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Black Cultural Appropriation

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Being black in America has become a curse and a blessing for those who identify within the black community. Most mainstream artists that are successful are black, there is biracial president who identifies himself black, and black culture has become the popular culture. Ironically, there in lies the problem with black culture becoming the dominating culture. Everyone wants to be black until police brutality, racism, and a historical prejudice are brought into the mix. In my group our topic was the title of my paper, “Shades of Grey”: Narratives of Black Experience. We covered the topics of the view of African-Americans in society, media coverage and stereotypes, and black cultural appropriation. My portion of the group assignment was to cover black cultural appropriation.
Cultural appropriation is is the …show more content…

Everyone wants the plump, full lip look that has been featured on magazines. Many celebrities have gotten lip injections to get such look, one of the most relevant being Kylie Jenner. Kylie is daughter of Kris and Bruce Jenner and younger sister to Kim Kardashian. Kylie has become one of the most followed people on Instagram. She got temporary lip fillers over two years ago and since then her star has shot into the atmosphere. However, when this look has been sported on black women and men it is seen as cartoonish and unordinary. For many years white men would don blackface and leave a wide area around the mouth to make fun of how big black people’s lips where.
Lastly, the cultural appropriation of Hip Hop culture has been on the rise for many years. From the music to the fashion, white consumers ( usually young) have become obsessed. There have been many “Hip Hop” themed college parties where the young, white students would do blackface, wear a gold chain, grills, and extra big clothing. They did this because sadly that is how they see black people, as a

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In Nicole Fleetwood’s Troubling Vision Chapter 4 – “Iam King”: Hip-Hop Culture, Fashion Advertising, and the Black Male Body, Fleetwood examines the rise of the hip-hop fashion and its relationship to the black male body in the 1990’s. Fleetwood views the advertising strategies of Russell Simmons’s Phat Farm brand, and the public presentation of P. Diddy’s Sean John as sites of a “visual resignification” of the symbols, meanings and social conditions of post-industrial black life. For decades, racialized embodiment and self-presentation has operated as material limit and the prospect of black self-definition.

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Where do we draw the lines between adoration and mockery, influence and appropriation, and individuality and stereotyping? Accordingly, the racial subject has always been a touchy topic to discuss, but with the lasting effects that the black minstrelsy has left in the society, we most definitely need to deal with the racial subject. Only this way can the American society move forward both as a nation and as a species, and through such efforts, only then can we ensure that such history can never repeat

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This article focuses on the color-blind ideology that allows white people to participate in and appropriate hip-hop culture. Rodriquez notes that they do so by using the guise of inclusivity of all races to justify their participation in hip hop and to adapt characteristics of the culture without respecting Black identity. He uses his own interviews of several white audience members of hip hop concerts who identified as participants of hip hop culture. Rodriquez identifies two groups resulting from social collectivity to reinforce his argument: consciously collective white groups, who actively reinforce racial segregation and passively collective white groups, who unknowingly unite and reinforce systematic racism through their adherence to color-blind ideology. The participants of his research are part of the latter, who unconsciously reinforce systematic racism through treating cultural objects, namely aspects of hip hop culture, as shareable products and experiences.

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664 Words | 3 Pages

This is not to say it is a morally upright practice, or even morally-laden at all, but it is entirely feasible. Context versus content is a key consideration in examining any media artifact. The use of blackface versus the consumption of blackface performances demonstrates two different ideas—especially when African-American performers and even black sympathizers engage in the production practice. The use itself became such a standard mode of presentation that, for the sake of commercial effectiveness, was adopted. The consumption, then, is something

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713 Words | 3 Pages

The ongoing problem of discrimination due to appearance has affected many, specifically black people. One of the most unusual things with no point or definition. This prejudice against black people has caused much unification within the United States. The lives of these black people have been severely affected, as it has affected their acts, appearances, and ways of life. As Brent Staples explains in his essay “Black Men and Public Space,” black people deal with many problems, from discrimination, and he explains these points in an orderly manner and each very thoroughly.

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This week, the readings point the spotlight at the some of the depressing hardships that the African-American population frequently experience. In “Naughty by Nature”, Ann Ferguson covers the different perceptions that society has of colored boys. David Knight’s work “Don’t tell young black males that they are endangered” seeks to explain the differents outcomes of African-American youth that arise when society constantly oppresses them. The last article by Carla O’Connor, “The Culture of Black Femininity and School Success”, focuses on the image of African-American woman that is created as a result of them attempting to preserve in a system that opposes them.

