughout all my fits of childish myopia, I hadn’t bothered to think with concern for him, but rather conviction. I had designed a self-pitying plight that vilified a very broken man; once a fatherless, alm-clothed boy from Detroit’s skid row, everyday vying for attention from an affectionately unheeding mother. He was the lone man of the house, coerced into what everyone under his own roof and beyond told him a man was. He only knew such pain; he was a victim of a delicate defeat—each of the civil twilights that ended the day a victor against his will to be what he wanted. Then, in this awakening, I understood that his hidden baggage had been my confused pulse, his internal demons like running axles in my own esteems. Only then did I realized that he was more broken than I ever was.

I, looking deeply, found the insulting irony in the situation to be that I had failed my father the same way he had failed me. I had thought it standard for a man to have no internal weakness, and for this I was just as guilty of the same prejudicial thinking that plagued him. Deep inside, I wanted him to be the strong, unwavering hero that I had imagined every fabulous father to be. And so, I indeed failed him. I denied him the human right to be imperfect and still beloved. In my catharsis, I found my thoughts to be mirrors in a house of mirrors, my light bending obediently to form a distorted image of my father—teary-eyed, wanting to be loved but unable to ask. It was not a pretty sight, but it was beautiful. It was beauty in the sense of revelation, raw and flowering truth undaunted by me staring into it.

For my father, and for myself, I wept that night, long and gently. I was unashamed, for that is what made me more of a man.

 The Problem of Internalized Racism

Racism, in itself, is a divisive and deeply-rooted custom in the United States whose presence causes a blatant disruption of core American beliefs in freedom and equality. In recent years, racial controversy has found its way to political and social platforms, resulting in numerous protests and riots. Unfortunately, it is rather common for one to think that racism is a belief that should be categorized as a race-to-race issue, almost as if it is an interaction between two different parties. However, there is a very problematic form of racism that is not as discoursed in today’s world: internalized racism. Internalized racism is defined by sociologist Stuart Hall as, “the ‘subjection’ of the victims of racism to the mystifications of the very racist ideology which imprison and define them.” For years, psychologists have conducted social experiments to grow closer to an understanding of what causes it and its branching effects. The ultimate conclusion is clear: internalized racism is prevalent in the black community because it is rooted in the raging self-esteem struggles sparked by centuries of unjust prejudice and belittlement.

In the 1940s, African-American psychologists Dr. Kenneth and Mamie Clark conducted a series of experiments on black children with one overlying objective in mind: to study how substandard the black perception of self is and how the social status quo affects this perception. What they found would prove pivotal in the course of American history, serving as expert witness evidence for Briggs v. Elliott (1952) and Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Using a brown and a white doll as stand-ins for humans, the Clarks asked young children which doll is more beautiful, which doll they rather play with, which doll is the “nicer” doll, and which doll is the “bad” doll. Results showed that the black children showed a pronounced preference for the white doll in every manner. This finding was revolutionary at the time because it shed light to a phenomenon that was unproven and not quite understood. Not only did the kids have an apparent understanding of race, they at a young age had already internalized the idea the black people are inferior to white people. The Clarks concluded that this mentality was perpetuated by the infamous “separate but equal” legal doctrine that was employed in schools and in the general public at the time. This historical policy was, in fact, not heeded well. The mistreatment of blacks continued to thrive, and many whites thought of “separate but equal” as sanction for segregation under the law. Segregation is one of the many oppressive systems that had lasting emotional and mental effects on black Americans. These effects have been categorized as a new mental illness coined Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. PTSS suggests that years of physical pain, mass incarceration, Jim Crow laws, and emotional abuse have created a fear complex in the mentality of black Americans that warp their cognition of self and the world around them. According to psychologist Dr. Joy DeGruy, this form of untreated PTSD can be passed on genetically from generation to generation. This leads to the mental aspects of it being inescapable, and though far removed from the slavery generation, black people are able to carry mental traits of their ancestors. For example, Uncle Tom syndrome is a psychological concept that refers to the coping skill of submissiveness as response to a threat or animosity in order to preserve oneself from pain. This survival technique was developed by many American slaves, sacrificing their self-esteem and respect for a vague feeling of safety. This mental submissiveness to the oppressor has been passed down, another reason for the high prevalence of black internalized racism. Since it is embedded in genetics, it would be difficult for a generation to rid themselves of the self-oppressing mindset.

In 1903, W.E.B DuBois coined the term internalized racism. DuBois began to look into his sociological theory of double consciousness, a psychological concept that suggests that the human identity is capable of being divided into several parts. DuBois proposed that black Americans have a hard time uniting their black identity with their American identity due to years of social repression in America, leading many to devalue one of those aspects of their humanness. He believed that blacks are likely to see themselves through the lens of society, since the public worldview is so prevailing. Therefore, it is common for black Americans to consider themselves inferior or subpar. It is regular human psychology to believe something after being told it enough times. The Illusory Truth Effect is the idea that “repetition of an assertion increases the degree of belief in that assertion. (Hertwig, “The Reiteration Effect in Hindsight Bias”)” This effect helps sociologist come to a deeper understanding of what internalized racism is and how it spreads. Since America’s black population have often been reminded of their inferiority to white Americans (lynchings, segregation etc.), the tendency of blacks to condemn their own race as inferior is higher because, for much of American history, it has been the general worldview of the country. The psychological aspect of internalized racism is actually a normal human reaction to social views, which is why the national prejudicial notions of black Americans influences how many black Americans perceive themselves.

Although internalized racism may only seem relevant to minority communities, it should in fact concern anyone who cares about race relations because it causes conflicting viewpoints of what should be done for the betterment of these relations, which hinders progress in general. Internalized racism amplifies racist ideals to the point that it may be difficult to make consensual changes to fix infamous racial issues, such as police brutality and criminal profiling. It is vital to understand that the more people against racism, the more that can be done to ensure that it is not passed down to the next generation. Examining and preventing its causes will slowly decrease its commonality, since its general cause is the internal absorption of oppressive attitudes. Living as a minority in a country against minority progression is immensely detrimental to the ego and feelings of belonging. However, in social times of trial, it is vital to honor the words of the wise W.E.B. DuBois, “In all things purely social we can be as separate as the five fingers, and yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.”

Works CIted

Loury, Glenn C. “An American Tragedy: The Legacy of Slavery Lingers in Our Cities’ Ghettos.” Brookings, Brookings, 28 July 2016, www.brookings.edu/articles/an-american-tragedy-the-legacy-of-slavery-lingers-in-our-cities-ghettos/.

“Segregation Ruled Unequal, and Therefore Unconstitutional.” American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, July 2007, www.apa.org/research/action/segregation.aspx.

W, H. “Chrome-Extension://Bpmcpldpdmajfigpchkicefoigmkfalc/Views/Ap.” York.cuny.edu, 24 Jan. 2014, prezi.com/ahx9d3v5xfoq/chrome-extensionbpmcpldpdmajfigpchkicefoigmkfalcviewsap/.

Baldwin, Joseph A.. “Theory and Research Concerning the Notion of Black Self-Hatred: A Review and Reinterpretation.” Journal of Black Psychology, journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/009579847900500201.

Nittle, Nadra Kareem. “What Is the Definition of Internalized Racism?” ThoughtCo, www.thoughtco.com/what-is-internalized-racism-2834958.