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The Naturalization of Poverty

       'Raisin in the Sun ' is a good play. I mean I feel like everyone who has read the book would agree that Hansberry did a decent (read great) job in portraying the cyclical desperation regarding economic standing of the African- American community. Since Hansberry herself went through some of the problems the Youngers went through, it was pretty expected that the play would be realistic.
      We see the cyclical poverty the Youngers go through with institutional racism backing it up. I mean the people in Clybourne were all 'racist? us? Gosh never' but they take advantage of their wealth to try prevent the Younger from getting into a house that they would own. Now pride is a huge part of the play and it is that sense of pride that stopped Walter from doing what he was going to do- beg for the money- but what about the other families. What about the families who had to sacrifice their pride in order to allow their children to attain some semblance of success. Is it not enough that our society systematically and institutionally discriminated against that it cannot not even allow minorities to retain their pride. See institutional  racism not only hurt a person financially but also mentally.
      Now the naturalization part of the post is the part where everyone blames the inequality between the two races as natural. The white people do not acknowledge the fact that  when they say 'you are not welcome here' it's kinda racist. Just you know a bit. The whole speech on how the Youngers are cool and amazing but it's just that they want a homogeneous neighborhood, y'know. It's like society is a race and the White race started running with a 300 year head-start and now expect the minorities to catch up in a year, without any help. I mean it's called cyclical for a reason, if one could break out on their own I'm pretty sure they would, but like they need help and the fact that even in the face of Civil Rights, institutions are causing underhanded problems seems to be the exact opposite of help.
       So in short racism bad, help beat racism.   

Comments

  1. Apoorva Mirji8 December 2019 at 11:45

    I like how you talked about how racism affects the minorities. Alot of people say lowkey racist things everyday and don't think about the effects because they aren't affected by the consequences. I like how you brought up the terms that we used in class and related that back to the book and the theme of pride. Great job!

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  2. Shreya Pawar8 December 2019 at 12:53

    I like how you analyzed the different types of racism in the play. I agree that in the novel, characters such as Mr. Lidner say that his offering to buy the house from the Youngers to prevent them from moving into their neighborhood has nothing to do with racial prejudice. Perhaps they feel that by denying themselves as a racist, their actions will come across as not racist. However, we know that this isn't true, and that describing segregation as "natural" is far from the truth.

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