Lena Shiffman - The E-Lion Collection - Innovative Teaching and Learning, RVCC

The E-Lion Collection: Showcasing the Work of the E-Student

Lena Shiffman
A Sample Post and Response to the Reading: Proactive Responses to Racism	As I read Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech "I have a Dream," I feel the anguish and injustice suffered by the Black American’s for the struggle to equality and justice with the White Americans. King writes that racism against the blacks in our society was not just a Southern phenomena it was nation wide. King says; "We cannot be satisfied as long as a colored person in Mississippi cannot vote and a colored person in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote" (361). This is a wonderful speech and so powerful. It not only tells of the shameful past of this country, but it is also full of hope and a feeling of reconciliation between a country that has been divided to long. "When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last" (363). However as I read I can’t stop thinking about today and if his dream "of overcoming racism" will ever be fulfilled in its entirely. First page of the Star-Ledger today about May day demonstrations in Europe reads; "Workers who are usually commemorated on May Day took a back seat to the far right, as neo-Nazis rallied in German cities and Nationalist parties held demonstrations in France"( May 2, 2000). How can people of today, after the knowledge of the Holocaust still continue the hate? How can anyone reading or listening to the survivors of the Holocaust or listening to racial injustice in America or South Africa not realize that hate is wrong and only leads to more hate? Who are these people that continue to hate and are totally closed off to compassion? Where do they come from? Where do their hate stem from? How can they be immune to reason and the sense of what is right or wrong? I always believed it was uneducated and backwards people who were racist, but I have learned from this course that racism cross over all barriers and affect scholars as well as dropouts of society. We lost a great man when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It makes me wonder if things would have been different today if he had still been alive. He believed in a peaceful change. It is encouraging to see the same kindled spirit in Nelson Mandela, of South Africa. Even though Mandela was imprisoned for many years he never gave up his dream of a free South Africa. Writing letters and having secret meetings with the white government about the possibilities of a South Africa which both white and black could inhabit. He is a remarkable man, who was able to forgive the people who had incarcerated him for almost a whole lifetime. Desmond Tutu writes; "President Mandela invited his White Jailer to attend his inauguration as an honored guest the first of many gestures he would make in his spectacular way, showing his breathtaking magnanimity and willingness to forgive"(381). I believe that is what our country has forgotten to do. It never dealt with the guilt which now just keeps lingering under the surface and causing problems. Will we ever have a time when we can say that racism does not exist in our society? My next door neighbor told me a horrifying story. When he was traveling in South Carolina on business and had dinner in a restaurant, he struck up a conversation with the owner. When asking about the town and where to go, the man told him to stay on this side of town and not cross over to the "other side" because the blacks live there and you want to stay away from them. He then started telling him he had a black woman working for him on his property, she lived in a house that he owned. He said it was OK until her boyfriend moved in and wouldn’t leave. But I took care of him…How? my neighbor wanted to know…I burnt down the house!…You did what?… I burnt down the house with him in it….You mean to tell me you tried to kill him?…Oh, I was in the right, I had called the insurance company and they told me it was all right, since I called them I could not be arrested for fraud….What about attempted murder? The police?…Oh, the Sheriff was standing right next to me when the house went up in flames!! This took place in 1985! How can things change when believes like this have been internalized by every part of society? It is also disturbing to read about Thomas L. Friedman’s "Israeli in Disguise," how the Arabs are in reality segregated from the Jews. The Arabs being the "internal other." He writes; "Although Jerusalem is a united city, there are certain Jewish areas where Arabs know they do not belong"(383). How can this happen when the Jews lived generations as the "internal other" and know first hand of the injustice? Friedman writes; "The passers by stare at me like a walking bomb, and I feel that the Jews are afraid of the Arab no less than he is afraid of them"(383). He also writes about the visit to a "labor market," where Jewish contractors come each day to hire Arab workers; "A border police jeep gives the market the atmosphere of a South African township. The workers’ way of avoiding conflict with the soldiers is to shrink in their places, as if they wanted to evaporate, lower their looks to the road, not to meet the soldiers’ eyes"(385). I can understand the fear of the Arabs, stereotypically they are thought to be terrorists and willing to die for their cause, I have been guilty of these thought myself. I can however also understand the anger of the Arabs, being the victims of a settler society. Are they any different than the American Indians defending their country, which was wrongfully taken away from them? I am not condoning terrorism at all, killing innocent people only cause more hate and anguish, but I am not sure how Jews and Arabs can ever come to a reconciliation as long as Arabs are considered an "internal other" in Israel. Sadly I am starting to think that Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream will only stay just that, a dream.

