Trials of a true southern belle and southern gentleman

Trials of a true southern belle and southern gentleman

A. What were the rules of etiquette for Southern gentlemen and ladies?

·         Be Humble: Others first, yourself last. Self-denial and deference to others ("After you") are the cornerstone of good manners, acting selfish or uppity is not. This commandment is indisputably rooted in the Bible Belt theology ("the first shall be last, and the last shall be first").

·         Be Courteous: Remember the Golden Rule. Go out of your way to be helpful and kind to everyone you encounter.

·         Behave Yourself: Don't be uncouth, rude, brash, loud, coarse, or cause a commotion in public. Only trashy types do such things.....and obviously this is because they weren't raised to know better.

·         Be Friendly: Put your friendliest foot forward, whether you've been properly introduced or don't know the person from a hole in the ground. Be sociable and neighborly, just like you learned in Sunday School ("Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself").

·         Be Modest: Never be highfalutin'. Practice modesty in all situations. "Why, shucks, I guess I was in the right place at the right time" would work just fine upon learning that you had won the Pulitzer Prize. "Of course I won it, I deserve to" would absolutely categorize you as too big for your britches.

·         Say "please" without fail. Please, always say "please" when you make a requet, no matter how trivial or important.

·         Always ask, never tell. The only way to make a request is to ask for it, directives are much too surly. "Would you please carry me up the road a piece?" is correct. "Give me a ride to the market" is most assuredly not.

·         Say "Thank you" without fail. Upon being granted your request--be it a personal favor or impersonal transaction--always look the other party in the eye, give them a pleasing smile, and cheerily say, "Thank you". To show them you're really grateful, dress it up with "Thank you kindly," "Thanks a whole lot," "Preciate it". If your request is denied, say "Well, thank you anyway." Using your best turn-the-other-cheek manner.

·         Say "ma'am" and "sir" without fail. If any adult your senior addresses you (or vice versa), automatically attach the appropriate title to your response ("Yes ma'am, "I reckon so, Sir", "Pardon me ma'am"). Neglecting this rule is apt to be interpreted as arrogance or insolence or just plain bad upbringing.

·         Always refer to those of the female gender as Ladies. The descriptive woman is usually reserved in Dixie for females of questionable respect. If you are a gentleman, then treat all ladies with courtness, deference, and respect you'd accord members of the royal family since, in the South, ladies occupy such status. This is an immutable rule of order in Dixie, no matter what may be happening elsewhere on this planet.

·         Chivalry may not be well appreciated outside the South today, but you can be sure that around home territory a true gentleman will so honor a lady:

·         Hold the door open for all members of the fairer sex, regardless of their social station.

·         Stand when a lady enters or leaves a room.

·         Walk on the streetside of a side-walk, when accompanying a lady.

·         Order for both of you when at a restaurant (excluding business meals).

·         Always call his mother "Mamma" or "mutha" or "Mrs. -------"-never by her first name, no matter what his age.

B. What did southern ladies do to pass their time? (Hobbies etc)

·         They baked cakes.

C. Pictures of Southern ladies and gentlemen.

·         Shown.

D. Identify characters in the novel that fit the mould of true southern belles and gentlemen and those who don’t? Explain why they fit the mould and why they don’t?

·         The gentleman is Atticus. He has all the etiquettes above and he is also very helpful.

·        The Belle is Mrs Maudie. She is very kind and bakes cakes, then, she gives the cakes to her neighbours.

Montgomery bus boycott and the Scottsboro trials

Montgomery bus boycott and the Scottsboro trials

A. State the specifics of each trial and why they were significant.

·         The Montgomery Bus Boycott officially started on December 1, 1955. That was the day when the blacks of Montgomery, Alabama, decided that they would boycott the city buses until they could sit anywhere they wanted, instead of being relegated to the back when a white boarded. It was not, however, the day that the movement to desegregate the buses started. Perhaps the movement started on the day in 1943 when a black seamstress named Rosa Parks paid her bus fare and then watched the bus drive off as she tried to re-enter through the rear door, as the driver had told her to do. Perhaps the movement started on the day in 1949 when a black professor Jo Ann Robinson absentmindedly sat at the front of a nearly empty bus, then ran off in tears when the bus driver screamed at her for doing so. Perhaps the movement started on the day in the early 1950s when a black pastor named Vernon Johns tried to get other blacks to leave a bus in protest after he was forced to give up his seat to a white man, only to have them tell him, "You ought to know better."

