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Final Paper-Sarah

Page history last edited by Sarah Westfall 4 years, 11 months ago

return to: Westfall, Sarah

 

Rubric for Paper-Sarah

 

 

Symbols for Equality

 

                  Two books wrote by Christopher Paul Curtis: "Bud, not Buddy" and "The Watson's go to Birmingham" give us insight on what it might be like to be a child during difficult times in America. Not just any child though, a ten-year-old African American boy. Bud, the main character in "Bud, not Buddy is growing up in the 1930s during the time of The Great Depression. Kenny, the main character in "The Watson's go to Birmingham" is growing up in the 1960s during the time of The Civil Rights Movement. Curtis’ ten-year-old characters Bud and Kenny live dramatically different lives, but both boys function as symbols for racial equality in a historically segregated America.

 

        The protagonists' different life experiences created different world views and impacted the way the world viewed them.  Bud and Kenny both grew up in Flint, Michigan but in different time periods. There comes a time in a child's life that they start to experience the real world, and for some, it may come a little bit earlier. (Caughy) Add different parenting styles + Socialization.  According to Bud, you start to be a real adult when you are six years old, and for him, this was true. His momma died when he was six and he was put into a home. Bud had experienced just how difficult life could be when he was only six and has been an “adult” ever since.  On the other hand, Kenny’s experience with the real world didn’t happen until a little bit later in his life. Aside from being picked on at school by bullies and his brother, he has lived a sheltered life.  It wasn’t until Kenny’s family took a trip to Birmingham that he was exposed to how difficult life could be. (Add how the world viewed them)  The realities of life for an African American came early for both of these boys.

              Bud and Kenny have completely different tactics for handling hard situations but both tactics involve following rules. Bud knows how to have fun and lie, while Kenny knows how to read people and knows how to please people. Bud has a book called “Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things to Have a Funner Life and Make a Better Liar Out of Yourself”. Bud makes his own rules from experiences that he has had, and lives by them. One of Bud's rules, #118 to be exact is this: 

You Have To Give The Adults Something That They Think They Can Use To Hurt You By Taking It Away. That Way They Might Not Take Something Away That You Really Do Want Unless They Are Crazy Or Real Stupid. They Won’t Take Everything Because If They Did They Wouldn’t Have Anything Left To Hold Over Your Head To Hurt You With Later.

One could tell by reading this rule that Bud has had some things taken away from him that he really wanted and has been hurt in the process. Kenny is used to following rules, but not his own. He is a goodie two shoes, and that is one of the reasons he got made fun of. At one point, while Kenny’s family was in Birmingham, Kenny’s dad told him and his siblings that as long as they followed the rules, they would be okay.  This sounded good to Kenny because he was good at following rules. Following rules was just another thing that a ten-year-old African American boy had to get used to.

          A quote from Lewis Carroll reads “Imagination is the only weapon against reality”, and this is especially true for both Bud and Kenny whose reality is inequality. We can get a good glimpse of the differences in the boys’ imagination by looking closely at the things that they collect. Bud collects a suitcase full of random things, and Kenny collects dinosaurs. Bud suitcase is full of random things like flyers with Herman E. Calloway and his band and rocks with writing on them. Bud’s imagination about these things help get him through hard times; he imagines how great life will be when he finally meets the person he believes to be his father. Kenny enjoys playing with toy dinosaurs, and this is representative of his age and life experience. When Kenny comes back from Birmingham, he no longer wants to play with dinosaurs because they seem so childish; he experienced reality and realized there was more to life than just playing. Both boys’ vivid imagination is shown through the books and help the readers to remember that they are just young boys. For example, Bud believing that Lefty Lewis was a vampire because he had blood in the back of his car and Kenny believing Byron when he tells him that the Wool Pooh is Whinny the Pooh’s evil twin. This shows us that although Bud has had a little more experience with the realities of life, he still doesn’t understand everything. It also shows that Kenny has not had to deal with death before and the only way that he can comprehend it is if it was from some kind of monster like the Wool Pooh. For example, it shows up in the lake when he had an almost death experience and at the church when he saw a little girl’s foot.

