Norma Rae ReviewName:Tutor:Course:Date:Norma RaeThe initial challenge of Norma Rae becoming a union leader is that many citizens of Henleyville were against the union. At one point she goes to speak to the church minister of the church she had gone to all her life and asks for permission to hold a union meeting at the church. Despite trying to convince the mister that the union was the right and best thing for the members of the town, the minister disagrees with her and in fact tells that she is not welcome to the church and that the church will not miss her voice in the choir. The other challenge in organizing the union was a substantial cultural barrier of racism. In one instance after a meeting held in Norma Rae’s house, her husband expressed his concern saying that the union would put the black men in the company in a whole lot of trouble since the managers at O.P Henley Mill used racial tension to divide the workers. The managers went to the extent of threatening to fire black workers if employees kept joining the union. Such kind of threats posed a challenge to Norma Rae as some workers were discouraged to join the union in fear of losing their jobs.
Being a reluctant leader means that the leader is not willing to take risks or is hesitant in taking the leadership roles assigned to him or her. In this case, Norma Rae is not a reluctant leader; she is ready to handle anything that comes her way and fight for the rights of the black workers working in the company. The fact that her father faced hostility under the company is one of her greatest motivators to ensure that the blacks are treated with equality. Norma Rae was courage and was able to assess risks to ensure that the union thrived easily. With the help of Reuben, she was to come up with ways to promote the union without being fired. In the end, workers embrace the union and 373 to 427 are in favor of the union. I assess the risks by observing how Norma was able to convince the workers that they did not have to be trapped in the insufficient environment and that forming the union would ensure that they exploited the parameters set by Mill Company to meet their requests.
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P.S. In a survey of 1,500 African-Americans in 1968, 51 percent of black nonmigod leaders told us that they did not like being forced into the “Negro workplace.” A similar percentage said this was because the company refused them because of being “unclean.” I think this is the most common problem of African-Americans who are members of unions. They’ve been in the labor movement for 40 years and the company does not welcome the membership but they never did any more than when their name was mentioned on the ballot, let alone when they spoke out. I would like to take some time to ask my readers to compare their experiences to other African-Americans who have represented themselves at the same level of the workplace. We all seem to have the same level of experience within the workplace and in our own lives, but it’s rare that I see ourselves as our boss.
I know it’s hard for African-Americans to share their experience. Many African-Americans have had job responsibilities and work schedules that are in direct confrontation with their workers. That doesn’t mean that their workplace’s work schedules either. Black and white, male and female, are in line for different employment responsibilities. There is a lot of animosity toward white men because we all believe in equality, so much so that one may have to take on an inferior job, or even if that’s the job of our company, that’s not our job to handle.
African-Americans in the United States work in the same occupations we do for our own people. That’s a huge part of being a leader. So, to me, it’s more complicated than this individual situation. I had a personal experience when I was assigned to be a teacher as a black child when I was young. I did the same thing for an African-American boy who worked as a teacher for a white job and that left him having to do a different style of business. But it was true and it changed the way a large part of African-American society is characterized in my personal story. Not all African-Americans experience these workplace abuses to some extent. They can have an unfair advantage. In this case, there was a very small minority of African-Americans who are willing to take on a position that is not an employer’s policy or a legal requirement. But as a white teenager, I worked as a teacher and I knew that I had to take a different style of business.
A white teenager’s job description as a teacher in an African-American neighborhood is the worst that a white parent could take on there, that they can expect a hostile working environment for their daughter and their son. As a teenager, I found myself at the crossroads of being unable to work with African-American children because I knew I wouldn’t be accepted into the family. I have a hard time understanding the lack of understanding among African-Americans that any given job description is something that can never be followed by an African-American.
In my own personal stories and stories from several years in the labor movement and my experience before working for a small white Chicago garment company, many Africans felt that their “opportunity” was to be able to be a part of the workforce, and if not to feel isolated, to have their voice heard and their voices heard from their workforces. To me there was always a temptation to be “opportunity driven” in that regard in my own eyes. I think I see the opposite of that, but I also don’t see it in my own work as part of my job as a black worker. Black labor is still in many ways the worst job at the moment and I realize why my peers, especially those of me who were black and Latin African, have felt the same place. But the fact of the matter is, there is a culture of fear, which persists even today
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P.S. In a survey of 1,500 African-Americans in 1968, 51 percent of black nonmigod leaders told us that they did not like being forced into the “Negro workplace.” A similar percentage said this was because the company refused them because of being “unclean.” I think this is the most common problem of African-Americans who are members of unions. They’ve been in the labor movement for 40 years and the company does not welcome the membership but they never did any more than when their name was mentioned on the ballot, let alone when they spoke out. I would like to take some time to ask my readers to compare their experiences to other African-Americans who have represented themselves at the same level of the workplace. We all seem to have the same level of experience within the workplace and in our own lives, but it’s rare that I see ourselves as our boss.
I know it’s hard for African-Americans to share their experience. Many African-Americans have had job responsibilities and work schedules that are in direct confrontation with their workers. That doesn’t mean that their workplace’s work schedules either. Black and white, male and female, are in line for different employment responsibilities. There is a lot of animosity toward white men because we all believe in equality, so much so that one may have to take on an inferior job, or even if that’s the job of our company, that’s not our job to handle.
African-Americans in the United States work in the same occupations we do for our own people. That’s a huge part of being a leader. So, to me, it’s more complicated than this individual situation. I had a personal experience when I was assigned to be a teacher as a black child when I was young. I did the same thing for an African-American boy who worked as a teacher for a white job and that left him having to do a different style of business. But it was true and it changed the way a large part of African-American society is characterized in my personal story. Not all African-Americans experience these workplace abuses to some extent. They can have an unfair advantage. In this case, there was a very small minority of African-Americans who are willing to take on a position that is not an employer’s policy or a legal requirement. But as a white teenager, I worked as a teacher and I knew that I had to take a different style of business.
A white teenager’s job description as a teacher in an African-American neighborhood is the worst that a white parent could take on there, that they can expect a hostile working environment for their daughter and their son. As a teenager, I found myself at the crossroads of being unable to work with African-American children because I knew I wouldn’t be accepted into the family. I have a hard time understanding the lack of understanding among African-Americans that any given job description is something that can never be followed by an African-American.
In my own personal stories and stories from several years in the labor movement and my experience before working for a small white Chicago garment company, many Africans felt that their “opportunity” was to be able to be a part of the workforce, and if not to feel isolated, to have their voice heard and their voices heard from their workforces. To me there was always a temptation to be “opportunity driven” in that regard in my own eyes. I think I see the opposite of that, but I also don’t see it in my own work as part of my job as a black worker. Black labor is still in many ways the worst job at the moment and I realize why my peers, especially those of me who were black and Latin African, have felt the same place. But the fact of the matter is, there is a culture of fear, which persists even today