Race and Ethnicity Arts

standards of art and its views on social roles” (Hamilton, 114). White Western society plays the

Founded in 1965, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History showcases the world's largest permanent exhibit on African American culture. My visits there are always educational and profoundly moving. The museum has an incredible perspective on the past and the present journey of African Americans. At the same time, it takes us on a comprehensive journey of the African American contribution to the world. Today, I will take us on that journey and paint a vivid image of Charles H. Wright Museum.

Lorraine O’Gradys’ unintentionally historic performances, seemingly elevate everyday life to the status of art. In her ‘exhibit’ at the Studio Museum, her work is represented through photographs, in ‘Art is…’. Thirty years ago, O’Grady presented ‘Art is’ in the form of a float in the African American Day Parade right here in Harlem. Performers pranced with empty frames, metaphorically capturing fleeting pictures of the people and places that surrounded the route of the parade. By doing so, the trappings of high art were brought out of the museum, into the street, which promotes a new way people might begin to recognize this new art form in the celebrations of every day life. The

Meta Warrick Fuller’s sculpture “Ethiopia Awakening” served as a metaphoric yearning for African culture, a symbolic image of emancipation, an awakening of African Americans diaspora identity, resurgence of Fuller’s artistic career and as a self-portrait of Fuller. The Progressive era, from 1890 to 1920, forms the backdrop to Fuller’s life and art. This period has come to symbolize the reform efforts of the middle class. White middle class progressives sought to reengineer industry and government, pushed for economic and social reforms. The Progressive era was also a time of intense contradictions and ambiguities. Race was the blind spot of white progressives. 1 At the turn of the twentieth-century African Americans

Blackmon provides many stories in his book about what the slaves to forced laborers went through and how they felt about the new so called “freedom” they gained. The Black Americans prior to the Emancipation Proclamation have never seen the slightest clue to what freedom could even feel like. “Some of the old slaves said they too weren’t sure what “freedom” really was”

The documentary, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, allows one to experience African American history through key historical sites, and interviews with living eyewitnesses such as those who fought during the well-known civil-rights movement. The documentary sheds light on the experience of African Americans, both in the past and today. The information presented in class further aids in detailing how African American history shaped the African American community in regards to support systems, crises, but most importantly, how these individuals used resiliency to overcome their trials and tribulations towards a fights for rights, freedom, and respect. During the six episodes, one will see that the road and battle to freedom for blacks in America was not linear, but rather complex and difficult- it was much like the course of a river, full of loops and turns, sometimes slow, and sometimes reversing the current of advancement. Although enslavement led to the creation of the African American people, it manifested into the multiplicity of cultural institution, beliefs, and religion and social institutions that the African American people have established- along with their strength and resiliency. From slavery, lynching’s, and the many marches and protests led by phenomenal black leaders, to the gained freedoms and the first black president in the White House, the documentary, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, details an engaging journey through African-American history from a perspective that thoroughly reflects the lives of African-Americans and the community in its

Anthropologists have always had their discrepancies with the word culture and its background significance. There have been numerous definitions that have filtered through the field, yet not one that everyone can accept or agree with. Franz Boas, an anthropologist in the early 20th Century, and his students, had a difficult time figuring out the objective of what culture is. Culture is about learning and shared ideas about behaviour. Although Boas and his students had a slightly different idea in mind. They ultimately reached a conclusion, a definition of culture in their view that is a contradiction in terms. Boas sates that, “ culture was expressed through the medium of language but was not reducible to it;

During my visit to the Brooklyn Museum, I found it both intriguing and informative. The layout of the exhibition was divided into about three to four sections. Each section of the museum represented a movement of the 60’s. The themes represented were segregation of blacks and whites, how they tried to gain equality and the changes they anticipated would happen in the future. The artwork throughout the exhibit was displayed in a varying gradient of black and white to colors.

African Americans always had a great influence in the United States throughout time from the beginning of slavery. African Americans, since the start of slavery, always expressed themselves artistically, where it was through music or art. From making patchwork quilts, slaves used their artistic expression to help conduct the Underground Railroad and escape slavery. To be defined as “illiterate savages” African Americas proved many wrong with their exceptional skills presented in many different styles of artwork. From slavery throughout the 19th century, there were a great number of African Americans whom contributed to the United States through artistic expression, with creating artwork that would either be judged or discredited. For example, Robert S. Duncanson, Edward M. Bannister, Mary Edmonia Lewis, and Henry Ossawa Tanner were all 19th century African American artists who each faced their own individual challenges to achieve acclaim as artists.

I would like to focus my response to the reading in Gabbidon & Greene, Chapter 1, generally around the idea of social construction. Furthermore, I would like to specially provide responses to discussion questions number one and two as posed in the conclusion of chapter one. Discussion question number one asks to “Explain the origin of race and its implications for race and crime.” Discussion question number two asks “Do you believe there are distinct races?” I will also provide perspective on issues surrounding the term “minorities”.

In an attempt to prepare the art educator to the paradigm shift in classroom and develop a cohesive curriculum this would comprise the needs of the students and teachers to think about cultures different from their own. While I admire McFee’s interest in cultural diversity and the plight of African Americans. However, her essay is written from a privileged White middle-class perceptive with about her understanding of African Americans. How does McFee identify six major areas of social change in America of the sixties? More importantly, how does the stereotypes of African Americans influence art, education, and society?

Some slavery apologists claimed that blacks were beasts or a degenerated form of the human species. Douglass argued the hypocrisy of special laws prohibiting the free actions of blacks, such as rebelling against masters or any white person if blacks were bestial and incapable of independent and rational behavior. Also, there was the Christianization of slaves and punishment for practicing other religions. Then there was the matter of masters breeding with slave women producing mulatto children like Douglass. If blacks were beasts, then why were the offspring offensive to the mistress of the property. Slavery subverted the natural goodness of blacks by brutalizing them, as well as white slave holders and other whites affected by this institution. An example of this is Douglass’s mistress in Baltimore who at first was goodness personified, but soon after a scolding from her husband of her kind treatment she became harsh and cruel (p.62). To Douglass this was as injurious to the mistress as it was to the

Fred Wilson is an art activist for minority groups, especially the African American population, which in today`s generation, is looked upon as the unseen minority group (Grinberg 2012). Wilson creates innovative exhibitions to display art and artifacts found in museum collections with arrangements that represent minority contemporary artists. His ideas lead the audience to acknowledge that changes in the perceptive view transform the whole meaning of what is presented.

Florida’s rich history often spotlights two distinctive groups; the plentiful Hispanic population, or the conventional Caucasian syndicate. What most people tend to overlook are the copious amounts of esteem found in Black History; a chronicle furnished on centuries of symbiotic suffering and triumph. Thousands of individuals have contributed to this amorphous embodiment, but there is one woman in particular that has succeeded in evolving our world’s views on art at

Understanding race and racism can be very difficult for American citizens. This also leads to confusion when discussing current events around racial disparities and inequalities. Mainstream American general society views racism and race differently than sociologist who study these disparities and inequalities. The idea of double consciousness and ethnicity directly relate to the different ways in which different individuals understand and experience race and racism. In our current society where media is widely used, individual’s understandings of these topics becomes confusing and difficult to understand and/or comprehend. Discussing the blurry ideas of race and racism is so