Lena Shiffman

A Sample Post and Response to the Reading:
Proactive Responses to Racism

As I read Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech "I have a Dream," I feel the anguish and injustice suffered by the Black American’s for the struggle to equality and justice with the White Americans. King writes that racism against the blacks in our society was not just a Southern phenomena it was nation wide. King says; "We cannot be satisfied as long as a colored person in Mississippi cannot vote and a colored person in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote" (361). This is a wonderful speech and so powerful. It not only tells of the shameful past of this country, but it is also full of hope and a feeling of reconciliation between a country that has been divided to long. "When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last" (363). However as I read I can’t stop thinking about today and if his dream "of overcoming racism" will ever be fulfilled in its entirely. First page of the Star-Ledger today about May day demonstrations in Europe reads; "Workers who are usually commemorated on May Day took a back seat to the far right, as neo-Nazis rallied in German cities and Nationalist parties held demonstrations in France"( May 2, 2000). How can people of today, after the knowledge of the Holocaust still continue the hate? How can anyone reading or listening to the survivors of the Holocaust or listening to racial injustice in America or South Africa not realize that hate is wrong and only leads to more hate? Who are these people that continue to hate and are totally closed off to compassion? Where do they come from? Where do their hate stem from? How can they be immune to reason and the sense of what is right or wrong? I always believed it was uneducated and backwards people who were racist, but I have learned from this course that racism cross over all barriers and affect scholars as well as dropouts of society.

We lost a great man when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It makes me wonder if things would have been different today if he had still been alive. He believed in a peaceful change. It is encouraging to see the same kindled spirit in Nelson Mandela, of South Africa. Even though Mandela was imprisoned for many years he never gave up his dream of a free South Africa. Writing letters and having secret meetings with the white government about the possibilities of a South Africa which both white and black could inhabit. He is a remarkable man, who was able to forgive the people who had incarcerated him for almost a whole lifetime. Desmond Tutu writes; "President Mandela invited his White Jailer to attend his inauguration as an honored guest the first of many gestures he would make in his spectacular way, showing his breathtaking magnanimity
and willingness to forgive"(381). I believe that is what our country has forgotten to do. It never dealt with the guilt which now just keeps lingering under the surface and causing problems. Will we ever have a time when we can say that racism does not exist in our society?

My next door neighbor told me a horrifying story. When he was traveling in South Carolina on business and had dinner in a restaurant, he struck up a conversation with the owner. When asking about the town and where to go, the man told him to stay on this side of town and not cross over to the "other side" because the blacks live there and you want to stay away from them. He then started telling him he had a black woman working for him on his property, she lived in a house that he owned. He said it was OK until her boyfriend moved in and wouldn’t leave. But I took care of him…How? my neighbor wanted to know…I burnt down the house!…You did what?… I burnt down the house with him in it….You mean to tell me you tried to kill him?…Oh, I was in the right, I had called the insurance company and they told me it was all right, since I called them I could not be arrested for fraud….What about attempted murder? The police?…Oh, the Sheriff was standing right next to me when the house went up in flames!! This took place in 1985! How can things change when believes like this have been internalized by every part of society? It is also disturbing to read about Thomas L. Friedman’s "Israeli in Disguise," how the Arabs are in reality segregated from the Jews. The Arabs being the "internal other." He writes; "Although Jerusalem is a united city, there are certain Jewish areas where Arabs know they do not belong"(383). How can this happen when the Jews lived generations as the "internal other" and know first hand of the injustice? Friedman writes; "The passers by stare at me like a walking bomb, and I feel that the Jews are afraid of the Arab no less than he is afraid of them"(383). He also writes about the visit to a "labor market," where Jewish contractors come each day to hire Arab workers; "A border police jeep gives the market the atmosphere of a South African township. The workers’ way of avoiding conflict with the soldiers is to shrink in their places, as if they wanted to evaporate, lower their looks to the road, not to meet the soldiers’ eyes"(385). I can understand the fear of the Arabs, stereotypically they are thought to be terrorists and willing to die for their cause, I have been guilty of these thought myself. I can however also understand the anger of the Arabs, being the victims of a settler society. Are they any different than the American Indians defending their country, which was wrongfully taken away from them? I am not condoning terrorism at all, killing innocent people only cause more hate and anguish, but I am not sure how Jews and Arabs can ever come to a reconciliation as long as Arabs are considered an "internal other" in Israel. Sadly I am starting to think that Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream will only stay just that, a dream.

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