What Was Going On In The 1950's

The years that the poem "Fences" are in the mid-1950's and early-1960's. The place that it took place was in Pittsburgh, PA.

In the politics world, first and most important of all, WWII was over, the 22nd Amendment was passed in 1951, Dwight D. Eisenhower became president of the United States in 1952, the Korean and the Vietnam War was going on in this time period.

In the economics world, the nation got in debt, the very first credit card appeared in 1950, about 25% of the citizens of the United states lived in poverty.

In the sports world, in 1950 the American sports continued to desegregate when the Boston Celtics from the NBA drafted the first African American player. This helped for all people to play any sport the want without all of the racism.

In the entertainment and technology world, since they now had television, first few shows to air on television were "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "The Twilight Zone". In technology, they invented the first voice recorder in 1951,they introduced the car seat belt in 1952, in 1956 they created 3-D for the first time, also they introduced microchips in October 31, 1959. We still use these technology today for everyday life.

What Young People Understand As Race

     The young people today understand about race as much as a little kid understanding politics. The young people today needs to understand more about their own race and other races. In my opinion all of the young people do not know much about their cultural backgrounds and say that white people are the best. There is basically no difference in which both genders face race and racism.
     Right now about 90% of all young people do not know much about their true backgrounds. The older people know more about their background since they were able to experience and listen more than the younger people. The problem about this is that we all have it drilled into all of our brains that the closer for anyone to be normal is to be white. In the video I watched earlier, there was this test where there was kids and in front of them are two baby dolls. One was a white baby and the other was a black baby. They asked the kids to choose which baby doll that they would prefer to play with. Most of them chose the white baby and a few chose the black baby. Then they asked the kids on why did they choose the white baby instead and they all basically said the same thing, that the white baby looked better than the black baby cause of the color.
     In my history class, we recently talked about the slaves and what they went through. My teacher was talking that no matter what gender you were, you would both expect to do the same amount of work as everyone else. The female slaves were expected to do the same amount of work as a male slave even if they were pregnant. Also in the humiliation and the punishment, they both received the same pain and embarrassment equally no matter the gender.
     To wrap all of this up, no matter what gender you could've been, you got the discrimination. No matter if you were a female or male African American, both were faced with very bad discrimination again them. They hated themselves and in the end they thought the only way to finally accept themselves were by becoming lighter. This needs to stop now. The only way that we can all accept each other in the future is by letting go of discrimination and start a new better life.