Zitkala Sa

My over all impression…that’s hard. I didn’t live in these times and reading the history of them nothing really good came out of us converting the Indians to our life style and these documents seem to prove it.

She was…free. In the literal sense she was free. She ran around daily with children her age. She lived by the river and didn’t need indoor plumbing, she didn’t need a grocery store, and she had all the company she could ever want. She was able to listen to the legends and or old tales at night before she slept. She was envious of her life but as I was reading I was envious of her life. She had nothing to care about at the age of the palefaces invading her land and converting her brethren. She had fields to run in, acres that belonged to no one so why not to her?

Once she starts getting older it seems as though she’s beginning to be sucked in. The missionaries come and convince the children that the lives they lead are insufficient to the ones that they could offer them. Looking back on it now, they lost so much when they left their traditional ways. Even the returning of her older brother brought more changes to her lifestyle. They went from the traditional teepee to a log cabin house, her mother went from the traditional garb to the cotton of the palefaces. The things she was used to were changing and she was okay with that. She was too young to understand what it really meant as her mother thought.

It reminds me of the book I am reading for my teaching reading class. We try to stamp out all the differences in our cultures and try to make them ‘correct’. It’s the same as telling black students that they speak insufficiently and labeling them ‘verbally corrupt’ because they don’t speak Standard English. Let’s face it, no one speaks Standard English. We wiped out her culture. They no longer have the roots that they for so long had without our interference.

Her last line was perhaps what touched me the most “I was as frightened and bewildered as the captured young of a wild creature.” In a way that was exactly what she was. We thought of them as savages and we wanted to correct them. That’s all we wanted to do but in the process we ‘fixed’ their entire lifestyle. Huge moments of their lives, their histories, their old stories, many are lost because they stopped passing them on in their traditional manner. She wasn’t expecting what we gave them. We fed them lies about our lives. Maybe not lives but we told her the truth in the way that we saw it. We never really told her what to expect, a huge culture shock to say the least.

Booker vs. Du Bois

Washington is all about black rights but not RIGHT now. In the Atlanta Exposition he’s basically telling the everyone in the country that ‘No, don’t make us equal, we don’t need nor want to be on the same ‘level’ as you.’ It almost seems as though he is contradicting himself. He wants equal rights but he wants his race to earn it because forcing them to blend, to be given these rights, would make them artificial and not worth it. He wants them to WAIT for something that they shouldn’t have to wait for. “I believe it is the duty of the Negro…to deport himself modestly in regard to political claims, depending upon the slow but sure influences that proceed from the possession of property, intelligence, and high character for the full recognition of his political rights” (p.767-68) It’s almost to the point of him ignoring everything but making money for the black people. How is that not greedy?

Du Bois sends all his respect to Washington but disagrees in namely all of his beliefs. He clearly states “…men feel in conscience bound to ask of this nation three things: 1. The right to vote 2. Civic equality 3. The education of youth according to ability” Isn’t that what whites get from this country from the moment they are born? Why should the blacks feel as though they shouldn’t get the same treatment due to the pigmentation of their skin? It’s not as though the black people as a whole expect an immediate and abrupt change to the way of life. So really, they see Washington’s point that it’ll be eventual; they want it to happen sooner rather than the later Washington speaks of.

What happens between the two texts is that Du Bois is arguing with a dead guy. I know he’s not speaking directly to Washington but he gets awfully close. He wrote this whole article based on Booker’s life, so in essence, he’s arguing with him but it isn’t disrespectful. They are agreeing to disagree because no one can continue the argument. Booker is lying in his grave so that right there causes the point to be moot between the two of them. What it does do on Du Bois part is bring to light that perhaps Washington was wrong after all and it starts a whole new kind of rebellion. His followers, Bookers that is, get a whole new point of view of the man they respected and followed his beliefs.

Regionalism (?)

It was cold; colder than Dawn could ever remember it being. Grumbling to herself she swung her legs out of bed and as her feet touched the ground she stifled a yelp as she felt the cold, frozen floor under her bare toes. Wrapping the blanket round her she shuffled over to the window. Of course, ever since she moved here to Fredonia it never failed to amaze her how much snow they got. Not only that but for some reason they never canceled classes. Moving up here from Florida was a big culture. Fredonia should’ve had a sign posted on it that said ‘Welcome to small town USA’. She shouldn’t complain though. It was one of the main reasons she came here. It wasn’t a large town. Everyone could say hi to one another even if they didn’t know who they were speaking to and it wasn’t considered weird. Their main street that held all the bars was considered “downtown”. That idea made her laugh out loud. All the bars were basically around the block from each other. It still amazed her that she could walk from one to another without having to travel far. There didn’t need to be a DD because everything was in a reasonable amount of walking distance.
Dawn shook herself and started preparing for the day. When she moved here she had to go shopping immediately once the winter came. A hooded sweatshirt was not sufficed to keep off the onslaught of cold that seemed to attack this region. She pulled on her big boots and her heavy winter coat. Settling her hat on her head and wrapping the lower half of her face in a scarf she headed out the door. Immediately stepping out of the door the cold hit her and stripped all warmth from her body. If she walked fast enough she could get some of the heat back into her feet at least. It wasn’t the cold that she hated so much, it was the wind. Fredonia seemed to always have a wind blowing from somewhere through the college campus. It always managed to find the crack in her heavy winter armor and relentlessly dug deeper until the chill went down to her bones. Only then did it feel like it let up a little but she always thought that was because she couldn’t feel it anymore.
Getting to class was always a chore. Dawn always gets distracted by the scenery. She may not like the cold but she liked the way things looked covered in snow. This particular morning she couldn’t help but admire the trees. They had an ice storm the other night (go figure) and the trees were covered with the sleek mass of frozen water. The icicles made the branches so heavy that they hung low to the ground. Dawn slowed down and broke off one of the smaller ones toward the end of the branch. She knew that getting cold enough, and if the ice was heavy enough, the tree would crack and break. She didn’t think that happened too often around these parts but then she didn’t know for sure. It had only been a few months since she moved up here. She turned back with the icicle in her gloved hand and sucked on it as she started moving faster again. The water tasted cool and clean and she enjoyed it as it slid down her throat.
Along the way she stopped in the Williams Center to get a cup of coffee. Being to class on time be damned she was going to try to at least get something warm in her before she got there. It would perk her up before she had to go and watch the middle school students pretend to learn. It was ridiculous the teaching methods that the teachers were using over there at the Dunkirk school. They taught reading by using pictures. Ridiculous, as if that is really going to help the students. It was no wonder that those children were testing so low on the state exams. It amazed her how atrocious their spelling was as well. It’s disgusting really that even the teachers don’t seem to care anymore.
Dawn gently sipped her steaming hot Irish Crème Latte and headed off to class again. It was only over in one of the McEwen lecture halls but she always made it a point to get there a little earlier. She was just so cold. Walking along she felt her blood pumping again but she was afraid that if she hadn’t gotten the coffee into her she was going to freeze. She really needed to earn her New York thick skin soon or else she would never survive in this town. Opening the doors that led to her classroom she paused as she didn’t see a huddled mass around the door. It was odd because almost everyone waited outside the door until the class was about to start. Walking to the doors she saw a sign posted. ‘McCords American Lit class is canceled today.’ Well go figure. What are the odds of that? Dawn smiled to herself and headed back to her room. She was calling in sick and going back to snuggle in her warm bed.