Du Bois and the Ever-Continuing Racial Battle

"Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away, and that in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty." -Martin Luther King, Jr.

I think it is extremely respectable on Du Bois part as to how he makes it clear that he does not want to forget his history and culture, but evolve from it. On page 293 in the excerpt from The Souls of Black Folk he talks about how he does not want to conform to being either a Negro or an American but instead to be both and strive in the world today without being condemned for being black. I think that says a lot about his character in that he is okay with not changing who he is, and he just wants him and his race to be accepted.
Racism is still a very significant issue in the world we live in, and not just towards blacks but many other races as well. I don't understand why it still has to be such a big issue, and I think it is in a way getting worse because now people are becoming increasingly sensitive to the "racial" things around them. Some harmless things that people say or do is over-analyzed and interpreted as being a racial slur, and then it causes a big issue about how people feel about races. I think that racism would be more of an insufficient problem if people would just not be so sensitive about things sometimes. For example, like we talked about in class, I see absolutely nothing wrong with the NFL team name of the Washington Redskins. Could someone who is from Native American culture take offense to this? Well sure, but I'm fairly certain that they did not name this team with the intent of bashing all Native Americans; as a matter of fact, there is a theory that the Redskins adopted that name in HONOR of the team's coach, who was Native American (http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news?slug=ac-7098910). So, yes, I think that Racism is a largely significant issue in today's world, however, I think that sometimes we make it out to be a little more controversial that what it actually is. Like Du Bois said, if we would just accept everyone for who they are, and not worry about the color of someone's skin, we would be all able to get along much easier.

 

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

 

This book really moved me and made me think about all the ethical issues that have been around for centuries. I wondered how different, if at all, the outcome would have been if Henrietta was white. Her cells are still helping to improve the medical world today, and I think that she would be extremely proud if she could see the advances medicine has made, however it was heart-wrenching to see how much her family suffered because of the cells. I have a lot of respect for Rebecca Skloot and how she devoted more than ten years of her life to help the Lacks family find the truth. I took this picture because I was moved by the racial issues in the book. This picture represents many things. It represents that even though Deborah and her family were not trusting of Rebecca at all in the beginning, they ended up coming together to find out the truth about Henrietta. It also symbolizes the coming together of Whites and Blacks in many cases throughout this book. Some of the people that were being helped by Henrietta's cells would have never accepted them if they knew that they were being injected with a black woman's cells. In the end it doesn't matter what color we are, because we are all just people trying to better the world. 

The following link is an article from Johns Hopkins Magazine and I found it to be an interesting article.

http://magazine.jhu.edu/2010/06/immortal-cells-enduring-issues/