1. Sum up the Two Americas as presented in the text.
2. How does the world described by LeAlan Jones illustrate the urban issues in America?
3. What view on American is conveyed in the text? Provide textual evidence.
4. Is America presented as an example for the rest of the world or the opposite?Are you surprised? Why? Why not?
LeAlan talks about the differences between the two Americas he see. The Armerica where the flag is waved to celebrate all the opportunities and the prosperity, and the other America where a white flag is waving because of the lack of these things. In the african-american society there is so much poverty, pain and anxiety, and no one wants to hear about it. They dont want to know what goes on in that part of town. America was supposed to be all about the American dream, but it seems like the other America experiences nothing but an American nightmare. Some finding it hard to have a purpose with life when it brings you nothing but struggles. How to get the next meal. How to get a job. How to make money. How to feed your child. How to get along if you are a child with an addict mother. How to go go to school with no one to support you.
ReplyDeleteI think Alan is talking to the people of America, to make the see what they dont want to. And at the same time, he is talking to the other America to let them know, that they struggle together. I think it might lead to a feeling of being in a group, an is rightd in some way bring hope. He also talks of point of no return. I think that he feels that if the time isnt right for change now, it never will be. I dont know how it is right now in America, but I really doubt that the social underclass will ever disappear, as is also in Denmark.
I think that he finishes of by saying I hope I survive, to give an imperssion of the hard life in the other America. The fact that he says it three times almost makes it sound like a warrior statement that would be used before someone went of to war.
Characterizing words – high levels of unemployment – inadequate healthcare - shattered families – violence – drugs – danger – frustration – disillusionment.
- Maria
They also find it hard to believe in the American Dream when just surviving the day is the main focus. Good comparison with Denmark because we are getting more and more Americanised thus the gap between rich and poor becomes immensely big. The underclass and the poor will only increase in number because nothing is done. "I hope I survive" is a very important phrase, but it may have some other meaning as well??
DeleteLeAlan describes the first America as being a person living a happy life with liberty (freedom) and wealth. The other America is what we call "Ghetto", with coloured people, like himself being black, who lives under very poor circumstances with, as he describes, pain, poverty(being poor), stress and anxiety. LeAlan explains that he does not "feel American" but African-American and that he live in the second America - line 22: "It´s hard for me to say how I´m an American when I live in a second America....."
ReplyDeleteLeAlan tries to explain that not all people are happy people, and that we need to face the fact that there are also people fighting to survive the life that has been giving them, and so we should help them and ourselves not to end up living in disarray.
I´m not surprised about the issue of the poor and the rich conflict, it happens in other countries as well as in the US.
There certainly are many countries in which the gap between rich and poor exist. However, it is beside the point as we are dealing with the American dream and as it started out - being a country for everyone to succeed - it is now much segregated and those who make it are either extremely talented or rich. It is difficult to raise your social status when you live in the ghetto and need to take care of your family, thus school is not first priority. Basically reaching the American dream today (from rags to riches) is like winning the lottery - one in a million.
DeleteOur America
ReplyDeletereported by LeAlan Jones
1 LeAlan’s portray ‘the real America’. An America split between the America, as we know it, and an Afro America as he sees it.
Where all Americans should be protected by the nature and human rights described in the constitution.
But the nature of the ghetto provides no such things. It is metaphorically described how the people from the projects fell more compelled to wave the white flag than the stars and stripes. Here you can find people living under their own laws, talking their own language. A life much different than the American life as we know it.
Kids struggle with deciding whether to stay in school or go down on the corner to sell drugs and not knowing if they will live to see the next day.
The second America, as LeAlan calls it, is a community where there is not much to be patriotic about. Many feel abandoned by the system.
An American is suppose to feel liberty, prosperity and happiness. But instead LeAlan describes a feeling of pain, poverty, stress and anxiety.
It describes the issue in social classes or neighbourhoods getting helplessly abandoned by the system. A urban problem where people are caught or socially prisoner in their own community. A place with a slim chance of change. The problems are illustrated by using examples from the neighbourhood. Children not knowing when they get their next meal, and struggles to communicate.
“Why am I alive? and what is my purpose.” It somehow tells us how America fails to reach out to its own people.
Good answer, Jens Peter. It also illustrates as we talked about on class that the American society has changed to what it sought to escape from (from overruling the British king to becomming a segregated country in which the poor pay their taxes to the rich - think Obama care and Obama wanting to raise taxes for the rich, but never succeeding as only the rich and powerful come to power in America
DeleteLeAlan talks about the differences between the two Americas he see. The Armerica where the flag is waved to celebrate all the opportunities and the prosperity, and the other America where a white flag is waving because of the lack of these things. In the african-american society there is so much poverty, pain and anxiety, and no one wants to hear about it. They dont want to know what goes on in that part of town. America was supposed to be all about the American dream, but it seems like the other America experiences nothing but an American nightmare. Some finding it hard to have a purpose with life when it brings you nothing but struggles. How to get the next meal. How to get a job. How to make money. How to feed your child. How to get along if you are a child with an addict mother. How to go go to school with no one to support you.
ReplyDeleteI think Alan is talking to the people of America, to make the see what they dont want to. And at the same time, he is talking to the other America to let them know, that they struggle together. I think it might lead to a feeling of being in a group, an is rightd in some way bring hope. He also talks of point of no return. I think that he feels that if the time isnt right for change now, it never will be. I dont know how it is right now in America, but I really doubt that the social underclass will ever disappear, as is also in Denmark.
I think that he finishes of by saying I hope I survive, to give an imperssion of the hard life in the other America. The fact that he says it three times almost makes it sound like a warrior statement that would be used before someone went of to war.
Characterizing words – high levels of unemployment – inadequate healthcare - shattered families – violence – drugs – danger – frustration – disillusionment.
- Maria Louise
Well answered. I also think that he is speaking to America as a whole, but moreover the rich white America, which he wants to realise that there is no such thing as one America where everyone has equal opportunities. In relation to Langston Hughes, his finishing line is basically of the same content "I hope I survive" vs. one day “ I will sit at the table, and they will see how beautiful I am". They both hope to see this to change one day, they hope that one day there will be equal rights. Obviously, Jones has a more modern perspective, but he certainly has his hopes up for one America just like Hughes.
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