Martin Luther King Jr. felt strongly about wanting to integrate races together, to be one human race together. In doing this, he led many African Americans to change the way they dressed, did their hair and acted in order to assimilate. Since black people began to act more like white people, they started to see African traits the same as white people did. In class we watched cartoons that were current for this time period and Africans in these cartoons were depicted as animalistic, dumb and overall unkept. In Act I, Scene II of A Raisin in the Sun, Beneatha is asking her mother to treat her Nigerian friend, Asagai, with respect. By her asking this alone shows that she knows how her mother feels about Africans but when Mama questions “Why should I know anything about Africa?” (Hansberry, 57) it is clear that Mama has fallen into interracial racism. Mama being a black woman who grew up in America, felt the same way about Africans as white people felt about her. African Americans began to lose touch with their African roots but there was Malcolm X who was promoting “Black is Beautiful” and Marcus Garvey with the “Back to Africa” movement which made some people go back to dressing and acting like their roots. In A Raisin in the Sun this behavior was shown mostly through Asagai who is very in touch with his African roots and he tries to get Beneatha to feel the same. In Act I, Scene II, Asagai visits Beneatha and presents her with a gift, she “Eagerly opening the package and drawing out some records and the colorful robes of a Nigerian woman…” (Hansberry, 61). By gifting Beneatha with authentic Nigerian robes, he is urging her to dress as an African woman. The idea of assimilation is strange to Asagai and that includes Beneatha’s choice to straighten her hair, “mutilation” as he calls it. In Culture and Diversity in the United States: So Many Ways to be American written by Jack David Eller it is stated that “… the white majority would never accept blacks as equals and that blacks should stop trying to gain white acceptance.” (Eller, 45). This is the mindset that Asagai has when he visits Beneatha who, unknowingly, has assimilated. Beneatha is not alone in this way of thinking; Her entire family believes it too. They are moving into a white neighborhood, after all. However, just because black people are assimilating, that does not mean white people are much more accepting of them. The Younger Family is planning to move into an all-white neighborhood, Clybourne Park. White people were resisting black people moving in by bombing their homes until black people left. In A People and a Nation, Mary Beth Norton states, “White resistance to civil rights also gained strength in large northern cities… But they [African Americans] faced racism and segregation in the North as well. In 1951 in Cicero, a town adjoining Chicago, several thousand whites who were determined to keep blacks from moving into their neighborhood provoked a race riot.” (Norton, 839). A real-life example of this was the Rayfield family. “George Rayfield decided to move his wife and daughter from the east side in February of 1959, they moved in February and were welcomed by 300 protestors. In March, protesters began to shoot into the windows and then set the house on fire. A bomb was set off in their house on April 6th while they were away from home, but the family still decided to stay and had local union laborers to help them repair their home; They moved back to the house in June. On the night of August 2nd, the family was away in Virginia to visit family and another bomb was set off and destroyed the home until it was irreparable, to this day it has not been rebuilt” (Miles, 4/10/19). Lorraine Hansberry thoroughly used events that were current to write this play and to make the play real for the audience. Through her usage of interracial racism and racism from white people, the reader can evidently see that A Raisin in the Sun has a key theme of race.
Modern day Chicago is a great example of social stratification because there is a layering of higher and lower levels of classes. Chicago in 1959, was no different. The Younger family begins being of a lower class, but they approach social mobility, which is whether one can change his/her class position (Eller, 90), when they are presented with a check for $10,000 dollars. With the money, the family had planned to buy a house. Mary Beth Norton states in A People and a Nation, “…a person might achieve social mobility by acquiring property, such as building or buying a house. But home ownership was not easy to achieve.” (Norton, 539). By getting the check the family had already achieved social mobility but with the purchase of a home, they are continuing to go higher on the social ladder. According to Jack David Eller, in Culture and Diversity in the United States: So Many Ways to be American, this family began as “The ‘low prole’ who perform unskilled labor; they are sometimes poor despite having jobs” (Eller, 96) but they climbed the social ladder with the check to “the ‘mid prole’ who hold lower-paying and lower status jobs” (Eller, 96). The idea of social mobility here is very important to the family because as we discussed in class, “New deal programs are when money becomes more important than freedom.” (Miles, 3/29/19) which meant that this family was okay with the prejudice toward them and their need for assimilation because as Walter says, “Because it [money] is life…” (Hansberry, 74). The Youngers, before the check, are socioeconomically similar to everyone that they are close to. This includes neighbors, family and friends with the exception of George Murchison, Beneatha’s love interest. George is from an upper middle-class family; he gets the money from his dad who is real estate and business. Walter Lee shows considerable jealously for George and his money by picking things apart about him but even through being rude to him, he still wants to be like him. Walter Lee feels very strongly about starting his own business and obtaining money like George but can’t do it because Mama buys a house instead. The upward mobility of the Younger family is not to be expected because they are African American, but they don’t let that be a reason for them to not move up on the social ladder.
