Salt of the Earth Assignment

Salt of the Earth Assignment

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Salt of the Earth Assignment

The film Salt of the Earth depicts a racial segregation scenario that was subjected to the Mexican-Americans by the Anglo-American Miners. The mine miners were the mining company owners who forcefully alienated the land from the Mexican-Americans in New Mexico. Also, the Mexican Americans were granted the conditions of either leaving their land or working in the mines under low wages and pathetic conditions. Consequently, there existed prejudice against feminists and the social and political wrangles brought about by the inequality due to segregation conducted by the Anglo-American miners (Wilson, 1954). As such, the paper examines the issue of discrimination in terms of race, gender, and social class through the determination of the quotes from the three readings.

Collins and Bilge (2020) in their article which examines what intersectionality is state that, “the white European fans may love their team yet many feel free to engage in racial behavior such as calling African players monkeys, chanting racial slurs, and carrying signs with racial derogatory languages. Polish fans threw a banana at a Nigerian football player (pp.6-7).” The author uses the quote to examine how racial prejudice has been used to discriminate against Africans in football the same way the Anglo-Americans discriminated against the Mexican Americans in their mining fields. Notably, the Mexican Americans were paid poor wages, making them live in poor conditions because the Anglo-Americans saw themselves as superior in the movie Salt of the Earth. The low wages are also evident where the players playing for the European clubs are paid low wages compared to those of European descent (Wilson, 1954). Consequently, the white miners beat and racially segregated the Mexican-Americans like the Finish fan threw a banana at a Nigerian player, thereby showing the racially discriminatory move.

Continuous depiction of racial and gender discrimination and the need for activism gets depicted in the work of Romero (2017), where the author quotes, “the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated (p.2).” Historically, the United States of America has undergone social changes through the struggle to protect and attain the rights of women and African Americans in the 19th century and 20th centuries. Through the writings of Maria Stewart, the black female artist depicts that black women got characterized by two prejudices based on sexuality and racism. Women struggled to fight for women’s rights through publications and activities. Similarly, the movie the salt of the Earth depicts Esperanza Quintero, a miner’s wife who was arrested while trying to fight for the Mexican-American rights in the Zinc Town that were infringed by the Anglo-American miners (Wilson, 1954). She supported the strike, which resulted in the additional arrest of her husband, leaving her with a small kid in a pathetic condition for economic survival.

Furthermore, Crenshaw (1989) describe the move by the black feminist to criticize double jeopardy. The author through the quote, “the court reference for “against females” rather than “against Black females” reveals the implicit grounding of white female experiences in the doctrinal conceptualization of sex discrimination…” (p.144). Moore had filed a case of female discrimination in management and supervision at work. However, the court dismissed her petition, claiming it invalid. Women during that period were discriminated against. African women experienced severe discrimination due to their race and sexuality. The same scenario in the film Salt of the Earth depicts the suffering that the Mexican woman underwent at the hands of miners leading him to provide poor mothering services to the kid (Wilson, 1954). The kid mostly remained sorrowful due to poor living conditions and wages.

The Salts of the Earth creates a discrimination notion where women experience more severe discrimination than men. The severe discrimination also conjoins racial segregation in a working environment where people of color face prejudice from the majority race. The case of gender and racial discrimination is evident in the works of Collins and Bilge (2020), Romero (2017), and Crenshaw (1989). The three authors examine sexism and racial prejudice as a combined vice that affected women. Also, it creates a comprehensive determination of the historical torture the people of color underwent in delegating their duties to companies.

References

Collins, P. H., & Bilge, S. (2020). Intersectionality. John Wiley & Sons.

Crenshaw, K. (1989). De-marginalizing the Intersection of Race and sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politic.

Romero, M. (2017). Introducing intersectionality. John Wiley & Sons.

Wilson, M. (1954). Salt of the Earth. [Video]. Public Domains Movies. https://publicdomainmovie.net/movie/salt-of-the-earth