The black man ends up in jail or playing basketball, and the white man cannot dance. ... The African-American tells himself that he is going to college and he completes his American Dream. The European-American tries to break the stereotype by learning to dance. ...
Interpreting her quest for freedom and self-affirmation as representative of that of many African Americans and American women-especially black American women-she presents incidents from her life that illustrate conditions faced by many persons. ... She tells, for example, of bone-weary cotton pickers caught in economic enslavement within the general impoverishment of African Americans; a threat to Uncle Willie's life by the Ku Klux Klan; the complete segregation in Stamps, with its resulting ignorance and prejudice on the part of both whites and African Americans; a confrontation between...
I was also anxious about how his parents would react to him bringing an African American friend to their home in Thurmont, a small conservative town in Maryland. ... African Christians condemn the celebration of Halloween. ... They also didn't dance during the praise and worship portion of their church, which was an integral part of Sunday service at my church. ...
