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Multiculturalism In African American Culture

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The historical lineage between the African and Asian diasporas present a reciprocal relationship of influence and experience. Throughout the passage of time, these bodies of people have been both opposing forces and allies; in response to the racial tensions surrounding their respective groups, in their corresponding environments. Interactions between Africans and Asians created a dynamic that whites often felt threatened by but also used to wield power and institute dissension among the groups. By utilizing facets of colorblindness, multiculturalism, primordialism, polyculturalism, and Afro-orientalism, racial formation will examined as it exists within the Afro-Asian dynamic. American meritocracy presents a front that states that individuals may succeed and attain power on a basis of exclusively ability and talent, regardless of other factors such as race and …show more content…

Culture is easily influenced and is constantly shifting as it passes through various racial and ethnic interactions and exchanges. “With your liberal minds, you patronize our culture, scanning the surface like vultures, with your tourist mentality, we’re still the natives. You’re multicultural, but we’re anti-racist. We ain’t ethnic, exotic or eclectic” (Prashad, 56). This refers to when cultures are commodified and picked apart without taking both the negatives with the perceived positives. In relation to colorblindness, further propagates the institution of racism and does not provide enough push, to topple the status quo and this alludes to its privilege. To address multiculturalism, “There can be no history of Gujarati peoples, as we saw in the previous chapter, without consideration of Zanzibar, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Muscat.” (Prashad, 46). Cultures are not solely their own but are a combination of several others and are curated as a result of many encounters and interactions with a multitude of

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The original minstrel performances were used as an outlet for “working class white youth” to express “their own sense of marginalization through identification with African-American culture forms” (Starr & Waterman, 46). Even when Thomas Dartmouth Rice’s song Jim Crow became popular in 1829, it was still being used as a way to make fun of the upper classes. It wasn’t until entrepreneurs and promoters got ahold of it in the 1840s that it became the hateful show we know it as today. Over the next several years, the show became more ridged in its format and the characters of several black stereotypes emerged to fulfill the yearning of whites to find racial differences in order to retain slavery. Even within minstrelsy itself the darker skinned

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Historically, groups of people whose “label” is comprised of conjunctive ethnicities experience a difficult time finding their true identity, but identity is found when unidentifiable individuals find a common goal. In the course of the last two weeks, we explored a concept called “Pan-Ethnicity” which deals with the unification of multiple ethnicities. It’s concept and practice is displayed by Yen Le Espiritu’s “Coming Together: The Asian American Movement”, and in chapter eight and nine of Diane C. Fujino’s book, “Samurai Among Panthers” respectively. In Espiritu’s text, a pan-ethnic organization or more specifically, a pan-Asian organization did two things for the Asian American movement.

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Analysis of Vijay Prashad: Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity Historian Vijay Prashad takes an in depth look at the historical commonalities of discrimination between the Africans and Asians in his book, Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting. Prashad begins by explaining, “traditions of xenophobia in the Indian Ocean world were transformed into the hidebound theories of race that emerge from Europe’s experiments with the enslavement of human beings for profit, most notably in the Atlantic slave trade” (Prashad, 6). Linking the Afro-Asian through centuries of oppression and deriving the modern days notion of racism. Although, the early centuries racism was based not on skin color but cultural differences

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Everyday the future in America looks brighter for the issues dealing with race and identity. Brave souls are not letting racism, class discrimination, or sexism hold them back anymore. Furthermore, the fight for a balanced society that pushes for equality is on the horizon. As we close on an era, based on purely the skin of the person, we need to analyze the impacts of the Ethnicity paradigm and Class paradigm on politics of the 20th century. Race and Ethnicity are used interchangeable in everyday conversation, however; they are not the same.

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Every day we use our culture. Whether it be to argue claims, express opinions, or make decisions, culture plays a part in each area. Culture is who we are, one’s identity, its extent is enormous over our views and actions. A person grows up surrounded with culture at a young age. This can affect how they learn and what they learn.

