Shopping, while black

For the court case, Brown v. Board of Education, an experiment named The Doll Experiment, was used as strong evidence to prove why schools should be integrated. Now, in the pre-civil right era, new social experiments are being done to try to figure out where society stands. The test are used to answer to the burning question," Is America finally colorblind?" The newer social experiments have one main difference in comparison to the doll experiment: people aren't aware they are being tested, therefore, they show their true colors: Reacting how they would normally would in the given situation  In the video below, people are reacting to a situation when obvious racism is present.

The video illustrates a term that physiologist came up with; "Shopping while black".  Three different responses were given to the women subjected to racism  Ignoring, reacting, or praising the racism. The people who ignored the situation simply said " I wouldn't have gotten involved, because it has nothing to do with me", when confronted afterwards. Despite the fact they felt bad for her, saying nothing to oppose it is just as bad as praising it. By not taking action, they are accepting what is happening in society, because it doesn't affect them, being white in America. The man who praised racism  and said "She was trying to pull the black card" (whatever the hell that means) in the store but, once interviewed took it back and then said "I felt bad for her ", represents the people who are aware that it is no longer socially acceptable to be racist, but are racist anyways. This group of people are torn between, societies standards and the unspoken standards in America. The people who stood up for the shopper represent what America should strive for. Actively fighting against racism, no matter what race you are. The sooner racism is ended, the better.

 

                

In the video above, is a real example of "shopping while black" that was featured on the news. The cashier added a very racist remark on the return receipt. So, why can't we as Americans move forward? There are no laws against blacks anymore. Now, instead of government oppressing blacks, its the people! America needs to change it's views or the upcoming generations will have to deal with all the racism in America.

In The Bluest Eye by Toni  Morrison,  even though it takes place in the pre civil rights era; the teachings of racism still hold true to today, as seen in the videos above. On pages 48 and 49, when Pecola goes to the candy store she is "shopping while black".

She looks up at him and sees the vacuum where curiosity ought to lodge. And something more. The total absence of human recognition--the glazed separateness. She does not know what keeps his glance suspended. Perhaps because he is grown, or a man, and she a little girl. But she has seen interest, disgust, even anger in grown male eyes. Yet this vacuum is not new to her. It has an edge; somewhere in the bottom lid is the distaste. She has seen it lurking in the eyes of all white people. So. The distaste must be for her, her blackness. All things in her are flux and anticipation. But her blackness is static and dread. And it is the blackness that accounts for, that creates, the vacuum edged with distaste in white eyes.(48)

 The way Mr. Yacobowski treats Pecola is terrible. The racism is more unspoken here. Just the way he looks at her in the passage suggests racism. Pecola is not a stranger to this look. She sees it in the eyes of all white people. There is nothing she can do about her race. The thing that needs to change is society. When she gives him the money, "He hesitates, not wanting to touch her hand"( 49). Pecola, only a little girl, can not speak up for herself like the women did in the video. Also, the laws against blacks did not help either. After her trip to the store, her innocence is taken away.: Letting society ruin her self-esteem concerning her race.

This Land Belongs to Sharon Jones

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

It’s probably one of the most popular songs in American history, covered by many great singer-songwriters, but also sung by parents to children and choruses of kids at camp: “This Land is Your Land,” originally composed by the great American folk musician Woody Guthrie in 1944. The song is probably most appreciated today as an uncomplicatedly positive statement about the democracy of the United States, a land that belongs to all people, where anyone with enough hard work and determination can buy that house in the suburbs or that plot of land in the countryside. At the time it was composed, however, Guthrie was actually protesting the increasing privatization of the American landscape. As his guitar reads, “This Machine Kills Fascists”—and he wasn’t talking about the ones in Germany. In many ways, he was standing up for the George Wilson’s of America against the Tom Buchanans, the working class versus the elite. While Tom waltzes freely into George's shop and steals his wife, we cannot imagine George doing the reverse, can we?

Guthrie and his guitar

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn't say nothing;
This land was made for you and me.

When the contemporary rhythm and blues singer Sharon Jones sings “This Land is Your Land” with the Dap-Kings, the meaning of the song takes on a whole new connotation. First there is the simple fact that a black woman is singing the lyrics. “This land is my land” just means something different for a white man and a black woman in America. Let’s remember that blacks have been in this country as slaves nearly as long as they have been here free. Even in 1944, could a black woman, or even a black man for that matter, travel freely and safely from "California to New York Island"? To say that such movement is possible, then, from the perspective of an African American woman, is a powerful statement of property ownership and civil rights made by the descendent of slaves. Moreover, the “Private Property” signs of one of Guthrie’s alternative verses included in the Dap-Kings version take on a whole new meaning, reminding the listened of similar signs during the Jim Crow South that specifically limited the movement of African Americans in ways more marked and dangerous than Guthrie’s and other white men ever experienced. 

Then there’s the music, which unlike the lyrics, are significantly altered from the original Guthrie tune. Rather than the simple and singular folk guitar of Guthrie, an individual statement, The Dap-Kings that back Jones are a multi-instrument ensemble, featuring not one but three guitars, drums, and a suite of horns. The song thus becomes a statement about the rights of the group, not just the individual, as if to say, everyone deserves this land, not just the few. Moreover, the musical aesthetic of this version of “This Land is Your Land”—as with most releases off the Daptone label, borrowed from directly for Amy Winehouse's Back to Black—is distinctly Motown, referencing a pivotal moment in black musical entrepreneurship in the 1960s that corresponded with the height of the Civil Rights Era. Motown played a crucial roll in integrating the American music scene and bringing black-owned, -produced and -performed music to white audiences. The sound of the track, then, is the soulful sound of black musical and economic power, emphatically stated in the crisp, clipped horn parts that seem to echo the lyrics of the song similarly laying claim to the “land” of America. Huh!

The original Motown

Ball so hard, this shit weird
We ain’t even s’pose to be here,
Ball so hard, since we here
It’s only right that we be fair. 

- Jay-Z, "Niggaz in Paris" 

When Nick and Gatsby are passed on the Long Island Expressway by a limousine full of African Americans being chauffeured by a white driver, the narrator thinks, "Anything can happen...even Gatsby could happen" (73). It’s a remarkable scene for Nick in part because these African Americans enjoying their freedom represent a major social change over the past few decades in American history. In the first half of the twentieth century, blacks left the South in record numbers and settled in Northern cities like New York, hoping for a better life. The Harlem Renaissance, that flourishing of black artistic culture in the 1920s, was happening at the same time that The Great Gatsby was written and represented a significant shift in American race relations. But given Tom's racist comments at the beginning of the book, though, this success was limited. There was still much poverty and suffering for African American migrants arriving in the North and it would take . Again, while we might imagine Gatsby and Nick going to a Harlem jazz club with Daisy and Jordan, it's hard to imagine the same racial diversity at one of Gatsby's parties. The movement of African Americans was still limited. 

(This scene is such a meaningful and powerful one, I was not surprised to see it featured in the trailers for the new Gatsby movie, along with a sample from Kanye West and Jay-Z’s “Church of the Wild”--it's one of the first shots as the camera zooms in on New York City at the opening of the clip. I'm also not surprised that a track from Watch the Throne was chosen for the 2013 The Great Gatsby. That album's obsession with fame, fortune, and the American dream is shared by many characters in the book. I doubt though that Gatsby would tolerate his Rolls being taken apart the way that Ye and Jay do to the Maybach in the video for "Otis"!)