Book Review: “Jackie Robinson and the American Dilemma”
Introduction; What was the American Dilemma? The American Dilemma was a detachment between the American ideals of liberty and equality and the realities of racial discrimination, segregation, and prejudice. America is known as the land of the free, yet basic rights were denied to many of its people. Much of the racism that was present at this time period stemmed from ignorance and deeply held beliefs that those not of the caucasian race were “racially-inferior”. Gunnar Myrdal, a social economist from the University of Stockholm, published a study which he conducted with the help of several researchers in 1944 which is known as An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. Myrdal points out that a cycle of white prejudice and discrimination assisted blacks in accepting lower standards. In turn, since blacks accepted the lower lifestyle in which they lived, whites assumed that is what they deserved which caused the process to repeat itself over and …show more content…
First off, when Jackie arrived, the nation was going through a flu epidemic that took over half a million lives in the United States, not to mention the loss of many lives from Wold War I. He was also born in the deep south where he was automatically put at the lowest rung of the social ladder. To make things a bit worse, the Ku Klux Klan, which was outlawed in 1871, formed back together in 1915 in Georgia where they commonly displayed outbursts of lynchings and violence towards blacks. In addition, his parents marriage was unstable and would eventually fall apart by the by the time Jack was only a year old. Jerry Robinson, Jackie’s father, ran off with a neighboring woman in 1920 which split the family apart. Jackie never saw his father again which put a large void in his life and is thought to be one of the primary reasons he was shy and detached as a
Introduction; What was the American Dilemma? The American Dilemma was a detachment between the American ideals of liberty and equality and the realities of racial discrimination, segregation, and prejudice. America is known as the land of the free, yet basic rights were denied to many of its people. Much of the racism that was present at this time period stemmed from ignorance and deeply held beliefs that those not of the caucasian race were “racially-inferior”. Gunnar Myrdal, a social economist from the University of Stockholm, published a study which he conducted with the help of several researchers in 1944 which is known as An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. Myrdal points out that a cycle of white prejudice and discrimination assisted blacks in accepting lower standards. In turn, since blacks accepted the lower lifestyle in which they lived, whites assumed that is what they deserved which caused the process to repeat itself over and …show more content…
First off, when Jackie arrived, the nation was going through a flu epidemic that took over half a million lives in the United States, not to mention the loss of many lives from Wold War I. He was also born in the deep south where he was automatically put at the lowest rung of the social ladder. To make things a bit worse, the Ku Klux Klan, which was outlawed in 1871, formed back together in 1915 in Georgia where they commonly displayed outbursts of lynchings and violence towards blacks. In addition, his parents marriage was unstable and would eventually fall apart by the by the time Jack was only a year old. Jerry Robinson, Jackie’s father, ran off with a neighboring woman in 1920 which split the family apart. Jackie never saw his father again which put a large void in his life and is thought to be one of the primary reasons he was shy and detached as a