Racism is a horrible thing, It is something in life that can probably never be changed. After reading "Dry September" i began to think about different things associated with racism or prejudice. My father was born and raised in Mississippi and he has had his share of incidents involving racism. But you know i have grown up hearing some of the awful things that happened to him or his family, but i just kinda pushed it off or disregarded it as if they were just stories and not true. But they were true. In "Dry September" the whole lynching thing was terrifying, i've heard about and seen it in movies but for some reason when the Professor showed us the website with all of the white men, standing around the men that they lynched, it made me feel not just bad but also a little scared. We don't have the active Ku Klux Klan anymore, i mean of course there are still people that are like Neo Nazis or Ku Klux Klan but they can't hurt anyone legally. I looked on a different website and saw a video of the Ku Klux Klan burning a cross and then whipping a black man that they tied to a tree; unfortunately i can't remember the website exactly but I googled it first. When i sat there and watched what they were doing I felt like i was going to cry or something. I think it was Hawkshaw in the story that jumped out of the car, and to be quite honest I think i would've done the same thing. It was hard enough for me to sit there and watch it on a website, think about what it would be like to experience witnessing it first hand. To most white people back then in the south, it was probably normal to not care what happens to black people but obviously Hawkshaw did. I probably would've even felt worse if I had caused the punishment. Minnie Cooper in my opinion lied about the whole thing, but i don't think that she meant for it to escalate to something as big a lynching the man. But for Minnie to do all of that out of the need for attention is really pathetic. After reading this story, the thing that kept coming to mind was the book "To Kill a Mockingbird." Even though in that book the black man received a trial, much of the plot was similar. For some reason, i enjoyed this reading the most so far. The fact that Faulkner was pretty blunt with the use of the word Nigger it made it more believeable for what was going on and the time period that it took place in. I just really enjoyed reading it. Also the imagery and description that was used in the beginning, speaking about the heat and the atmosphere was terrific.
To sum things up, like i said before, racism is horrible and Faulkner showed the ways of racists men of the south in the early 20th centry very well.
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I took a Women's Studies class last semester which dealt with women in the Middle East. One of our assignments was to watch a video on YouTube of a girl being hung. I was horrified and shocked beyond belief. There were several shocking aspects of this video. The first thing that surprised me was how recent this had taken place. It was only a year or two old. So that just goes to show that some countries still use this as a form of punishment. The second thing that shocked me was how young the girl was. I think she was only 16 at the time.
When Dr. Wells put up the website of all the men watching the lynching it reminded me of the video. When the young girl was hung, it was done publicly. Many people had come out to witness it, just as on the website. Also, people were using cell phones and cameras to take video and pictures of the girl being hung. I think the point was to show people that they were, in a sense, part of the hanging. Again, on the website, all the men were looking at the camera, to show that they were part of this horrible event.
I can't believe that people actually go out to witness such terrible events. These days, our country doesn't witness lynching, but hate crimes are still prevalent. Hate crimes can be just as bad or even worse than lynching. It baffles me how people can have so much rage and hate to do something that terrible to another human being.
I also enjoyed this piece. I'm kind of glad I wasn't in class on Friday if you were shown picture of that. I can't even imagine what it must have been like to see the things that they did back then. I know that I could not put up with it (living in the south during this time), but this also from my present day mind.
I was talking to my dad and we were talking about racism and he said that people are still racist but its like two generation (I have to admit my Great Grandmother who is still alive was very racist or that’s what I am told. She has Alzheimer's disease and doesn't show that side of her personality anymore) before his. Then I was thinking about people that are homophobic and I "think" that my generation is excepting of homosexuals but my dad's is not. Its interesting to really look at these things and think about them then you can kind of see the lines between generations.
Your absolutely right Sharea sometimes we hear stories about family members and what they went through and we push it aside. But in all reality it still happens its scary. In the story the whole lynching hing was especially scary becuase some of these people got lynched and they were completly innocent. They were lynched because of hatred and that was awful in my opinion. The sad part is that it still happens but in a more discized manner.
I was also bothered by the picture of lynching which was shown in class. I think it's horrible that people were treated like they were nothing, and it makes me really upset when I think about what black people had to go through. I also believe that Minnie made the whole thing up. I don't think that she was actually attacked, all she wanted was attention. So she made the story up to get noticed and nmaybe even find a husband that will care for her. The sad thing about the story is that an innoncent man had to die. He was never even allowed to stick up for himself.
I took a History class last semester that discussed a little about lynching as well and to no suprise at all the thought of it still makes me sick. I really think that it's just one of those things that no matter what happens will always terrify me. In high school i was shown different clips of lynching and things that the KKK did and i mean it's horrible and disgusting. I would do the same as you and the same as Hawkshaw and jump out of the car as well if i knew that a man was going to be lynched for something that noone was even sure of if he committed but based on his race they were going to do it anyways.
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