Summary Of ' The African Experience ' Essay

In the comparison and contrast essay, “Remembering My Childhood on the Continent of Africa,” by David Sedaris, the author talks about the jealousy he feels towards the excitement present in his friend Hugh’s life. David Sedaris explores the contrast in the dullness of his own childhood with the adventurous lifestyle of his friend’s childhood. Using descriptions, personal experiences of his friend and himself, and language, Sedaris explains why he takes satisfaction in passing his friend’s stories as though they were his own since the stories were more interesting. The field trips, environment, and activities all contribute in the development of the difference in lifestyle between them.

“African Perspectives on Colonialism” is a book written by A. Adu Boahen. This book classifies the African responses to European colonialism in the 19th century. Boahen begins with the status of Africa in the last quarter of the 19th century and follows through the first years of African independence. This book deals with a twenty year time period between 1880 and 1900. Boahen talks about when Africa was seized and occupied by the Imperial Powers of Europe. Eurocentric points of view dominated the study of this era but Boahen gives us the African perspective. There are always two sides of the story and Boehen tells us the side less talked about informing us of what he knows.

People of the early African kingdoms were able to create successful trade routes with Europe and Asia, become very wealthy from conquering and gaining land, and were able to have a strong central government. All of this was done before the Europeans had reached Africa. Trade flourished on the East African coast, especially when trading was established with India and Arabia. African kingdoms were prosperous, because of their success with not only trading but also with their ability to conquer land. A governmental structure is key to allowing any kingdom to thrive, and the African people were able to achieve this.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s essay “How It Feels To Be Colored Me”, her racial identity varies based on her location. Towards the beginning of her life when Zora was in her own community she could be a lighthearted, carefree spirit. However, when she was forced to leave her community, Zora’s identity became linked to her race. In this essay I will demonstrate how Zora’s blackness is both a sanctuary and completely worthless.

In today’s society, many have come to believe what they have been instructed over the years, whether it is fiction of facts. Living in a world, where only certain race can be seen as superior to others. Schomburg was a pioneer beyond his times. In the article “The Negro Digs up His Past”. The beginning of this essay revealed a powerful statement, “The American Negro must remake his past in order to make his future” (Arthur Schomburg). It is very clear, Schomburg realized the importance of being knowledgeable on your true history. “History must restore what slavery took away, for it is the social damage of slavery that the present generations must repair and offset”. Therefore, I acquiesce with such statement, it is up to the present generation to fight, and to aspire on restoring what was taken away. As we acquired more intelligence, today’s generation must continue on indoctrinating one another on our true history. However, let’s not forget, slavery was not the onset of the Negro history; when in fact, slavery interrupted the Negro history. Meanwhile, long ago, before slavery, Africans ruled the world, built nations, mastering in architectural ideas, philosophies, etc. Nonetheless, it is crucial for the Negro to dig up his past, for from it; today’s Africans shall conceive their true potential, and their ancestor’s greatest achievements. Just as Schomburg found his motivation after being told “Negroes has no history. On the other hand, he then stated “The Negro thinking

Marcus Garvey, a ‘proponent of Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements” (), once stated that “a people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” (Good Reads Quotes) He was in fact very much so right. Most people in this world care about where they come from, who they descended from and where the backbone of their identity lies. Have you ever wondered why almost most orphans tend to look for their family lines or go out in search of where they belong? It is with this very essence my quest to look for answers and investigate about two very distinct yet similar groups. The groups I examine throughout this paper are Africans and African-Americans. What I seek to find out is why two very ‘distinct’ yet similar groups of people fail to see eye to eye, judging from the fact that Africans and African-Americans look alike, originated from Africa and their histories and culture somehow intertwine with each other. The main question here really is: what are the factors that hinder the relationship between Africans and African-American people.

By going back to one’s roots, the future of developing countries resided in the “development of Africa is one of the most constructive and universally helpful missions” (Locke, 6). This direction was a form of modernization that was an improvement of relationships between African Americans and other races.

defined the field as the systematic and critical study of the multidimensional aspects of Black thought and practice in their current and historical unfolding. (Karenga) Robert Harris uses the term Africana Studies and says it is the multidisciplinary analysis of the lives and thought of people of African ancestry on the African continent and throughout the world. (Harris) The focus of the field described by Russell Adams is the experience, problems and the prospects of individuals or groups wherever they may be is Africana. It centers on examining the historical records of Black people in Africa or the western hemisphere. (Adams)Even though there are many ways of titling and describing African American Studies, the overall focus and heart of the field remains the same universally. As Maulana Karenga uses the term social responsibility,