·         On March 25, 1931, several groups of white and black men and two white women were riding the rails from Tennessee to Alabama in various open and closed railroad cars designed to carry freight and gravel. At one point on the trip, the black and white men began fighting. One white man would later testify that the African-Americans started the fight, and another white man would later claim that the white men had started the fight. In any case, most of the white men were thrown off the train. When the train arrived at Paint Rock, Alabama, all those riding the rails-including nine black men, at least one white man, and the two white women--were arrested, probably on charges of vagrancy. The white women remained under arrest in jail for several days, pending charges of vagrancy and possible violation of the Mann Act. The Mann Act prohibited the taking of a minor across state lines for immoral purposes, like prostitution. Because Victoria Price was a known prostitute, the police were tipped off (very likely by the mother of the under aged Ruby Bates) that the two women were involved in a criminal act when they left Tennessee for Alabama. Upon leaving the train, the two women immediately accused the African-American men of raping them in an open railroad car (referred to as a "gondola") that was carrying gravel (or, as it was called, "chert").

·         The trial of the nine men began on April 6, 1931, only twelve days after the arrest, and continued through April 9, 1931. The chief witnesses included the two women accusers, one white man who had remained on the train and corroborated their accusations, another acquaintance of the women who refused to corroborate their accusations, the physician who examined the women, and the accused nine black men. The accused claimed that they had not even been in the same car with the women, and the defense attorneys also argued that one of the accused was blind and another too sickly to walk unassisted and thus could not have committed such a violent crime. On April 9, 1931, eight of the nine were sentenced to death; a mistrial was declared for the ninth because of his youth. The executions were suspended pending court appeals, which eventually reached the Supreme Court of the United States.

B. How is the Scottsboro trial related to the trial in the novel?

·         Both trials are related as they involved white females accusing innocent black men of raping. In TKAM, Mayella Ewell accused Tom Robinson of attempted rape when she herself seduced Tom while in the Scottsboro trials, the prostitutes accused the blacks of rape because she wanted to escape prosecution for immoral acts.

C. In what way are these trials similar?

·         Tom Robinson's trial bears striking parallels to the "Scottsboro Trial," one of the most famous-or infamous-court cases in American history. Both the fictional and the historical cases take place in the 1930s, a time of turmoil and change in America, and both occur in Alabama.

·         In both, too, the defendants were African-American men, the accusers white women.

·         In both instances the charge was rape.

·         Both have a central figure in which a central figure of the Scottsboro trials was a heroic judge, a member of Alabama Bar who overturned a guilty jury verdict against African American men while in TKAM, the central figure is Atticus, lawyer, legislator and member of the Alabama Bar, who defends an African American man.

·         Both judges went against public sentiments in trying to protect the rights of the African American defendants.

·         Both jury ignored evidence that was evident that the African American men were innocent.

·         Both also include the attitudes of the Southern women and poor whites that complicated the trials.

The civil rights movement

The civil rights movement

A. When did the civil rights movement begin?

·         December 1, 1955

B. What was the civil rights movement about?

·         The civil rights movement was a mass protest movement against racial segregation and discrimination in the southern United States that came to national prominence during the mid-1950s. This movement had its roots in the centuries-long efforts of African slaves and their descendants to resist racial oppression and abolish the institution of slavery. Although American slaves were emancipated as a result of the Civil War and were then granted basic civil rights through the passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution, struggles to secure federal protection of these rights continued during the next century. Through nonviolent protest, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s broke the pattern of public facilities’ being segregated by “race” in the South and achieved the most important breakthrough in equal-rights legislation for African Americans since the Reconstruction period (1865–77). Although the passage in 1964 and 1965 of major civil rights legislation was victorious for the movement, by then militant black activists had begun to see their struggle as a freedom or liberation movement not just seeking civil rights reforms but instead confronting the enduring economic, political, and cultural consequences of past racial oppression.

C. Some of the significant incidents that took place in the civil rights movements. (Choose 2-3 incidents and state them briefly not in great detail)

·         Over 25 race riots occur in the summer of 1919 with 38 killed in Chicago. 70 blacks, including 10 veterans, are lynched in the South.

