Culture And Cultural Values In African American Culture

The American culture is define to everyone in their own way. Everyone grows up differently in a particular community that shares the same languages, values, rules, and customs. The American Culture on that is consider to be a “melting pot”, because of all the different cultures that reside inside of it making it so diverse. Race in this country has never been a great topic throughout history. African Americans play a huge role into defining what our culture is as a whole, as well as being a part of racism for the past 250 years.

In this paper I discuss the African-American culture in regards to values, norms and beliefs.

Music is a creative art form that allows the artist to construct something that expresses a purpose. It evolves over time and changes as the world changes, taking on many different motivations behind the melody and lyrics. In today’s society, anger, oppression, racism, and negative opinions rule the media and popular culture. I believe that African Americans need to show their self worth and not let white people hold them back. With the music in white culture often mocking African American culture and portraying negative stereotypes, African Americans have to find ways to gain respect. In acknowledgement of the negative portrayal of their culture, African Americans respond by creating songs and videos that express their pride in their culture and heritage, react to white oppression, and communicate their independence.

In order to provide culturally appropriate care, an examination of one's personal views, beliefs, and prejudices must be examined. The first portion of this paper will examine my personal values, beliefs, biases, and prejudices. The remaining paper will analyze the African American culture relating to the Ginger and Davidhizar's Transcultural Assessment Model cited in Hood (2010). This model uses six key cultural elements that include communication, space, social organization, time, environment, and biological variations. This model provides a systematic approach for assessing culturally diverse clients. I will also discuss an aspect of care that I would

“Cooning” was a TV show or Film usually they act like idiot behavior that misrepresents African American culture. I think idiot because that shows a deliberate act. Many people called “coons.” Yes, I saw some examples today’s culture some white people still discriminate black people. Some white people were enjoying it, and that seems to some people they insulted African- American behaves. African-American got angry. It was not fair at all that behavior. All are good examples.

Africans have, since the early settlement of America, has had a great influence in the nation’s growth. These contributions to the United States from enslaved Africans have been greatly portrayed in American culture. Varying from cuisine, to song and dance are not only portrayed today but it has a deep-rooted impact throughout the United States. During the middle passage, enslaved Africans were forced to abandon their everyday lives, their families and their homes and forced to adapt to a new lifestyle they knew nothing of. However, upon arrival into the New World, due to their prior knowledge and wisdom from back home, they were able to quickly adapt and custom themselves to this new lifestyle in order to survive with the hope of potentially one day returning back to Africa. Unfortunately, African contributions to the culture of the United States has received little to no recognition and it has been taken credit for by Europeans and Whites since the early establishment of the United States.

African Americans have endured many trials and tribulations over the centuries. Our people have suffered from war, violence, and anguish simply because of the color of our skin. Our history has been so blatantly missing from textbooks and the K-12th grade educational atmosphere. Our educational system continues to neglect the history of our African American ancestors and fail to provide them with the educational resources to inform them of our past and allow them to learn about the true origins of our culture. We have made many significant contributions to the world but those have also been highly ignored as well.

There is no doubt that African Americans have a rich cultural background and history like the many different ethnic groups who settled in the New World, whose origins lie in another country. For this reason, America was known as the melting pot. However, the backgrounds of each of these cultures were not always understood or, in the case of African Americans, accepted among the New World society and culture. Americans were ignorant to the possibility of differences among groups of people until information and ideas started to emerge, particularly, the African retention theories. This sparked an interest in the field of African culture and retention in African Americans. However, the study of African American culture truly emerged as a result of increased awareness in America, specifically through the publication and findings of scholarly research and cultural events like the Harlem Renaissance where all ethnicities were able to see this rich historical culture of African Americans.

There are very many different groups of culture in America; one in particular that represents about 15% of the general population in America is African American culture (Center Of Disease Control, 2002). The African American culture was derived from the country Africa. The African people have been in and out of slavery from many different countries since the beginning of time. The English were not the first to enslave the group of people, but they were the last. When the Africans came over to the Americas in the early 1600’s, they were forced to give up many of their traditions and adapt to whatever their masters gave them to learn from although some of their native culture and history was hidden in their spirituals. When coming over to the

That’s because you are not an ordinary person you’re an extraordinary person. I thank you being an African American woman I had defense my African American culture. Here’s one example I was in a 4.5 star restaurant, I walked away with a group of lady going into the same direction. A white lady turned around a single me out of the group asking if I can get her a glass of water. I pulsed and carefully collected my thoughts and said in these time I’ve could have ask you the same question it appear your intelligent enough to distinguish a waitress from a customer and those days are over and by the way the meal was amazing. For a minute she looked taken back until she thought about what I said and then she apologized. As I smiled because it could

The African American community has sat at the end of a discriminatory lens from the moment they set foot in the United States. For that reason, black communities have undergone the process of community building to ensure that all members feel a sense of belonging.

The term “pigmentocracy, or colorism is the practice of interracial groups applying a valuation to lighter skin” (https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/73702) In India this is informed in various ways including, the caste system, media, and cultural practices. Similar to African-Americans, and light skin versus dark skin debates Indians have to deal with the same theory. The theory that those with the lighter skin, are “superior” to those that are darker. Oftentimes those that are darker are seen as inferior, to those with light skin. The media often shows people of a lighter skin tone than those with more pigmented skin. There are usually more light people, and maybe one or two darker people. This all goes into play with how huge of problem colorism is

Since, I am a United States citizen so I may have biases for both negative and positive reasons. According to Matsumoto, the problem with my choice of research for this paper is my methodological approach in cross-culture research lacks authenticity and provides only an indirect observation method. However, the information gathered for this paper is legitimate I would do better to use a mixed-methods study of both qualitative and quantitative knowledge to design an experiment that would build support around an empirical research study of indirect and direct observations (Matsumoto, 2001, p.83-92). I love my country of birth and understand its main culture, but have oftentimes felt misunderstood because my Black-American culture can conflict.

I have traveled all over the world but I have never been down South. Being from New York has also given me a very narrow perspective of African American culture. The purpose of this research project is to gain some understanding of Black culture specifically in the South. College has exposed me to a lot of people who were born and raised in the South and some of my closest friends are southerners. By researching the history, culture, and demographic information of the South, I plan on becoming a more well-informed American.

African American folktales have origins rooted in West African literary and cultural forms of expression. When Africans were taken from their homeland and brought to America as slaves, they also brought with them their individual cultures, languages and customs. However, their white slaveholders suppressed this part of their heritage in them. Thus they had to find other ways of expression, mainly story telling and songs. It is incredible to see how African slaves could ever smile and laugh under the horrible and cruel circumstances, which were imposed on them by the brutal slaveholders.