Racial Hierarchy Of African Consciousness

More literature written about slaves by non-slaves exist than those written by slaves themselves; this general trend also applies to the Brazilian literary canon. Historians seek out these slave texts because the literature provides a unique perspective on slave societies and slavocracies. One such historian, Robert Krueger, has collected many Brazilian slave texts during his research in order to create a corpus of such literature similar to that found in the United States. Krueger argues that “nothing compares to the power and meaning of these slaves’ testimonies” because they contain the slaves’ self-portrayal and self-expression, qualities that are missing in other texts (p 170). In the article Brazilian Slaves Represented in their Own Words, Robert Krueger goes over some of the authentic slave texts in his current collection that not only highlight the slaves’ strength and beauty, but also demonstrates the power of writing and language.

Chapter five in Takaki’s “A Different Mirror” focused primary on the African-American experience 1700s through the end of the Civil War and the failure of Reconstruction. The experience of reading these chapters after learning about the continued degradation of Native Americans lent itself to continued feelings of hopelessness regarding the beginnings of U.S. history. For a moment, I felt deep shame at the actions of the founders of the United States, especially those who were the head of the country, in that time President Andrew Jackson. Slavery was not only a "peculiar institution" but also one that forced landowners to dismiss that they were exploiting fellow human beings for profit. Takaki discussed four major figures before, during, and

Parham’s video presented to me a counseling method that I do not believe I would be comfortable doing as a White, agnostic man. Multicultural class has shown that psychology research has been Euro-centric and minority populations have been pathologized. I appreciate Parham’s approach and how it engaged the client in finding support through spirituality and interconnectedness, but I do not believe an African American client would respond to me as they did to him. Parham stated African-centered psychology defines the African psychological experience from an African perspective, a perspective that reflects an African orientation.

Furthermore, Biman Basu’s The Black Voice And The Language Of The Text: Toni Morrison’s Sula, investigates what he calls “one of the most significant developments in African American tradition…the formation of a class of intellectuals” (Article). More precisely, Basu is speaking of individuals like Morrison, who have not only broken down barriers for herself as a woman writer, but the others whom have followed in her footsteps to publish a rich tapestry of African-American literature. Furthermore, Basu’s investigates the conflict that arises when one class overtakes another stating that the conflict “on one hand, is between African-American and American Culture, and on the other, between this class of intellectuals and the ‘people’”(article).

Between the World and Me has been called a book about race, but the author argues that race itself is a flawed, if anything, nothing more than a pretext for racism. Early in the book he writes, “Race, is the child of racism, not the father.” The idea of race has been so important in the history of America and in the self-identification of its people and racial designations have literally marked the difference between life and death in some instances. How does discrediting the idea of race as an immutable, unchangeable fact changes the way we look at our history? Ourselves? In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and the current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the

Writing in the favor of black people has always remained controversial from the very beginning. Critics regard such writing as “a highly conventionalized genre” indicating that “its status as literature was long disputed but the literary merits of its most famous example such as Frederick Douglass 's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass…are widely recognized today.” (Ryan:537) Despite of such severe resistance, writers like Douglass have penned down their autobiography to present the misery of their fellow beings.

Slavery is a contradictory subject in American history because “one hears…of the staid and gentle patriarchy, the wide and sleepy plantations with lord and retainers, ease and happiness; [while] on the other hand on hears of barbarous cruelty and unbridles power and wide oppression of men” (Dubois 2). Dubois’s The Negro in the United States is an autoethnographic text which is a representation “that the so-defined others

The Slave Era is known as the darkest time in our nation’s history, yet somehow the most prominent genre of the era is the slave narrative, which despite the telling of slavery and its horrors, is characterized by faith in God and harrowing escapes to freedom. These aspects are what set slave narratives apart, true accounts of humans finding the strength to stand straight-backed amidst the worst of man’s injustices and corruption.