For Jefferson, personal and racial histories are heavily interconnected, as denoted when she makes references to various historical and familial figures. Tracing the evolution of this hierarchy through the ages from the Civil War up to the present, Jefferson cites a fellow chronicler of Negroland, Anna Julia Cooper, the daughter of a slave and a slaveholder, a “Black Woman of the South” who criticizes the “masculinist” need to dominate domestically, nationally, and internationally; Cooper’s collective voice for the oppressed parallels Jefferson’s personal concern with race, gender, and class. However, Jefferson also emphasizes the collective Du Boisian “double consciousness” that Negroes in the Talented Tenth and in Negroland must face, thinking about “Them as Us,” forced to dismiss aspirations and professional duties and accept those in lower strata as equals (Jefferson 34). Jefferson undergoes a double consciousness of her own in her childhood as well, when she is forced to conform to expectations due to her status as an upper-class Negro, expectations which force her “to be ambushed by insult and humiliation” even though these expectations are set to prevent errors and

In my research, to understand how we undertake the study of the African experience you have to start in the beginning of time which dates back hundreds of thousands years ago and go into one of the first civilizations known as ancient Egypt. Understanding where the people come from and where they are at today does not even cover a quarter of understanding the true African experience. To understand truly how to undertake the African experience you must understand the social structure, governance, ways of knowing, science and technology, movement and memory, and cultural meaning (The six conceptual categories). With these concepts you understand that in a cosmograph known

This idea has taken on many different forms over the past century and a half, and its discourse has evolved alongside the major works of prominent figures like W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Delany, and Marcus Garvey. A common theme among these thinkers is the notion of historicizing the development of black culture relative to diasporic movements in the preceding centuries. However, they differ significantly in their visions and aspirations for the culture at large, as well as in their interpretations of how peoples of African descent should behave with respect to the dominant (primarily white) societies in which they live and function. In particular, earlier scholars like Du Bois tended to “sustain their faith in a partnership with white allies, wagering that [their] commitments to ‘civilization building’ ... would hasten the day when they and their race would be respected as equal partners” (Ewing 16). In contrast, Garvey, a contemporary of Locke, supported a radical agenda for African independence, and a mass migration to bring peoples of African descent back to Africa (Ewing 76).

In October 2014, Raven Symoné, a popular actress and TV show host became the hottest topic among Black Twitter. Black twitter is well known for its gatekeeping skills of what it means to be Black and also as a platform for online protests against racism. Most of its users are extremely pro-black and promote a sense of pride in their blackness. So when Symoné, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey said the notorious words “I’m an American, not an African-American, Black twitter was set ablaze. Countless twitter users, including fellow celebrities criticized Symoné for not claiming and privileging her blackness. Comments such as her black card being revoked and her being the object of a race draft riddled the internet. However, Symoné’s assertion of not defining herself by her blackness is reminiscent of Touré, an author and cultural critic, and his theory of post-blackness. According to Touré’s definition of post-blackness, one can acknowledge their blackness but not place it at the forefront of everything that they do. If post-blackness means that you can hold on to being black but not let it consume you, then Raven-Symoné has successfully achieved a post-black status. However, Symoné’s obsession with finding out her African roots challenges her post-Black state.

In simple terms, the Diaspora as a concept, describes groups of people who currently live or reside outside the original homelands. We will approach the Diaspora from the lenses of migration; that the migration of people through out of the African continent has different points of origin, different patterns and results in different identity formations. Yet, all of these patterns of dispersion and germination/ assimilation represent formations of the Diaspora. My paper will focus on the complexities of the question of whether or not Africans in the Diaspora should return to Africa. This will be focused through the lenses of the different phases in the Diaspora.

The theme of double consciousness pervades the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance. Reasons for expressing double-consciousness stem from historical, cultural, and psychological realities facing African-Americans realities that continue to define the sociocultural landscape in the United States. In Countee Cullen's poem "Heritage," the opening line is "What is Africa to me?" The narrator ponders what it means to be of African heritage, especially given the astounding number of generations separating ancestral ties from life in twentieth century America. Moreover, slavery tore apart families and communities, rendering African identity into a fragmented entity and African-American identity even more inchoate. The Harlem Renaissance represented a revolutionary shift in the way that the sons, grandsons, daughters, and granddaughters of slaves begun to conceptualize the African-American culture. African-American identity is naturally one of double- or even multiple-consciousness, and this consciousness is conveyed throughout the literature of the Harlem Renaissance.

For instance, during slavery in America, lighter, mulatto slaves would be given preferential duties over darker slaves which birthed tensions between the light and dark skin people in the Black community that is abundant today. After the interview, she mentions how Ethiopia (and Liberia) were the only countries in Africa that were not colonized. The distinction between colonized African countries gives her a sense of nationalism for Ethiopia. During the the African diaspora, many different African ethnicities were grouped intentionally to limit communication, with an estimated 1500-2000 languages in Africa. Many languages and culture were lost due to isolation in America. Conducting the interview with Muhlet reminded me of the internal tension between blacks in America and emigrants from African countries. There is a huge disconnect in the community because african people view blacks synonymously with slavery and roles of servitude which has the potential to stratify the community. Muhlet’s family like many other families that have emigrated to America likely have tried to keep their culture by opening up predominantly small-scale family businesses in the ethnic hubs of large