·         5000 federal troops are sent by Pres. Kennedy to allow Meredith to register for classes. Riots result in 2 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

D. Which American President supported the civil rights movement?

·         President John F. Kennedy

E. What was the outcome of this movement?

·         As a result to the civil rights movement African-Americans are now as equal as whites.

F. In what way is the civil rights movement related to the novel?

·         The novel was set in the period of the civil rights movement where the blacks were still segregated with the whites. Tom, in the novel, was convicted because of the discrimination of Blacks during that era.

Jim Crow's Laws

Jim crow’s laws

A. What/who is Jim Crow?

·         Jim Crow is not actually a person, but the subject of a song performed by Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice. Rice was a white man who performed in blackface. Like most blackface performers, Rice denigrated Blacks through his music, his stereotypical behaviour, and his rude jokes.

B. What were the Jim Crow Laws?

·         After the American Civil War most states in the South passed anti-African American legislation. These became known as Jim Crow laws. This included laws that discriminated against African Americans with concern to attendance in public schools and the use of facilities such as restaurants, theatres, hotels, cinemas and public baths. Trains and buses were also segregated and in many states marriage between whites and African American people.

C. What was the response of the slaves and the Blacks to these laws?

·         This type of segregation led to fierce civil rights struggles, especially in regards to Jim Crow Laws that segregated schools. Several key events – including Rosa Parks’ refusal to move from her seat on a segregated bus, as well as several bus boycotts – built up and provided enough tension in society that the question of segregation finally had to be dealt with.

D. Do we see the Jim Crow laws surface in the novel? If so then in which part of the novel?

·         Yes. The blacks and the whites go to separate churches.

The Civil War

The civil war

A. Identify the southern states.

·         South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana. Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee.

B. Who was the US president who proclaimed war against the South?

·         Abraham Lincoln

C. Why was the civil war fought?

·         The war was fought over secession, not over slavery. If the South had not declared its independence, Lincoln would not have launched an invasion, and there would have been no war. The only slave states that were charged with insurrection and then invaded were those that belonged to the Confederacy.

·         Moreover, there was still slavery after the war

D. When was this war fought?

·         From April 1861 to April 1865     

E. What was the outcome of this war?

·         The union won. This placed the USA in a position where it could start to modernise its economic base, A fortunate a side effect of this was that slavery was abolished several years later.

·         Even after the war was won there was still slavery.

F. How does the Civil Rights Movement relate to the novel?

·         The cautiousness of the Southern states towards the North was shown in the novel through the whites’ cautiousness of the blacks.

Slavery

Slavery

A. When and how did slavery begin in the southern states?

·         Slavery, a form of forced labor, has existed since before written records, even playing a large role in Biblical times, and was mentioned heavily in the Old Testament. Contrary to common belief in the USA, slavery did not start in the Americas, nor was it restricted to black African people; it has existed in almost all cultures and continents, and even exists to this day, in one form or another, in some places.

·         In fact, in Africa slavery was common: the tribes would fight each other, and whichever tribe won would either vote to kill the other tribe, or have the tribe be their slaves. If the tribe that won the battle opted to have the other tribe be their slaves, each member would be sent to serve a house.

·         Prisoners from other tribes or outlaws were also kept as slaves, but forced service was often negotiable, meaning they could be freed at some time or another.

B. Which countries were to slaves brought from?

·         African countries and South American countries.

C. Who traditionally bought and owned the slaves?

·         The people who were rich, powerful, influential and needed extra man power.

D. Were there laws, rules that the slaves needed to abide? If yes, what were they?

·         A slave girl's job was to be totally owned by her master, meaning that her body, soul and heart belonged to her master and the only meaning of life to her is to please her master.

·         Slaves shouldn't privately message (MSG, whisper, PM) any man in channel without first seeking permission in the open channel.

·         Slaves who entice should be prepared to act upon such actions. "Slave heat" is a term girls use to describe their sex. However, in the Gor series, the author uses the term to describe the deep desire and sexual need of a slave girl, not her actual anatomical genitalia. In any event, "slave heat" should not be used unless the slave is allowed and ready to sexually please the man

·         Slaves should not enter into the conversations of Free Men and Women. If you wish to converse with other girls, do so in MSG's. Please, do not discuss personal, everyday issues in an open channel.