          (Allen- integration somewhere in this paragraphWhat is it that makes these boys symbol’s for equality in a historical segregated America? It’s the way the grew up, the way they handle hard situations and most of all their imagination. Bud grew up in the middle of The Great Depression, he was an African American orphan and had to start dealing with hard things in his life early on. Kenny grew up with his family being sheltered from the world and The Civil Rights Movement but eventually got to experience what it’s really like. Before society taught them differently, Bud and Kenny saw everyone as equals. Bud begins to make rules for himself from his experiences and Kenny listens to his father by just obeying the rules set into place. Kenny realizes that all rules aren’t always right, and it’s okay to stand up for what is. Sometimes making rules from experiences and questioning rules that are put into place is good. It may cause pain, and things may not be “okay”, but it’s worth it in the end. Also, while the world teaches that imagination is for children, adults can and should have an imagination as well. Martin Luther King had a good imagination. He imagined America to be a country that was no longer segregated, and everybody was treated equally. His imagination for what America could be like didn't just come true straight away, but it gave people hope. It also caused pain though; the bomb in Birmingham was a little less than a month after his speech. Eventually, things to start to change, but things would be completely different if King didn’t express his imagined America. Bud and Kenny are representative of young children who may be the next Martin Luther King, standing up for equality.

 

 

 

 

Research Question: How does African American boy’s upbringing and context affect the way that they handle hard situations?

 

Caughy, M. O., Nettles, S. M., & Lima, J. (2010). Profiles of racial socialization among African American parents: correlates, context, and outcome. Journal of Child and Family Studies,20(4), 491-502.

 

I    In this article, the authors begin by discussing the relationship between racial socialization and children of color’s cognitive development and behavior. The purpose of the study focuses around the profiles of African American parents and their implementation of socialization practices and the outcomes of the children. A latent profile analysis was used to examine the profiles of the parents and the Parents Experience of Racial Socialization (PERS) scale was used to measure socialization practices. The parents fell into one of four different socialization groups: silence about race, emphasis on cultural socialization, emphasis on cultural socialization with coping methods or a balanced approach. The results of the study indicate that racial socialization is associated with neighborhood conditions and with behavioral and cognitive outcomes in children.

The article did an excellent job of stating the purposes of the study. It was well organized and contained tables that were easy to read. The authors made sure to point out the limitations of the study such as the small sample size and self-reporting from the parents. Areas that could be further studied were mentioned as well. The authors had a good introduction with plenty of information from what seems like valuable sources. Overall, the article was well written, and the information and results were clearly presented.

This would be a good article to use for the furtherance of my research. I could use this article to compare the upbringings of Kenny and Buddy. I could guess which socialization groups that they may have feel into and how that affected their cognitive development and behavior.

 

 

Gaylord-Harden, N. K., Campbell, C. L., & Kesselring, C. M. (2009). Maternal parenting behaviors and coping in African American children: The influence of gender and stress. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 19(5), 579-587.

 

This article starts by introducing research about the effects of parenting on coping for children. The authors state that there is a dearth of the research concerning African American families and coping for children. The article then goes on to explain the effects of maternal support on coping behaviors. From there two predictions are made by the authors. First, they predicted that maternal support at higher levels and behavioral control would be associated with active and support seeking coping, and maternal physiological support would yield opposite results. Second, they predicted that there would be a difference in the effects of interactions towards genders between stress and parenting. The focus for this study was low-income African American families and the participants were boys and girls in 4th and 5th grade. The participants were given the Children’s Report of parental Behavior Inventory. The results showed that maternal support was more impactful for children’s coping behavior than psychological control. They also showed that girls received less maternal support then boys do.

Although, this article had a lot of useful information in it, the purpose of the study wasn’t stated clearly. The authors could have split up the study based on their hypotheses. There was extensive research done before the study and the study included plenty of references. It was noted that there was not a lot of research done about the coping of African American children, the authors gave no reason for choosing participants from low-income households. The limitations of the study were clearly stated, and suggestions for further research was mentioned as well. Overall, the study gave a lot of useful information concerning coping and maternal support verses physiological control.

I could use this article to further my research. I could take the information about maternal support relating to coping strategies to compare Bud’s and Kenny’s life. Kenny had maternal support, while Bud did not after he was six.