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The sentencing disparity for drug use by race is disproportionate for African Americans because of The War on Drugs. Matthew Lassiter (2015) explains, “In 1951, Harry Anslinger, the commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, collaborated with senate of criminal investigations to target black ‘dope peddlers’ who were luring pretty white blondes into drug addiction”(2015:128). According to Lassiter (2015), Anslinger believed that peddlers, who destroyed teenagers’ lives, required the most sever punishment (2015:129). Using this rhetoric, presidents like Nixon and Reagan would shape the way drug laws are enforced.

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1. This is one of the most prominent aspects of slavery in today’s world, the word nigga/nigger was not used as a term of endearment as we all know but at some point in time it was used as a psychological weapon to make people of African descent actually prefer being referred to as a ‘nigga’ than an African American. This derogatory reference served to separate us from the strong pride 2. Today there is a lack of ample people that we can look up to and be influenced by in our presence, there is a serious lack of education with our culture, how could you exactly teach one different when you were taught or bought up I one way of life?

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The Journey Of Courage From the 1910s until the 1970s, more than six million African Americans moved from Southern America to northern, midwestern, and Western states. Making it the largest movement of people in United States history. The Harlem Renaissance was the blossoming of African American culture. This change in history was home to many social changes such as introducing a new wave of artists, music, fashion, etc. The Harlem Renaissance fell hand in hand with the Great Migration, the relocation of many African Americans.

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The overall big picture is that African Americans are not going to change their culture or history just to fit into white Americanization. They aren't going to change white Americanization into having more African culture infuse into it either. Instead, they just want a society in which what ever culture there is, they want to feel just as equal. Having this equality insures them to have the same chances and freedom that white Americans are privileged to have. This quote reminds me of the melting pot.

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I am an African American female whom is a descendent from the African Slave and a native American refugee. My culture runs deep in my veins and I am a product of the strength of my mother and father. While growing up I understood we were on the poverty line. My family lived in a small home with 3 bedrooms and occupied 7 people. I grew up in a small southeast Georgian town named Statesboro.

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Enveloping a scope of investigation into visual, material, literary, shopper, national, well known, sub-, and techno-societies, the idealistic fanciful of Cultural Studies is maybe best caught by the expressions of Lata Mani. She portrays it as "a location where the new politics of difference racial, sexual, cultural, transnational can combine and be articulated in all their dazzling plurality. "(Cultural Theory: Colonial Texts. P. 392).

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The people from Africa were generally part of early American history; however, Africans had experience slavery under better conditions compared to the conditions imposed by other civilized society. From the Egyptian Empire to the Empire of Songhai, slavery was practice for the betterment of their society, however, foreigners invaded these regions and took their slave, their ports and impose these people to a life of servitude in the Caribbean islands and in the English’s colonies. Furthermore, the African American slaves were an active agent of society in the earliest period of American history; they have brought new religious practices to their community; for instance, they constructed networks of communities; they had fought in war alongside

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African American Studies was a great experience. Has opened my eyes to my surrounding and the world around me. This course with Dr. Sheba Lo, was something out of me confront zone. I learned so many things from race to cultural to the importance aspect of African American. We are isolated to an environment that hide so much history that we all don’t think they are important to who we have become.

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It has nothing to do with one’s exposure or familiarity of different cultures. Instead it encourages the dominant culture to borrow and exploit elements from the culture of the minority groups, with no understanding of the cultural meanings, traditions and history of these other characteristics and products. Therefore, it can lead to the creation of false and negative stereotypes over certain ethnic groups, as well as, highlight society’s power imbalance, which has been created through Karl Marx’s ideas of separating the ruling class from the less privileged classes. Cultural appropriation is the biggest instigator of stereotypes and oppression in todays society. The

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THESIS: As a product of society’s “equal” meritocracy, we must find a scale for our actions by comparing our successes and failures to others, creating status anxiety, resulting in our idea of success being relative to our peer’s success. We base our own self worth and value too much on the outside influences and how others view us. We can no longer look in the mirror and see ourselves as we are, we unconsciously compare ourselves to what is “perfect” is based on ideals from our friends, family, and the media. We are constantly being presented with the image of perfection and the steps and rules needed to achieve it.

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