- In the 1900’s African Americans were treated nowhere near equal to white people. Many Americans had fixed mindsets that didn’t allow them to expand their thoughts and beliefs on African Americans living and working the same way white people do. In 1961, when an African American man named Clyde Ross, bought a house he was charged very unfairly compared to the white families that previously lived in the exact same house. Coates stated, ” Ross had bought his house for $27,500. The seller, not the previous homeowner but a new kind of middleman, had bought it for only $12,000 six months before selling it to Ross.” (Coates). This quote shows how Clyde Ross was charged over double the amount that the seller bought the house for, just because the seller knew that Ross was black and low income so he would not be able to afford his monthly payments so he made them extremely high so that he’d be able to kick Ross and his family out when they weren’t able to make a payment, but that would never happen to white people. Sellers would do this to African Americans because of their fixed mindsets, Carol Dweck has a lot of ideas about fixed and growth mindsets that she mentions in her TED Talk. Carol Dweck explains a fixed mindset as, “their intelligence had been up for judgment, and they failed. Instead of luxuriating in the power of yet, they were gripped in the tyranny of now.” (Dweck). I believe that most white Americans in the early 1900’s fit this description of a fixed mindset. Whites believed that they couldn’t treat African Americans equally because they were still seen as inferior to white people. White people didn’t want to have their intelligence up for judgement if they treated black people equally, other white people would think they’re crazy for doing that.
The relationship I see between Coates and Dweck is that Dweck talks a lot about fixed mindsets and people who can’t change their mind for the better and see the other side of things. This relates to Coates because when he talks about HR40 and how Americans won’t pass it I believe they have fixed mindsets. In this paragraph I was able to show how the Americans today have fixed mindsets, they aren’t willing to look at the other side of things and change their minds for the better.
2. In “The Coddling”, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt talk about a concept they call vindictive protectiveness, which is when individuals shield themselves from ideas that may potentially make themselves or others uncomfortable, they state, “The ultimate aim, it seems, is to turn campuses into “safe spaces” where young adults are shielded from words and ideas that make some uncomfortable.” (Lukianoff/Haidt). Recently, students have been making complaints about how certain topics learned and talked about in class make them uncomfortable or have the possibility of making other students uncomfortable. Colleges have turned into these safe spaces because many students these days are believed to have what Lukianoff and Haidt refer to it as, vindictive protectiveness. Coates speaks of the United States not being able to study reparations because it makes them uncomfortable, or scared, “But we stand to discover much about ourselves in such a discussion—and that is perhaps what scares us. The idea of reparations is frightening not simply because we might lack the ability to pay.” (Coates). The United States will not study reparations or pass the HR 40 bill because they’re scared, it makes them uncomfortable to discuss reparations. I don’t think America is ready to face reality.
The relationship I see between Coates and Lukianoff/Haidt is that Lukianoff and Haidt speak of safe spaces where young people are shielded from things that make them uncomfortable or frighten them. While Coates speaks about how reparations frighten many people and to is believed they don’t want to pass them or think about it because they’re scared and don’t even want to bother learning about it in order to change their minds.
