Brer Rabbit Tricks Brer Fox Again

The story of Brer Rabbit Tricks Brer Fox Again was humorous to me. Rabbit is trying to be lazy, so he sneaks off and gets himself in a sticky situation. Fox just happens to be curious and find that Rabbit is stuck in a well. Rabbit is really in trouble and can’t get out of the well, but he uses slick words to convince to Fox. Ultimately the Fox ends up in the well, and Rabbit runs and tells the others that Fox is making their water supply dirty. Fox cannot really pose an argument, because he was caught red handed in the bottom of the well. Although the Fox knows that he is not initially the character in the wrong, he has let the Rabbit trick him and get the best of him. I think the moral of this story is that you can’t trust everyone. Since the title of the story has “again” in it; it would seem that the fox wouldn’t show much trust in the rabbit after he tricked him the first time. I think this story can be related to the old cliché “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me”. The Fox has clearly been bamboozled.

Short Passage of "How It Feels to be Colored Me"

In “How It Feels to Be Colored Me”, Zora Hurston is talking about her experiences, and how it makes her feel to be someone of color. She talks about the difference of being a colored person in her hometown of Eatonville, Florida versus being someone of color in Jacksonville, Florida. At home in Eatonville she says that they rarely see white people, and when she does see them they are just passing by in automobiles. She says the only difference she can see between herself and a white person is that the white people ride through town, and she actually lives there. When sent off to Jacksonville for school she realizes that she is no longer just Zora from Eatonville, Florida. She is now just a little colored girl. She expresses emotions vividly when listening to the music with a white counterpart. She gets emotionally wrapped up in the music, and it makes her feel fierce and savage. While the white person shows no emotion to her, he just says “that’s good music”. She feels like the white person only heard what she felt. Then she goes on to talk about how its time where she feels she doesn’t belong to any race, she just feels like herself. Specifically when she talks about walking down Seventh Avenue with her hat tipped a certain way. She is probably in her own zone and is just tuning out everything. From this passage I understand that she is accepting her black culture and ancestors, but she is not going to let it stand in her way. She is not going to dwell on the fact that her ancestors were slaves. Zora feels that slavery is the price we payed for civilization. She thinks it was a terrible and harsh time period, but she feels like it was worth it.

HOW IS LITERATURE A REFLECTION OF CULTURE?

African American literature should be defined as powerful and intelligent. The power comes when you read books such American Slave written by Fredrick Douglas, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and The Color Purple. The writing of these books showed that African Americans had powerful words even in the early days, before the time of Martin Luther King. The books used the power of words on a paper, to expose how hard and troublesome it was for African Americans to come up to what they are today. The books showed that African Americans could have power and intelligence of word to move the hearts of many. The poetry of Langston Hughes exposed the African American experience to the rest of the world. These books and poetry were to foreplay of things to come, they paved the way. Martin Luther King’s I had a dream speech show the intelligence of the African American. His beliefs in everything should be equal has brought the American culture as a whole a long way. We are not completely there yet, but we have a black president now.

African American culture can be seen in things like the Harlem Renaissance. Music such as Jazz and the Blues became popular in regular America. African American music probably set up the way for every form of music it is today. African American culture can be defined in the unique hairstyles of its people, such as the afro, braids, and dreadlocks. African American culture can even be defined by its type of foods, such as fried chicken, collard greens, sweet potatoes, potato salad, good soul food cooking. The African American actors and actress, such as Denzel Washington and Halle Berry are a form of African American Culture in the American Film industry. Athletes such as Arthur Ash, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Venus & Serena Williams, Jackie Robinson and Wilt Chamberlain define the culture in the sports industry. The African American Literature and Culture is very deep, it’s impactful and it means everything to the people that stand for it.