Monday, October 29, 2018

Blog 2

Prompt 1: I chose this scene from the movie Hidden Figures starring Taraji P. Henson as (Katherine Johnson), Octavia Spencer as (Dorthy Vaughan), and  Janelle Monae as (Mary Jackson). These three brilliant African American Women in the 60's struggled to rise above the challenges of racial segregation and prejudice ways while working at NASA. The reason why I chose this particular film is because it shows how segregation just not with racism but how gender equality wasn't being given to those women that worked there.
Prompt 2
Authorship: Gender inequality and racial discrimination is  being shown in the text. The challenge of having to use a restroom that's almost an hour away, while working a job that barely pays and having to come home to a whole family was an everyday obstacle for these women of color. Although they didn't look the part they had the mindset to overcome the prejudice looks and having the door slammed in their face when they wanted working conditions to improve.
Format: Although Segregation has already been an issue for them and if you seen the movie at the beginning the three women are stranded when their car breaks down are harassed by a white officer. This shows how the law enforcement could easily take advantage of people of color and how in that time there was nothing they could really do if the officer decided to arrest them just for the simple fact that they were Black women. Being fed up with having white only restrooms in the facility made it hard for Katherine Johnson gives a speech to her boss Mr. Harrison when he finally notices she has been mysteriously gone for 40 minutes a day.This was due to her having to run a half mile and back every time she needed to use the restroom, which is unfair rather if she was white would only have had to walk down the hall. She explains how she was being worked like a dog with very little pay and on top of that has to go home to her three girls.
Audience: For people of color this is looked at as a message of how socially unequal society in the mid 1900's was compared to white men. This also affected the way women were being subjected to being second class citizens compared to men.
Content: This video shows the unnecessary actions that these black women have faced while working at NASA while having to support their community and family. This showed me how being a black women working for NASA would probably be treated with the same amount if she were a librarian due to the fact that if you weren't white and free at that time you weren't important.
Purpose: The purpose of this movie was to show how tough a Black women can be and how she tolerated all of the little things that dealt with racial inequality such as nobody wanting to touch the coffee pot. The message of having racial discrimination and sexism as obstacles for these three women overcame by working hard with their brilliant minds shows me that anyone is capable of achieving any title.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Jeremiah! I was gonna choose Hidden Figures for Blog 2 as well, so I've done a little bit of research! The movie is really inspiring, and by seeing other women succeeding and fighting against the society makes me proud of myself as a woman of color; even thought I can never experience or even imagine how brutal it was against black women. However, I found something odd but familiar at the same time throughout the movie. There is almost always a white man as a hero who helped out those people who suffer under the situation. So I did a little bit of research, and the director happened to be a white man. I couldn't help myself to think the influence of patriarchal whiteness in the movie. Maybe it is simply true that there are always white men helping others, but there is possibility that exacerbates sexism and racism a little bit. Anyways, women wouldn't be where we are today in this county without those amazing women!

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  2. Hi Jeremiah!
    I think you picked a great example to show real issues that women of color had to face. I really enjoyed reading your analysis and reviewing the video myself. I like how you addressed the important issues that those women faced in their everyday lives. Often times people can forget what those women had to face and do not realize that these horrible working conditions were still in effect not long ago. To this very day there are still issues that should be fixed like pay gaps and discrimination. Overall I think you picked a great video and did a great job explaining it!

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