Blog #11: Response to Mimi Heald

I also noticed many of the same parallels that you pointed out in “As the Lord Lives, He is one of Our Mother’s Children” and “If We Must Die.” As you said, both of these readings involve the concept of a “noble death.” The idea that African Americans had so little right and respect in society that they sometimes couldn’t even hope for a peaceful and dignified death is a very disturbing thought. I too made the connection between the “mad hungry dogs” in “If We Must Die” and the raucous and vicious crowd present at Jones’s lynching. I think that the imagery and descriptions in both readings show the dehumanization of African Americans on a new level. One thing I noticed was that the behavior of the whites served to dehumanize them as well. Through their vicious actions and lack of ethics and morals concerning human dignity and life, they lose their humanity and are therefore reduced to animalistic, mindless and savage dogs, which is made clear through the vivid imagery used in “If We Must Die.”