Contemporary Connections

When searching through what kind of racial issues that exist in American culture in 2017 it was clear that there was SO much. Just recently we found more out about the gender pay gap, many people right now are on Trump because of what the people believe he is discriminating against specific groups, and segregation is still happening today without it being clearly pointed out. Personally I wouldn’t call it segregation, but instead diversity. When being different than the peers you are surrounded by people tend to follow where they feel comfortable and safe, rather than mixing in with everyone.

In the first article I read by Jamal Eric Watson, he stated lots of observations and pointed out lots of the work that Dr. Kay McClenney did to collect and analyze data about students at community colleges. One of McClenny’s visits to a community college disheartened her because they talked about the gap between two different races of students at the school and address social inequality that impact the institution itself. This was just the opening of what McClenny wanted readers to know. As the article continued she talks about what is happening in the racial community and also brings up privileges that many of us are born with and the way that we take advantage of those aspects. Dr. Kay McClenny also talks about what her roll at the community colleges is and we learn more about what she has done to improve the situations between our races here in America. At her community college she went on to put an entry into the community college movement and is still continuing to advocate for different races in the community college.

The most obvious connection that you can see physically between the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Beloved is that different races are being split or segregated. When reading the books we can see that in UTC that it was written to abolish slavery—to make the situation better for everyone else. This I see McClenny doing for the Blacks and Hispanics at community colleges to help them grow and be in the charts like all the other students who were privileged. “We need to continue to push courageously and to examine what is being done unintentionally to perpetuate disadvantaged outcomes and white privilege." When this is said I find her looking for ways to find equality for the students in the college. In Beloved we don’t really see a bunch of segregation, but we see that Sethe as a mother is trying to make sure that her children are safe and living the life that privileged people live. This is done by living at 124.

The next article I read also touches on race and the effects that it has on the presidency. The struggles that were raced were rough because of the many groups that we as American’s are put into; white males, white woman, minorities, privileged groups, oppressed groups, Native Americans, Blacks, and so on. The segregation will never end it seems like because when we go to vote even the people who are running for president count on “The minority votes to boost their numbers.” From the article it states that, “In trying to win over entrenched Republicans, Obama lost his base: women, people of colour, minorities, progressive affluents, and most importantly the young.” This is still grouping people together to make them a whole.

When reading the books we can see that for slavery we had blacks and whites and owners versus slaves. These were “simple” groups they were broken into. Unfortunately, with Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Beloved those are really the only two races or two groups that are shown. When digging into each group they are further separated—mother and children and male workers. The two books definitely focus on the mothers and the roles that each of them play. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin the mother’s overall were supposed to be strong Christian believers while the men did the hardcore labor. In Beloved we were leaned towards Sethe being a mother to Denver and later finding out of her motherly duties she did to protect her daughter Beloved. That whole portion is hard to grasp when we mix the ideas of motherhood with both the books. We learned that Susan, from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, clearly wanted what was best for Emmeline, but let God lead her to where she was to go. In Beloved, Sethe didn’t let God do his duties and do what was best for Beloved; Sethe put that into her own hands to take care of. Unfortunately, in 2017, presidents can’t just let God do all the work because everything is a competition between the groups that are segregated. It was only a few years ago that Obama made history of being the first black president, and now we are back to what people consider the norms of our society. Once again, we are segregating race, gender, and class.

I believe that as 2017 comes and goes we will still struggle to see the light that men and women, no matter what race, were created as equals. In class when we talked about these two books we saw lots of racial connections, along with the position at which they were at in the books; Whether they were privileged or being taken advantage of. Slavery was a big part of our history and I would hate to see us go backwards because of the way we label each other today. After reading these two short articles it was definitely eye opening that lots of things have changed since our book, but the thing that has stayed the same is that we are still grouping each other into groups not only based on race, but gender too.