"the maid, the hall-boy, and the bell-boy were all smiles. They had to be."
when I think of this, I look back to when he talked about how he and a negro maid were walking together and they passed a white night-watchman. This man slapped the maid's behind, and he could not do anything because the white man pulled out his gun and asked him what was he going to do. At the end of the scene, the maid and him continued walking , but he felt uncomfortable that he did nothing to protect her. This comes back "they had to be" because he has to go back to work the next day or when ever and he has to smile or the white folks may beat him. Either way he has no options.
Emmett Till
Murdered at 14 years old in Money, Mississippi. The spectacle surrounding Till's murder was one of the precipitating events leading to the Civil Rights Movement.
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4 comments:
This quote definetly portrays the obliations that blacks faced in the Jim Crow days to the point where they couldn't even express their true feelings. No matter how miserable or beat down blacks felt, they still had to say "Yessir" and "No sir" with complacent smiles on their faces
when you really think about it by saying they have to be puts the limit on the freedom of blacks as we spoke about in class. if he truly wanted he could have said somthing to the man however wanting to live another day and remembering his other jim crow lessons made himbelieve that he HAD TO BE ALL SMILES.
This people really had a hard time living under the Jim Crow Laws . Having to smile when you really don't feel like it is hard but they knew they had to do it or else there would be severe consequences. They defenetely had no freedom to express themselves which is why I believe that now a days in the time we are living now we should be gratefull that we are able to smile, laugh, and scream whenever we want to without problem.
hmmm... this quote makes me think of a poem by nikki giovanni called "cotton candy on a rainy day." ask kiese about it... here are the last few lines of the poem:
I stifle my screams as frequently as I flash my smile
It means nothing
I am cotton candy on a rainy day
The unrealized dream of an idea unborn
I share with painters the desire
To put a three-dimensional picture
On a One-dimensional surface
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