Reflecting back on this course, I have experienced a class that I have never experienced before. This was my first online class that I have taken at the university of Arizona. When I took this class, I want to say that I had a deeply understanding about African American culture through literature and knew how African American people faced and contributed during the 20th and 21st century.
When it comes to describing this course to someone else, I would like to tell them that you can read a lot of interesting pieces by African American authors such as Booker T Washington, Octavia Butler, and more. My favorite part of this class is the Voice Thread, which can let me see the emotion in people’s face. I can realize how they express their opinions and get a sense of it. I think this class has a great learning opportunity and a memorable experience about the African American culture. I really recommend you take this course as your general education class.
Throughout this semester, one of the novels that I really like to share was Parable of The Sower by Octavia Butler. This kind of dystopian novel is the first time I read it; I just can understand the exact word means because I’m not a native speaker. The theme of change and plot were very interesting to me. As we can see the line, “The stars are free,” “I’d rather have the city lights back myself, the sooner, the better. But we can afford the stars” (P. 5). I think it says that the star symbolizes the hope. Lauren wants to get the rider of it and escape it. When I compared to the African Americans, I think it can relate to racism and inequality. Like lots of poet in China will use their poetry to express their emotion and thinking. I always look back to this novel; I enjoy it a lot.
Another piece of writing that I extremely enjoyed was The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Johnson. The reason why his life is fascinating for me is mainly that he is not considering himself to be white nor black until the principal tells him to sit down since he isn’t white enough or dark enough to be either race, he is not purely white. It made him really confused, and he had to choose what race he ought to belong too. When he moved to the South, he just realized how the black life is. He is starting to deny his black roots and presume he is white, which gives us a sense of what the racism is in American and how bad it is (because in China we just have one skin color). I think at that time if African American has a chance to decide, they will not be heisted to choose white rather than black. Just like James Johnson said in his novel “I finally made up my mind that I would neither disclaim the black race nor claim the white race; but that I would change my name, raise a mustache, and let the world take me for what it would; that it was not necessary for me to go about with a label of inferiority pasted across my forehead” (P. 139). His decision to pass as white comes after he witnesses a lynching in the South. He chose the easier and coward path in this quote. I think he is just to pursue equality rather than inferior.
In conclusion, I’m glad that this was the first online class I could experience. Without reading these novels, I would never know the feelings of African Americans during that period. I learned a lot of things that I did not expect to learn before. I extremely enjoyed this course and hoped I could take a class like this again next semester.