The Worthwhile Price of Slavery Hurston As Provocateur Essay Example

The Worthwhile Price of Slavery: Hurston As Provocateur Essay Zora Neale Hurston’s essay â€Å"How It Feels to Be Colored Me† is provocative for a number of reasons.   Its tone—at once humble and thoughtful and playful—leaves the reader feeling dizzy when they see Hurston calling slavery the price of admission to civilization, and one that she does not dwell on because it was paid for by her ancestors so that she may benefit.   If one had to define a given thesis on Hurston’s part, it would be that race is a construct of any given participant in civilization.   At the end of the essay, she likens herself to an empty brown bag that is being held by the reader, who must determine what was once in the bag—precious diamonds, or broken glass?   It is very philosophical in nature, because the answer Hurston posits is that it doesn’t matter at all: the potential value of the former contents of a human being is a way of commoditizing what they could or should be, and ignoring the reality of the b ag itself.   However, this thesis—beneath the vibrant, flowery prose of Hurston—is quite lacking in clarity.Part of this lack of clarity is, of course, placing the thesis at the end.   Hurston likely assumed that readers could only interpret its deeper meaning after she had provided both examples and context, yet the lack of an exact thesis renders many of her statements more questionable than illuminating.   The first, as mentioned above, is that slavery was a worthwhile price of admission to civilization.   While many prominent black leaders (most notably Washington Carver) advocated attempts to put slavery firmly in the past where it belonged, Hurston’s claim that it both had no relevance and   did not affect her comes across as selfish, at best.   Only at the end do readers realize that slavery is something else that they are attempting to stuff back into the brown bag of black identity in order to impose a narrative on an unknown culture.   Hu rston’s techniques are tied into her evidence, in that both are murky specifically because she imbues the piece with so much emotion.   The one-girl minstrel show that was young Hurston performing for white tourists has its political sting removed by the sheer happiness she says it brings her.   Similarly, the admission that vibrant jazz music makes her feel like a murderous jungle inhabitant (something ripped from the pages of the worst white stereotypes) is complicated by the pity directed at her white friend who seems incapable of feeling anything at all.   Overall, the organization of the essay feeds the lack of clarity—while there is a loose chronological structure to the essay (going Hurston as a young girl to a young woman to presumably present day), the presentation of these loose vignettes amounts to a series of snapshots, with no way of animating the still images to bring them into the vibrant life Hurston speaks of.Despite this lack of clarity and cohe sion, Hurston’s argument is very effective.   She has, of course, a built in ethos—no one can countermand her examples of what her own life feels like.   Hurston also seems to use her own life as a template for other African Americans to follow her lead: through humor, she points to everything she has to celebrate in her own life, and even places racism and discrimination on this same scale.   Racists, she seems to say, simply deny themselves the joy of her presence.   While this is unfortunate for the racists, it is not compelling evidence that she should eliminate or diminish her own joy.   When seen through the lens of focusing on emotional moments of joy, the scattershot organization of the essay begins to make sense: Hurston is not attempting to provide a detailed biography of her own life, but wishes to â€Å"zoom in† enough so that those who think they will find reasons to pity her see instead why she pities those who will never know or experien ce the joys she has known and experienced.Though I certainly agree with the effectiveness of Hurston’s essay, I am afraid I cannot agree with the idea that slavery, as an issue, is dead and buried, even in the twenty-first century.   No matter how well meaning the message is, truly putting slavery in the past could have tragic effects on modern culture, such as overturning Affirmative Action laws that are still needed to arbitrarily stabilize the racist hiring practices of certain regions.   The root idea of slavery—that blacks are somehow not entirely human—still seems more widespread than one would imagine; there are, after all, still â€Å"whites only† Proms, and a number of private schools that owe their origin to the desegregation of public schools.   If for no other reason, these circumstances show why slavery should never be forgotten, or forgiven.   It remains a shameful chapter of our nation’s history, but also shows the terrible c onsequence of assuming that any one person is worth more than another.   In short: Hurston’s advocating that we live in the present and do not let ourselves be dragged into the tragedies of the past would strike more true if the tragedies of the past (in the form of racism, discrimination, and other centuries-old ghosts) did not continue to haunt the present.   