·         Slaves address all Free Men and Women as Master or Mistress. If their gender cannot be determined by the nick, use Master until corrected, beg mercy for your error, and then make note. All slave nicks begin with a lowercase letter. Master or Mistress nicks begin with an uppercase letter. In the Gor series, slaves are only allowed to address a Free Man by his given name with permission (Master John instead of just Master). Although it is a common practice in the medium of IRC, some men will demand that girls receive permission first. Simply beg forgiveness for your error and make a note.

·         While Free Men may not always be right, they are by definition, never wrong. Therefore slaves do not argue with Free Men (especially in an open channel). Remember, you have the last two words in any disagreement...those being, "Yes, Master."

·         Slaves have no rights, you own nothing. Even your name is not your own, it can be changed at any time (in fact, for an unowned girl it may be changed several times at a Free Man's whim, so be prepared). Any items your Owner gives you can just as easily be taken away. His will supersedes your own, and his tiniest whim is your absolute law.

·         Jealousy and possessiveness of one's Owner are not becoming in a slave. It's you who are owned, not he. While any human may FEEL these emotions, a slave girl does not act upon them. It may be how you handle these feelings when you experience them that speak for your maturity and growth in your slavery.

·         Slaves do not touch any form of weaponry. Also, slaves are not allowed to touch coins without express authorization from their Master. If a man tries to give you a coin, either let it fall to the furs or accept it in your mouth and carry it to the appropriate Free Man.

·         Slaves are to be pleasing at all times; there is no room for PMS or bad moods. Perfection of service and submission is the goal, mere excellence will be tolerated.

·         Slaves speak in third person speech. Therefore you shouldn't use the words "I," "me," or "mine." Instead, say "this one," "this slave," or "this girl." The exception is in speaking of a girl's particular Owner. If permitted, she may be allowed to say, "My Master." Although there are instances of slaves using the standard greeting of "Tal" in the books, most channels on IRC restrict its use to the Free.

·         It is a good idea to ask for permission to enter a channel, if you are unsure of the channel's policy. Always ask permission before leaving a channel or going away from your keyboard.

·         If you don't know how to serve, you should not try unless a man commands it. Then it is wise to tell the man that you are untrained before you begin. He will decide whether he wishes you to serve or not. If he insists upon your service, take a deep breath, MSG another slave for help with that item, and try your best to be pleasing.

·         Never correct another slave in the open channel, send a MSG instead. If you are unsure of something, it's always a good idea to MSG a more experienced slave for advice.

·         A slave girl is supposed to serve all Free Men and be pleasing. However, if you are told to do something that goes against a direct order from your Owner, relate to the Master your Owner's wishes regarding the matter. If he still insists, ask for help from the Channel Ops. If you receive no help from them, some girls are instructed close the window and turn off their computer. If a girl is owned, she may have explicit instructions and you should beg your Master to know about yours. If a girl is unowned, and the request does not go against any Owner's command, but you are terrified, you may MSG a Channel Op for help, but remember a slave girl's primary purpose is to serve men and be pleasing. The Ops may not take it too kindly if you are constantly running to them for protection.

·         Gor is not a fair or just place. There is both incredible beauty and savagery in the books. Out of respect for those who take the philosophies outlined in the writing of John Norman seriously, please try to be polite, pleasing and follow the rules of whatever channel you may find yourself in. It is incredibly rude to enter a man's house, and disrespect his home.

E. How does the notion of slavery relate to the novel? Does the study of slavery help you understand the novel better?

·         It lets us understand that the whites are always looking at the blacks as slaves that they do not have any respect for them. It relates to the novel as in the novel, when the black who was found guilty had clearly enough evidence to acquit him, the white jury still sided with the other whites. This story also tells me about the discrimination towards the Blacks.

LA HBL

PLSE

My comic strips: http://www.toondoo.com/cartoon/2725053

                                          http://www.toondoo.com/cartoon/2725187

I chose almost the same background, the bedroom and the classroom, as the story happens mostly in bedroom and the classroom.

It contributes to how Bryan played every day in his bedroom and when he sat for his PSLE, the results were terrible.

The different elements that I have chosen contributes to the failure of Bryan’s PSLE and the teacher telling him that one must work hard to yield good results.