Final Exam, Racial Equality: A Long Time Coming

"Cheers" taken by Pete Souza

           The “Beer Summit Picture” is an important contemporary American artifact because it represents the incredible growth and current status of the United States of America, striving to achieve racial equality. It relates to our class because it compares current racial equality to inequality shown in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Glory and even theatrical productions. In the picture, taken by official white house photographer Pete Souza, there are three men, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., Police Sergeant James Crowley and President Barack Obama. Souza decided to make the background dark, focusing all attention on the men at the table. More importantly though, is the theme of equality. All three men share equal thirds of the picture, showing a perfect division of space and power. In addition, they all are uniting their beverages in the middle of the table, coming together as a sign of mutual respect for one another. Such equality and respect is expressed and embraced in today’s America, although it wasn’t at all the case just over a century and a half ago.

            In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass realized the racial inequality occurring with his observation, “There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being, and were all subjected to the same narrow examination” (51). This statement truly portrays the horrible inequality occurring in the early 19th century. Other human beings were being ranked and treated like horses, cattle and pigs. White men did the ranking. The people being ranked among the animals were black.

            Also in the film, Glory, Denzel Washington’s character, Trip, made another important realization of racial inequality occurring. When speaking with Colonel Shaw, the leader of the all-black 54th Regiment Massachusetts Infantry, he proclaimed, “What about us, what do we get?” comparing the life of Colonel Shaw (a white man) upon return home versus the lives of himself and the rest of the all black infantry. Wary of the fact that they were risking their lives on the battlefield for the Union army though weren’t going to be treated equally with the white men doing the same.

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            Finally, even theatrical productions in the early 20th century were incredibly degrading to African-Americans, blatantly spelling out the ideals of racial inequality. As found on spirobolos.com through Mr. Bolos’ Delicious page Racism and the Undercaste, an incredible display of racial inequality can be seen through an advertisement for a relatively popular play at the time. The feature of the advertisement shows two pictures of seemingly different actors involved in the play, however they are the same person. The portrait on the left shows a white man with, as Mr. Bolos put it, “dignity”. His hair is combed and parted, his body language appears confident, with a slight grin. His chin is up and overall seems extremely well put together. As for the image on the right, the same actor is now in complete blackface, with glaring red lipstick, unkempt hair and a truly crazed expression. His eyes are wide open and a look of sheer terror is shown on his face. The stark contrast of the appearances of the same actor in different costumes, the dignified white versus the crazed black, truly shows the extreme ideals and practices of racial inequality merely a century ago.

           In conclusion, the “Beer Summit” picture shows the current racial equality in American society, as three men, two black and one white, can now share a beer in harmony; although as we have seen throughout this first semester of American Studies, it has been a long time coming for blacks in America trying to achieve racial equality.