For many, being â€Å"colorblind† does not mean treating all races equally, as it should; rather, it means being willfully blind to the issues that continue affecting minorities, rather than working to move towards a future of equity and integration.   Only through reminders of the horrors of the past can the glories of the future be seen.Zora Neale Hurston’s essay provided a valuable insight into something that history is rarely (if ever) able to shed light on: what being colored in a society of discrimination felt like, as opposed to simply what being colored was, or what discrimination was.   H er reaction to such discrimination is a testament to her character and integrity: she did not react with the fear and hatred being directed at her, nor did she succumb to the misery and loathing that would seem perfectly natural, considering the circumstances.   Instead, she described the indescribable joy of being Zora Neale Hurston, and provided a kind of Zen puzzle to readers in the form of her brown bag analogy.   Discrimination, racism, and even well-meaning folks who are unable to move past slavery are all effects of attempting to fill a bag that is already empty.   Moreover, it is completely arbitrary: assuming a black person’s bag was filled with glass and a white person’s bag was filled with diamonds is an exercise in willing self-ignorance, as it ignores the simple reality that the bags are now empty.   According to Hurston, only when individuals recognize this can there be true integration.

Real life Essay Example

Real life Essay Example Real life Essay Real life Essay A good current affair example of conformity could be the incidents which took place in Abu Ghraib which I discussed in detail within task 1.It is possible that not all the soldiers that got involved in these horrendous activities would of done this if they hadnt felt a group pressure to do so. Obedience: Obedience can be easily confused with conformity and sometimes the meaning can seem very similar but the main difference is that in obedience differently to conformity you are actually instructed to do something and what you personally think about it or is you disagree is irrelevant whereas in conformity you arent told to do anything you are choosing to behave in a way that will most probably comply with what you believe that the majority would rather you do.In obedience you are being told what to do by someone of a higher status than you. In conformity you feel the psychological need to be accepted by others. I would personally define obedience as the action of following the instructions received by a superior, regardless of your personal feelings towards this. Being ordered or instructed to behave in a specific way: Obedience involves a person in authority telling you to do something or to behave n a specific way.You may not want to do this but as you are in a lower rank to the person ordering you have to carry these activities out regardless of your personal views. An example may be for example within the RAF a person in a higher rank may say to you Get rid of those side burns and although you may not want to you will do this. This shows that you are moulding your behaviour to what you are told to, regardless of what you personally want.Ordered by someone in higher authority: If somebody that was in the same social level s you and had the same authority as you, ordered you to do something you didnt want to do, you w ould be much less likely to carry this request out. In obedience it is important that the person giving the order has authority over the person being ordered.Involves social power and status: You are more likely to obey somebodys commands if you believe them to have more social power and status than you. You will see them as higher class people and will want to be respectful and follow their orders. A great example of this is that within Milgrams study it was found that people were more likely to obey if the person in charge was looked more professional or more important, in this case it was if they wore a white coat (doctors) this gave them a sense of importance and power. I will now write about two social studies carried out to investigate how people obey to authority and what affects this. Firstly I will explain an experiment carried out by Milgram.He placed a newspaper advertisement offering $4.50 for an hours work, in response to this an individual turns up to take part in a Ps ychology experiment investigating memory and learning. He is introduced to a stern looking experimenter in a white coat and a rather pleasant and friendly co-subject. The experimenter explains that the experiment will look into the role of punishment in learning, and that one will be the teacher and one will be the learner. Lots are drawn to determine roles, and it is decided that the individual who answered the ad will become the teacher. (The drawing of lots was rigged, so that the actor would always end up as the learner.)Your co-subject is taken to a room where he is strapped in a chair to prevent movement and an electrode is placed on his arm. Next, the teacher is taken to an adjoining room which contains a generator. The teacher is instructed to read a list of two word pairs and ask the learner to read them back. If the learner gets the answer correct, then they move on to the next word. If the answer is incorrect, the