In Pamela Perry, “White” excerpt, she discussed what “whiteness” means in American and cultural history. This blog, will discuss how being a Black person affects my personal perspective in America. It is expressed within our food, politics, music, and dance. As a naturalized citizen, in America, from Côte d'Ivoire cultural assimilation has influenced my views on being a Black person. To begin, one must contemplate what it means to be a Black-American. There are multiple ways to define Blackness, I view it as drawing from different influences both within and outside the black community. It is expressed within our food, politics, music, clothing (ethnic & urban), and dance styles. Politically, the perceived "radical" progressive movements that
In addition to this, is necessary to understand that white supremacy is deeply connected to the process of colonization, and these two concepts configured a unique social context in which the identities of the indigenous and Afro-descendant populations were diminished, and their humanity were denied as a part of this process.
African Americans? To what degree do you think the author’s view is shared by others in the
The third stage of Black racial identity development refers to the immersion stage. This depicts the juncture in life when a black American’s viewpoints transform from the pre-encounter stage to a phase of enlightenment. These people have a broader awareness of the Black experience and embraces the Black culture, and its morals, virtues, and values. They take pride in the Black race and find beauty and perfection in Blackness. Dr. Cross asserts this phase to be similar to a religious conversion. Individuals within this stage usually focus on “all things Black”. They express rage and hostility towards the White race and reject its culture, while glorifying their
This book also attempts to explore how social and cultural forces encourage white people to expend time and energy on the creation and re-creation of whiteness. Whiteness is invested in, like property, but it is also a means of accumulating property and keeping it from others. This book in response to the crisis that confronts us in regard to race.
The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B Dubois is a influential work in African American literature and is an American classic. In this book Dubois proposes that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." His concepts of life behind the veil of race and the resulting "double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others," have become touchstones for thinking about race in America. In addition to these lasting concepts, Souls offers an evaluation of the progress of the races and the possibilities for future progress as the nation entered the twentieth century.
On the very first day of the class, Introduction to the Black Experience, we learned that people are defined by their culture and geography. We are also defined by the gaze of others and our own gaze. This realization led me to contemplate what the “black experience” means to me. As a first generation Haitian-American woman at Wellesley College, it has become clearer to me how important the language and culture of parents has been in shaping my identity. I have also begun to think more critically about how my identity as a woman of color separates me from black brothers as well as my white peers at Wellesley.
The author explains in the chapter, So You Think You’re White? Explains how black people who have interest in white culture have questions about their own culture. The author states that “That parochial blackness is dangerous as hell. It steals your joy.” It is well explained in the book about what results into parochial blackness. The black people are intact with their traditions and culture to be able to survive and empower themselves. The authors writes, black people grouped as weak people in the era of civil war. They lobby for political and social
When you live in the suburbs of Atlanta, it was easy to forget about whites. Whites were like those pigeons: real and existing, but rarely seen or thought about…everyone had seen white girls and their mother coo-coing over dresses; everyone had gone to downtown library and seen white businessmen swish by importantly, wrists flexed in front of them to check the time as though they would change from Clark Kent into Superman…those images were a fleeing as cards shuffled in a deck, where as the ten white girls behind us were real and memorable (179).
Of the four panelists in the C-Span Panel Discussion on “Who is Black” I am going to focus on Tiya Miles and Deborah Grey White’s presentations on the topic. Tiya Miles is professor of African and Native American history at the University of Michigan, and a main point of her presentation is the idea that the African American community and culture share many similarities with the original inhabitants of the Americas. Miles gives detail to the significant historical interactions between Native Americans and the Africans brought to their lands, and how this allowed for the absorption of native culture and ethnicity into the African American population. For Miles, African American identity is fluid, sharing many ethnic, religious, and cultural
This passage from Dubois sets up the experience in Citizen, explaining the sensation of being judged and viewed by yourself and by society around you. To Dubois, the life of the ‘negro’ is lived in duality between being black (or negro, as Dubois says) and being American. The key implication from this described duality is the separation in identity between being ‘negro’ and being ‘American’. The same
Benign black in America, how that sounds? People talk bad on your culture even when you are around. They say we are all equal, but how? The struggle of benign African American in America, goes a long way. From the Civil Rights Movement, where we just wanted equal opportunity to the Little Rock Nine, just a group of nine African American students enrolled in the Little Rock Central High School, they just wanted an education. They might of mention Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. several of times, but did they mention how Emmett Till was an 14 year old African American boy who whistled at an 21 year old white women, but she was unclear that he did it and her husband and his half-brother beat and shoot Emmett Till and put his body in the river and the
Thesis: Even with the creation of Black Studies as an academic discipline, the culture and influence of white dependency still seem to block people of color’s mental potential, and inherently their ability to progress as a group.
“Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination” written by American author, feminist and social activist, bell hooks, dissects the dichotomy of black and white culture in a westernized society. Hooks utilizes the term ‘whiteness’ throughout her piece as an acknowledgment of the domination, imperialism, colonialism, and racism that white people have asserted among black people. This discipline progressively has evolved from history; through slavery and forth, leaving an imprint in
In “What is this ‘black’ in black popular culture?”, Stuart Hall explores the importance of assuming a dialogic approach over an essentialist approach when it comes to examining black popular culture. He believes that essentialism presents racial differences as being natural and universal rather than being a concept constructed by society to create social hierarchies which we coexist in today. Hall felt as if essentialism aided in the creation of imaginary racial boundaries that people would attempt to remain within, resulting in behaviors that they felt were appropriate for their race. Hall believed that the discourse of black popular culture had to be acknowledged in regards to other discourses, such as the influences of black and white cultures
When studying the black diaspora within the United States, the story typically starts with the classic slave narratives including those of Frederick Douglass and Mary Price and ends with the affirmative action decisions of the late 1990s. History tells the story of an internal racial identity struggle through the institutions of slavery and oppression, resistance and rebellion, cultural reawakening and civil rights which evokes the question: what does it mean to be African American? Aaron McGruder’s animated series The Boondocks creates a context to consider the question of what it means to be an African American today and discusses the institutions that are now molding the African American identity. McGruder criticizes the idea of a