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Hip Hop’s importance of authenticity is linked to its representations of African American identity. White rap artists portraying their self as being African American. Should these white rap artists be accepted in the Hip Hop culture? The main concept of Hip Hop is rags to riches.

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Both racism and classism contribute to the cultural appropriation of black culture because culture is not always portrayed in the right context, often viewed as a negative or stereotype for the group in which the cultural component belongs to and white groups tend to capitalize on the appropriation of other cultures. The appropriation of black culture is nothing new, nor is black culture a trend or recent fad. The usage of elements of black culture through appropriation contributes to the marginalization of the people and some of the major forms of oppression, in particular racism and classism. Racism being a primary factor; it is a form of discrimination towards an individual or group of people based on their race. Classism playing less of

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300 Words | 2 Pages

How has African American culture impacted cultural appropriation in society? For years, African Americans and African American culture have influenced many areas of American culture. According to the article titled Word! The African American Oral Tradition and its Rhetorical Impact on American Popular Culture, “African American cultural expressions have been a way of resisting racial oppression by articulating experiences of resistance and struggle and articulating oppositional identities in highly creative and dynamic ways, beginning with the oral tradition from which all other cultural forms originated (Hamlet 2011).”

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1219 Words | 5 Pages

What does it mean to be black? This a question that many black children seem to ask themselves as they are growing up. There is a popularization of black culture in America. From the music that people listen to, to television shows, movies, dances and various other things, the black culture is entertaining for all. African American children who grow up in a predominantly suburban area with many different races are always searching for their racial identity.

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688 Words | 3 Pages

African Americans much like myself have a deep desire to have an identity rooted in cultures. Often times We're left in a no-man's land, we don't often ever see ourselves reflected in today’s society. America loves appropriating African American culture, even though America, at time, doesn’t show much love to black people. From our dreadlocks to our dashikis White America continues to take black tradition and use it for their own personal entertainment hardly ever giving proper credit, stepping over historical background, or just feeding into stereotypes. Every year Whites receive all the proper credits for succeeding at mocking “black culture” This year was filled with white people receiving praise for hairstyles that African American men and woman have been wearing for years, and have been looked down for wearing.

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1494 Words | 6 Pages

Throughout American history, the population of the country has become more and more diverse, and with this growth in diversity comes the growth of the diversity of cultures in this society. However, cultural appropriation has become a problem as the American society became more and more diverse throughout the course of the years. Cultural appropriation is the theft of one culture’s intellectual property or key beliefs, generally by a larger culture, and then this larger culture using what is taken from a minority culture incorrectly or inappropriately. Cultural appropriation perpetuates many of the stereotypes found within American society, and it also is a main contributor to the misinterpretations of minority cultures within the country.

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1927 Words | 8 Pages

Emphasis on pop culture ubiquity and dominance in our society, its consolidation ownership among a few multinational corporations, and its ability to manufacture desires, perpetuate stereotypes, and mold human minds, particularly those of children. (Grazian,2010). African American women are known in popular culture as being video groupies, and are normally exploited in music videos for their bodies in all generes but primarily hip hop/rap videos. This brings up the next controlling imagery of Black women as being sexual and animalistic in nature. Pop culture of music, sitcoms and even news stories constantly display African American women in a negative way.

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921 Words | 4 Pages

Hip Hop was the wildfire that started in the South Bronx and whose flames leapt up around the world crying out for change. James McBride’s Hip Hop Planet focuses on his personal interactions with the development of Hip Hop culture and his changing interpretations of the world wide movement. Many of his encounters and mentions in the text concern young black males and his writing follows an evolution in the representation of this specific social group. He initially portrays them as arrogant, poor, and uneducated but eventually develops their image to include the positive effects of their culture in an attempt to negate their historical misrepresentation.

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759 Words | 4 Pages

It 's being portrayed that being a man equals violence, poorness, being from the hood, can not be a sucker or you 're going to be tested, have your game face all the time, showing no emotion, and when they pick up a microphone they are a totally different person than who they really are. It was once said, ¨We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves, because they have to be a hard man. ¨Men want to have so much power, but they don 't have any power at all. The hip hop artist just has physical power over their body and how they display themselves, so they dress certain ways to get respect to feel powerful which also is hypermasculinity.

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