The Civil Rights movement was a catalyst for many other movements like the women’s movements. During this, it became okay for women to get an education or to have jobs and vote. Although it was legal for women to do these things it was not necessarily something people were happy about. Beneatha Younger is the most educated in her family, her privilege to learn is causing her family to make sacrifices which can be seen in Act I, Scene I when a bitter Walter Lee clash with her. Within this argument Walter states, “Who the hell told you you had to be a doctor? If you so crazy ‘bout messing ‘round with sick people – then go be a nurse like other women – or just get married and be quiet…” (Hansberry, 38). In saying this, Walter Lee is suggesting that his own sister is not fit to be a doctor because she is a female. Even her own mother has the stereotype that women are not fit for a job of that caliber. When Mama hears Ruth refer to her doctor as “she”, she questions, “What doctor you go to?” (Hansberry, 59) as if a female doctor is unheard of. Beneatha getting an education did not cause conflict just because of the money; Beneatha getting an education is making her a less ideal women. In Act II, Scene II, Beneatha and George had just returned from an evening out. Beneatha wanted to talk but George did not like the idea of that as seen on page 96 in A Raisin in the Sun, “…I want you to cut it out, see—The moody stuff, I mean. I don’t like it. You’re a nice-looking girl… all over. That’s all you need, honey, forget the atmosphere. Guys aren’t going to go for the atmosphere—they’re going to go for what they see. Be glad for that.” (Hansberry, 96). George tells Beneatha to just rely on her looks because that is all guys are going to go for. Betty Friedan in Culture and Diversity in the United States: So Many Ways to be American says, “Women were being forced into restrictive roles that robbed them of the opportunity to develop their individual identities.” (Eller, 127) and this is what George was trying to get Beneatha to understand, he wanted a simple, sophisticated girl but that is not what Beneatha had planned for herself. Walter Lee’s bitterness goes beyond, Beneatha needing money for an education, he is bitter because he did not get an education. Walter’s counterpart George does have an education and out of spite Walter Lee implies that George is feminine for going to school and not having a job. Walter is among the people who believe that a real man works with his hands and builds himself up on his own like his father did, in Culture and Diversity in the United States: So Many Ways to be American, Jack David Eller states, “… the new ideal of masculinity was the ‘self-made man,’ who was free and autonomous, self-sufficient and mentally and physically equal to any other man who might cross his path… this image evolved into the ‘effective man’ in urban settings where a true man took an interest in civil affairs and contributed his time and energy.” (Eller, 133). The ideal man according to the textbook and Walter Lee Younger is a man who builds himself up and is the breadwinner for his family. In A People in a Nation, Mary Beth Norton brings up the Crisis of Masculinity, “… masculinity diminished by white-collar work or a suburban, family-centered existence, the nation’s future was at risk. At the same time, however, men who did not conform to current standards of male responsibility—husband, father, breadwinner— were forcefully condemned, sometimes in the same magazines that preached the crisis of masculinity.” (Norton, 846). Although that is the definition to Walter Lee, he is not the bread winner and he is a driver, so he does not work with his hands. Mama also notices that Walter Lee is not living up to that standard and according to our class notes, “Mama gives Walter Lee the money because she wanted him to be the man of the house because Walter Lee wasn’t doing anything with his life and she wanted him to feel confident and through this he feels he has achieved scribe status” (Miles, 4/12/19). Both males and females in A Raisin in the Sun were victim to the conflict of gender tensions. This is different from what readers usually see because it is usually a writer would write about a female’s inferiority to men.
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