teacher is supposed to shock the learner starting at 15 vo lts.The generator has 30 switches in 15 volt augmentations; each is labelled with a voltage ranging from 15 up to 450 volts. Each switch also has a rating, ranging from slight shock to danger: severe shock. The final two switches are labelled XXX. The teacher automatically is supposed to increase the shock each time the learner misses a word in the list. Although the teacher thought that he/she was administering shocks to the learner, the learner is actually a student or an actor who is never actually harmed.It was found that at times, the worried teachers questioned the experimenter, asking who was responsible for any harmful effects resulting from shocking the learner at such a high level. Upon receiving the answer that the experimenter assumed full responsibility, teachers seemed to accept the response and continue shocking, even though some were obviously extremely uncomfortable in doing so.The theory that only the most ghastly monsters on the merciless fringe of society would s ubmit to such cruelty is disclaimed. Findings show that, two-thirds of this studies participants fall into the category of obedient subjects, and that they represent ordinary people drawn from the working, managerial, and professional classes (Obedience to Authority). Ultimately 65% of all of the teachers punished the learners to the maximum 450 volts. No subject stopped before reaching 300 volts.Here I have included an image of how the experiment was laid out: Milgram also conducted several follow-up experiments to determine what might change the likelihood of maximum shock delivery. In one condition, the touch-proximity condition, the teacher was required to hold the hand of the learner on a shock plate in order to give him shocks above 150 volts. The most interesting finding from this follow-up experiment is that 32% of the subjects in the proximity-touch condition held the hand of the learner on the shock plate while administering shocks in excess of 400 volts. Further experimen ts showed that teachers were less obedient when the experimenter communicated with them via the telephone versus in person, and males were just as likely to be obedient as females, although females tended to be more nervous.There was another main study carried out to analyze obedience in a real life scenario, this was done in a hospital with nurses. It was conducted in the following way the study was set in a psychiatric hospital in the America. The participants were 22 nurses on night duty. An unknown doctor, who was a confederate, telephoned the hospital and spoke to a nurse. He instructed them to give medication to a patient. The medication was a drug with a maximum dosage of 10Mg (which was shown on the label of the bottle).The doctor instructed the nurse to give a dosage of 20Mg to the patient and said that he would sign the relevant authorisation papers when he arrived in the hospital in 10 minutes time. It was hospital rules to not take these kinds of orders on the telephone. This was done with each of the 22 nurses. The result was that 21/22 of the nurses obeyed the telephone instruction and began to prepare the medication before they were stopped and the situation was explained to them.

Advanced Database Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Advanced Database - Essay Example This called for interventions such as the MapReduce meant to support distributed computing that involves the use of large amounts of data. Most of the activities that involve the use of big data are either for analytical or transactional applications. Data warehousing was the conventional method of helping manage data and provide information that helped in decision-making. Warehousing of big data has been questioned and it seems to be on the brink of inviting another data processing strategy. It is the wish of every organization to store up data and use the same data in decision making of the organization. Data mining entails the process of data retrieval and analysis in order for it to make sense for use in organizational decision-making. Data mining software have been developed to facilitate the analysis of data from a number of perspectives based on the needs of the users. In addition, they are able to categorize the data and develop summaries that will predict relationships. Data mining is a very important process since it helps in segregation of data so that an organization is able to keep a keen eye on the most important information. The essence of having the data mining software developed is based on the size of data that organizations struggle with; mainly in gigabytes and terabytes. Raw data is deficient and cannot be relied upon by business owners and the managements in their decision-making (Brown & Kros, 2003). This is because it has a lot of junk information that may not be necessarily necessary. Data mining has constantly evolved with time. its main essence over the years has been to obtain information from databases in order to facilitate the analysis of business progress. In the 1960s, the main concern by many business owners pertained issues to do with revenue. Data mining entailed mainly data collection where the technology under application was mainly the use of discs, computers, and tapes. With advancements in