The issue of slavery in the United States has been hotly debated for centuries. Historians continuously squabble over the causes and effects of America’s capitalistic, industrial form of slavery. But two of the most heavily discussed questions are whether the institution of slavery destroyed African culture in America, and whether it reduced slaves to a child-like state of dependency and incompetence. Anthropologist Melville Herskovits, and historian Stanley Elkins both weigh in on this debate: Herskovits with, The Myth of the Negro Past, and Elkins with, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life. In, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, Elkins asserts that African culture was all but destroyed by a repression of the slaves’ rights, at the hands of their masters. He claims that complete dependence on their masters and a lack of collective cultural identity and family bonds, reduced slaves to a child-like state of helplessness and ignorance, and childish behavior called the ‘Sambo’. Herskovits takes a different stance in this debate. In, The Myth of the Negro Past, he claims that African culture was not completely destroyed by slavery, and that the ‘Sambo’ stereotype was no more than a myth or at least a gross generalization. He uses slave revolts and the persistence of African culture in American in music, dance, and language as evidence to prove this.

Historic Self Prevails: New Name, Same Nation Claudia Rankine’s Citizen, discusses the nature of passive racism and ignorant racial prejudice through a series of different micro-aggressions that are real world experiences. She exposes the reader to the concept of ‘Historical Self’ and “Self Self” that are in conflict with race. There is an unconscious acknowledgement of the ‘Historic Self’ that runs through every conversation and every situation. The historical racist lens creates a cognitive dissonance and destabilizes our everyday relationships so that one no longer just sees a man, but a black man with all the other associations of blackness that shape ones cognitive.

Prior to the publication of any slave narrative, African Americans had been represented by early historians’ interpretations of their race, culture, and situation along with contemporary authors’ fictionalized depictions. Their persona was often “characterized as infantile, incompetent, and...incapable of achievement” (Hunter-Willis 11) while the actions of slaveholders were justified with the arguments that slavery would maintain a cheap labor force and a guarantee that their suffering did not differ to the toils of the rest of the “struggling world” (Hunter-Willis 12). The emergence of the slave narratives created a new voice that discredited all former allegations of inferiority and produced a new perception of resilience and ingenuity.

The intended purpose of this study was to find a relationship between African self-consciousness and psychological well-being. Precisely, to observe if the African self-consciousness of African descent college students had an effect on their psychological well-being. Results of this study indicated that there is a positive correlation between African self-consciousness and psychological well-being. These findings were consistent with Baldwin (1985) who found that African self-consciousness was a prominent factor in determining differences in psychological functioning, aspects of psychological well-being, and behavior in Black college students. It was also consistent with the finding of Baldwin & Bell (1985) who found that healthy Black personality

In "The Woman Question." Harry stated that "by exploring the spiritual and cultural heritage of Africa in his plays, Wilson hope to re-envision and reclaim "lost" history, thereby facilitating collective healing and regeneration for Blacks in America". ( Drama Criticism 218).  It seems Harry implied that Wilson through his works recreated the "lost" culture of African Americans. He used the evidences and arguments throughout this article to prove her assumption, therefore, I thought this is a thesis of this

In Silencing The Past, Michel-Rolph Trouillot details how power operates in both the creation and distribution of history. Examining the Haitian slave revolt against French colonial rule, Trouillot eloquently explains how the “frequency of retrieval” of historical knowledge, effects the way narratives are told. Specifically focusing on the case of Jean-Baptiste Sans-Souci, Trouillot expertly illuminates how the limited frequency led to a shallow representation of Sans-Souci in the historical literature — regardless of Sans-Souci’s obvious level of historical importance. Despite his critical role in leading a massive slave rebellion and as a high-ranking officer in Louverture’s army, Sans-Souci’s role was frequently minimized - often being referred to in historical literature without mention of his first name.

It is no wonder that how advanced the world may be, there are still a number of human beings, who struggle a lot for their survival; These are the human beings, who are pushed to the margins for the reasons unknown to them, these are the human beings, who are denied a secured place in the world for the mistakes which are not committed by them. These are marginalized people and just like them, their history too is marginalized. Being neglected by the mainstream history, this marginalized history, sometimes has to transform itself and settle in fiction in order to come into light.