First step in writing the 2Syn paper

Today I would like to expand on the notes I put in the assignment sheet for the 2Synthesis paper in regard to organizing the paper. Here is the first step (see the 2Syn Assignment).

Start the paper off . . .

1) by providing a summary of the new document in terms of the ideas you have already generated from reading the old document,

Notes and an example: Look to the old document first and to the mindmap that you are creating for this assignment. Ask yourself what the four or five most important ideas are that you have found while comparing the old document with the new. Take the Race topic and the idea of nonviolence in both word and deed as an example. [Note: This idea was only reach after 1) the comparison between the two topics was made which indicates that the you will need to do the comparison first, then 2) come up with the idea, and finally, 3) revise the comparison to conform to the idea you arrived at after the first step.]

Ida Wells writes at the end of the 19th c about the scourge of lynching in the South. The first idea that comes to mind is racial violence--the violence one race perpetrates on another because they consider the other race, in this case Blacks, as Other. They have rationalized that if Blacks are hurt or killed, it doesn't matter because they are not part of our community; they are not citizens like we are: they are below us in every way.

Wells on the other hand, writes with the full consciousness of someone who considers Blacks as having all the human rights of other residents of the South. She writes in a way that is lucid, objective, and straight forward. It is important to think about the way she writes because that has a lot to do with why she was not banned or harassed by Whites and why she was seemingly accepted by Blacks who read her writing. She is entirely reasonable while what she writes about is entirely out of the pale of human behavior. She convinces her readers by her calm and objective reporting that what she says is true and what she describes is horrific. [Note: A study of the reception of Wells’s rhetoric would be an appropriate topic for the 3Research Project.]

These are just a few of the ideas--Blacks as Other and Wells's rhetoric--that you now have to think in terms of the new document. In the early 1960s Blacks were still considered Other because . . . ? And here you would try to give us the ways they were still not looked up as equal with Whites in the South. Not only are they not equal but there is still the vestiges of the hatred you saw in Wells. Give those examples from the new document. And as far as a connection to Wells's rhetoric what about the aspect of non-violence that is apparent in the Freedom Riders? This idea connects to the way Wells writes: the way she does not offer violence for violence, hatred for hatred, but instead presents a reasoned voice that appears above the angry emotions of the time yet zeros in on the violent behavior of Whites. She doesn't accuse all Whites but instead gives example after example of what actually happened, thus putting individual names and faces to the crimes. [Note: You must give support from the documents for these assertions]

In the new document, you can see that the Freedom Riders use of non-violence has the same effect as Wells’s writing but this time it’s not just one person confronting the crimes against Blacks but many, many people and instead of just writing about these crimes, they have gone in and done something about them. In the mode of Wells, they don't react to violence with violence but offer their bodies instead as a way to force white people to consider them as equal.

This moderate, reasoned reaction to violence by the Freedom Riders has its roots so to speak in Wells's approach to lynching. She writes provocatively about what actually happens, daring those who read her to oppose her, but they can't because there is nothing but facts there to support her views. The Freedom Riders also are taken seriously after a while because they present an objective and non-confrontational aspect to the violence and discrimination they see.

The differences (and here comes the synthesis) between Wells and the Freedom Riders has to do with Wells writing to a primarily Black audience that at least initially was like "preaching to the choir". They knew what was happening but what is not fully known is how her pamphlets were read by concerned Whites of the time. It is clear, however, that she did not and could not put her own life at risk for this cause as the Freedom Riders did in the 1960s. It is logical to assume that if Wells was present at a lynching and protested what was going on, she probably would have been lynched also. At the time Wells was writing, there were none of the most elemental safe guards for Blacks from those who would harm them. They only survived by being submissive.

By the 1960s this need for Blacks to be submissive had waned primarily because there were many more Blacks inside and outside the South who had a certain power that protected them. They were still confronted by the Jim Crow laws but many had risen to middle-class status. But they wanted more. The slow reforms of previous decades were not enough. They wanted freedom. This was much different from what Blacks wanted in the 1890s. At that time they wanted not to be killed while Blacks in the 1960s wanted merely to be able to sit with Whites at the same lunch counter. The approaches to these wants were different but not dissimilar. Both reactions where predicated on confronting evil and hatred with reason and dignity instead of reacting to it with violence.