 

Curtis, C. P., & Morgan, P. E. (2002). History for our children: an interview with Christopher Paul Curtis, a contemporary voice in African American young adult fiction. Melus,27(2), 197.

 

This was a transcript of an interview with Christopher Paul Curtis. A guy named Peter Morgan interviewed him about his two books: The Watson’s Go to Birmingham and Bud, Not Buddy. The interviewer asked specific questions about each book and why Curtis put certain details into the books. I was expecting there to be more questions about Curtis’ personal life, but there were a few questions about that. I can still use this for my research though, because Curtis talks a lot about the characters in the book and why he wrote what he did.

 

Way, N., & Chu, J. Y. (2004). Adolescent boys: Exploring diverse cultures of boyhood. New York: New York University Press.

 

This is a chapter out of a book about adolescent boys. The chapter focuses on African American boys. The beginning of the chapter is explaining what it looks like to be black and male. Black is the term that the author uses. It goes on to explain what hypervulnerability is by giving a definition and examples. The chapter then begins to explain using research the social profiling of young black males and how hypervulnerability is influenced by those things. The author then states that racial socialization can be a buffer to hypervulnerability. The study then focuses around two questions that the author asks. The questions that he asks are: is hypervulnerability influenced by neighborhood safety and does racial socialization buffer the experience of hypervulnerability? The participants of the study included 167 African American males between 13 and 15 years old who had a history of anger and aggression. A Children’s Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire (CRSQ) was used to asses hypervulnerability. Teenage Experience of Racial Socialization was the assessment used to measure racial socialization. And then a question was just asked about neighborhood safety. The results of the study found that neighborhood safety was associated with anxiety and anger, and racial socialization was associated with lower levels of anger but higher levels of anxiety. The study concludes with implications for nurturing boys making it clear that they are not yet men.

This study was really easy to understand and to follow along with. The author used a variety of sound research to explain their point. There were some things in this article about racial socialization that contrasted with other articles that I have been reading, but most of the information has matched up. No limitations were mentioned by the author, although I am sure there were some. Overall, the chapter was well organized and easy to read.

Although, this chapter was good and I learned a lot about hypervulnerability, I do not think that I will be able to use this for my research. I probably won’t use it for the furtherance of my research because it focuses on adolescent boys who are delinquent and neither Bud or Kenny was delinquent.

 

Bush, L. V., & Bush, E. C. (2013). God bless the child who got his own: Toward a comprehensive theory for African-American boys and men. Western Journal of Black Studies, 37(1), 1–13

 

This article begins by stating that there is no uniform theory that explains African American men and boy’s lives. The authors then use a body of literature to explain their point. The aim of the study was to build a theory that is flexible enough to grow and accommodate the social scientists that research the phenomena mentioned. The rest of the article is the explanation and the building of that theory.

This article was detailed and used previous research to explain their point that there is no uniform theory. Although, they use research to prove this point, the study focuses on the authors creating another theory, which would entail add to the nonuniformity of theories. While the authors make significant points about the experiences of African American men and boys, the article overall seemed to scattered and confusing.

I wouldn’t use this article for the furtherance of my research. None of the information in it applies to my close reading. It was also hard to understand and seemed to contradict its self.

 

 

Allen, E. (2012). Notes on the concept of integration. The Black Scholar,42(1), 2-15.

 

            This article begins by talking about the difference between integration, segregation and desegregation, and the history behind those terms. The purpose of this article was to explain origins of integration during the time of the Great Depression and its nomenclature. The authors do this by using specific examples from history. In the summary, the author state that the ultimate purpose of segregation was social control. The author explains that the African American’s had to decide if they wanted to be integrated into American culture or be segregated within it.

            This article was a lot different from the ones I have read. There was no study, the author just used history and primary sources to explain the concept of integration. There was no previous research done or discussed in this article, but the history and primary sources used did a great job of helping the author explain their point.

            I could use this article for the furtherance of my research. I could use it especially in my close reading of Bud’s life because he was growing up in the time of The Great Depression. I could also use it to compare the change in integration from Bud’s time period to Kenny’s time period.

 

 

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