Protection, Freedom of Speech, and Freedom to Pursue Wealth - Paper Example

Claude McKay wrote the poem If We Must Die amid the bloodshed and violence of 1919. In his poem, he urges the black community to resist the various subjugation and prejudices perpetrated against the people of colour. McKay was born in Jamaica in 1889, and he majorly wrote about political and social concerns from his perspective as a black activist in the United States. "If we must die" was composed as a response to the Red Summer Violence of 1919. During this retro there was an escalation of race riots, hate crime, and overall vehemence against the black community across Chicago, Washington DC and the town of Elaine, Arkansas.

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The red summer riot was precipitated by factors such as shortages of labour. Industrial cities based in the North and the Midwest reaped vast wealth from the World War 1. However, the factories also encountered labour shortages since a majority of white men were recruited into the war, and the government had halted immigration from Europe. To fill these job opportunities, more than 500000 African Americans migrated from the north to Midwest cities. Moreover, this Africans were escaping the Jim Crow laws and segregated schools. This migration intensified racial strife as working class white workers resented the presence of African Americans who posed competition in the job industry. Due to this ongoing cold war and hatred, there eventually developed an inter-race conflict during the mid-summer of 1919.

As a Jamaican immigrant to the U.S.A., Claude McKay poems hosted numerous multifaceted themes based on his life in Jamaica and the United States. He was a staunch member of the Harlem Renaissance movement, which was formed by African-American writers as a measure to curb racial discrimination. In his poem, McKay reflects on racism and the African American struggle against the acts of violence. Moreover, he confers the feelings of egotism he possesses as an American of African origin and also the estrangement he experiences on racial accounts.

Dwight Okita wrote the poem In Response to Executive Order 9066 at the onset of the Second World War. During the war, US President Franklin Roosevelt signed the executive order 9066 that mandated people of Japanese ancestry occupying the west coast to be confined in intermittent military camps. Order 9066 was enforced ten weeks after the bombing of the Pearl harbour and American war crafts by the Japanese. It gave the military extreme power which proscribed civilians from a sixty-mile-wide coastal region distending from Washington State to California and outspreading inland into southern regions of Arizona.

Envy due to Japanese success and the distrust caused by cultural separateness and the long-standing anti-Asian racism developed into a disaster when the Japanese Empire attacked the pearl harbour on December 7, 1941. Following this attack, lobbyists from the western states, mainly due to their competing economic interests pressured the Congress and the president to incarcerate Japanese off the west coast. Following the plea and pressure, Franklin Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, which was later on enacted by the Congress on March 21, 1942, by ratifying Public Law 503, ten weeks after bombing of the Pearl harbour.

Zora Neale Hurston's fiction, Sweat, is an account of the conjugal clash that pits Delia against the malice of her spouse, Sykes. The story delineates an economic and social setting as it happens in Eatonville, an all-black town. Delia's ethical battle with Sykes is cast in stark white and dark terms, and the configuration of symbolism depicted shows distinct racial ramifications. From the beginning of the book, it is evident that Sykes brutal treatment of Delia is due to his disdain for her work as a domestic labourer for the white individuals. However, it is indispensable to understand that Sykes is a powerless male character who assaults Delia to make up for his monetary shortcomings.

The predominant symbolism of Sweat portrays the whiteness of Delia's qualities and outlook, this is symbolized by a heap of clothing that is related with her intrinsic goodness against the obscurity of Sykes oddity. Sykes elongated dark whip acts like a phallic image that showcases Sykes wild sexual desires and the scriptural serpent that attacks the Garden of Eden. Regardless of the scriptural symbolism and the suggestions of Sweat, the world that is debilitated by Sykes, the poisonous snake, and the whip demonstrates a fallen world that is made by the sweat of Delia's hard work.

In the last scene of the book, Delia observes with both peacefulness and dread Sykes horrendous demise. As the story ends, Delia sings an old African-American religious tune the River Jordan is chilly and cold, it chills the body but not the soul. the crossing of the river Jordan shows the end of life and the traverse to the other world. Sykes crossing is portrayed to be full of torment because of his mischievousness. On contrast, Delia has traversed from the dread of domestic violence and terror. Therefore, Zora Neale Hurston articulates Gods Judgment on characters such as Sykes thus depicting the tranquillity with which Delia meets his destiny.

Works Cited

Gale, Cengage L. A Study Guide for Dwight Okita's ""in Response to Executive Order 9066. Farmington Hills: Gale, Cengage Learning, 2016.

McKay, Claude. If We Must Die [in, Harlem Shadows: the Poems of Claude McKay, with an Introduction by Max Eastman]. Ann Arbour, Mich: ProQuest LLC, 2009.

Mcwhirter, Cameron. Red summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America. , 2012.

Toland, John. Infamy: Pearl Harbour and Its Aftermath. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1982.

Voogd, Jan. Race Riots & Resistance: The Red Summer of 1919. New York: Peter Lang, 2008.

Wall, Cheryl A, Zora N. Hurston, and Roger D. Abrahams. Sweat: Zora Neale Hurston. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1997.