Class discussion covered a broad range of societal issues that are brought to light in Black Boy. One of the overarching issues was Wright’s portrayal of the system of oppression created by southern whites toward the black community. Professor Rodrigues made a point that particularly caught my attention and that was the economic system of power that was in place. I think looking at the economic status of the black community that Richard is a part of at this time is particularly important in understanding this system of oppression.

In this society, black people are not allowed to rise up the economic ladder. One of the key beliefs in the “American Dream” is the idea that anyone can move up economically in life. We see that this is not true for blacks in the south in this era. They are held at low level jobs because whites know that elevated economic status leads to societal power. That’s why the two men run Richard out of the eye glass making shop. Black people in that community are forced to fight among themselves for low level jobs, barely making enough to get buy. This economic status is intentionally created by the white oppressors.

Today in class, we had an interesting discussion about Wright’s narrative and the ways in which he has changed so far over the course of the book. One point in particular that I found interesting was Hallela’s comment about how Wright’s education also took place outside of the classroom, in the form of learning how to interact with his peers. Wright realized that on the first day of school, he often had to get in a fight in order to prove his worth and strength to the other boys. Also, Chloe noted that Wright also learned more about his position in society as a black man, and how he was supposed to be natural enemies of the white boys.

Overall, as we realized in class today, this idea of “education” can take on several different forms. Not only did Wright prize his education in the classroom of learning how to read and write, but he also placed great worth in his social education. Each of these different forms of education helped him to navigate his way through society. In our own lives, we can all probably relate to Wright’s experience with education. Each day, we learn new things, whether that be academic or social. We are constantly learning how to approach different situations or interact with different people in addition to our work in the classroom. Is there any type of education that is more important than the others? For Wright, he seemed to value both fairly equally. He took great pride in his success academically, and noted that he planned to take advantage of his academic success to pursue a career in the future. He also talks about how important it was for him to figure out his place in society, especially in the broader racial context of the time. As Wright shows us, education is fluid and can take on many different forms. For Wright, his “education” serves as both a means for survival in a social setting as well as a step towards social mobility and an exciting future career. It will be interesting to see how Wright’s education continues and takes on different forms through the rest of the book.

A part of our discussion on Thursday was surrounding the keyword essays (immigration, family, freedom, and slavery) and how they relate to the narratives of Franklin, Douglass, Jacobs, and Antin. What was most striking during our discussion was the difficulty of only assigning one keyword to each narrative. I think this has to do with the different content and goals of each author as well as the how different connotations of the word were used in each work. For example, the word freedom, as Yaz touched on, is not a static idea. For Douglass and Jacobs, it is becoming separate from ownership, for Franklin it is independence, for Antin it could be freedom to express identity.  It changes based on the author, the environment, and the time period.  The intricacies of the words, as well as the setting of each narrative, make it difficult to pinpoint one obvious theme.

I also think that separating the keywords was difficult because each author integrates every keyword. As Jeremy mentioned, the idea of immigration appears in every narrative we read. And as our discussion proved, a case could be made for the appearance of every keyword in each narrative. I think this happens because their stories mirror the ones of “American” stories. Franklin is popularly considered the “first American.” Douglass and Jacobs tell stories of attainment or the goal of freedom in the United States, an idea tightly linked with US development.  Antin shows the voluntary adoption of the American identity. They all portray a sense of becoming an “American” beyond the state of citizenship. Similarly, the keywords are often linked with citizens’ personal stories of becoming an American. Their background often involves immigration, family, freedom, and slavery. The keywords are instrumental in how people define themselves in the US. The task of trying to isolate the themes of the American identity from inherently “American” stories cannot be done easily.

Todays class was spent reviewing the key ideas of academic honesty. We took a quiz that really made the class recognize how some areas that were not as easy to understand. For example, it is alright to use someone’s writing word for word but then it is necessary to give a citation. The citation is the currency of academia so it is essential to give credit where credit is due.  Also, I learned a very important rule that it does not matter whether the plagiarism was purposeful, it will still be directed to the subcommittee for Academic Honesty. I think it was important to know that if there is a case of plagiarism, the instructor and student should not settle it alone. It must be reported to the subcommittee and further action is taken there.

Further on in the class we moved on to practicing the differences between quotations, paraphrasing, and summarizing. It was useful to see the differentiation explicitly on a worksheet and then the ideas were reinforced when we practiced them in our small groups. Each group shared their summaries with others who did not have that reading. In the group that I went to, I learned about the keyword “immigration”. One really captivating point of the argument in that essay was the idea of “social economic checkpoints” . I am compelled to do more research and understand how competition and conflict in particular can affect immigrant families. Does the competition enhance society? What role can conflict give in a positive manner? Negative? I also realized that the discuss of immigrants needs to have not only immigrants involved but those that are surrounding their lives with immigrants or friends of immigrants. I am interested to see what work has developed around that idea.

Tuesday’s class discussion concerned Marie Antin’s “Promised Land”. In the discussion following the pointing activity, there were common themes of citizenship, the love of America, pointed ignorance, and hindsight. It seems that Antin’s view of America as a child was skewed poisitvely in contrast to Russia, as in her writing she talks of America and George Washington as some sort of godly entity, as if America as a whole could only be full of good things and patriotic Bostonian history; and when she begins school and grows older, she is too glad to claim America as “her country”. Her shift in writing is most likely due to the distinction between the difficulty of the journey, and the impressiveness of the destination. This contrasts greatly with what was going on historically; during the time this book was written (1912), the Dillingham Report was published, establishing western European immigrants as superior to those from eastern and southern Europe, and anti-Semitic sentiments were not uncommon either. However, Antin seems to feign ignorance in these matters, and adopts a wholly patriotic stance. I believe this may have been for publishing advantage, as well as self-preservation. Her opinions must have changed from her childhood ideals as she grew older, but such thoughts were omitted from her book, as if her negative opinions would only justify negative views of the new immigrants of the time.