Concerning the nature of myths, one can often find that they are built on broad generalization lacking the premises necessary to make a solid conclusion. Such was the same myths, Pier Larson sought to disprove in his essay “The Student’s ‘Ten Commandments’.” Larson discuss damaging and caustic stereotypes that have worked their way throughout history to create a narrative that often subordinates Blacks when promulgated by a more affluent European society . One myth in particular appears to be quite troubling for its contradictory nature-that being the myth: all Africans are Black. Additionally, to be African is to be Black, Africans are not culturally diverse, and that Africans share one, essentially unified culture. Not only do I find these troubling for their outright abasement of African culture, which is plain to see, but rather for the duplicitous logic that lead to the creation of such myths, and why they remain so harmful when they are continued to be spread in contemporary. First, their needs to be some degree of plainly debunking this myth. To which, Larson cautions, would require a change in mindset, as “The majority of Africans have skin colors which in the United States, operating under the "one drop" rule, would be classified as "black." However, precisely that is where the first ‘debunking’ occurs. Larson discusses how that view is problematic because the African people don’t necessarily see race in that context. Rather, they focus on small details concerning slight variations in skin pigments and hair type to create a variety of sub-races and cultures, which they find vastly different amongst themselves. This first view can come across as misleading simply because of an egocentric worldview throughout Western cu... ... middle of paper ... ... intentional narrative spun against the success of the collective continent. That leaves us with the myth, broken and jaded. While it is not wrong to say that Africans are Black and to be African is Black, there is no indication the continent has become void of all culture. The damage of the myth lies in the very lexicon, that Black is used in a derogatory sense. That to be Black means that individuality and diversity are lost. But the history of Africa will show us otherwise. Cultures mixing, influxes of ideas and migrations of vastly different cultures flowing with zealous religious practices and harmonious linguistic structures, that is to say the ‘real’ Africa. Myths like these are dangers because they become promulgated throughout worldview, clouding the reality, and forever holding back the truest form of the subject. To that end, Africa will never be the same.
3) Stereotypes of Race “Who, Negroes? Negroes don’t control this school or much of anything else – haven’t you learned even that? No, sir, they support it, but I control it. I’s big and black and I say ‘Yes, suh’ as loudly as any burrhead when it’s convenient, but I am still the king down here” (Ellison
The literary work advanced by Paul Robeson entitled “What I Want from Life” gives the reader a holistic overview of the journey that African-Americans have faced since they arrived on the shores of the American continent. Robeson begins by elucidating on the very complicated development of African-Americans when he says that the understanding of African nationality is “an extremely
The first chapter focuses on the first impressions between the people of different color also the reasons Africans had evolved or changed into what they now appeared to be. The section on causes of complexion was both fascinating and entertaining. Many of the theories were of the wall and far fetched. One such opinion of how Africans gained their complexion that the book gave includes an ancient Greek myth of Phaeton. This character drove a chariot into the heavens and thus altered in his appearance (p11). Though this Greek myth, probably not the truth of how Africans gained their color many did believe it probably had something to do with the sun. The theory of equatorial dwellers of Africa, this being the reason for the skin pigmentation, became illogical once Africans were compared to the Indians living in the hottest parts of the New World (p14). Some believed that the African was merely dark because they had left their colder northern climate. Experiments quickly ruled this out as a possible answer (p15). The most far-fetched and humorous theory came through the biblical illustration involving Noah. Many believed it the curse given upon Noah’s son Ham for “looking upon his father’s nakedness” (p17). Each of these contrasting views on color needed to be used in this book. For no better reason in that it showed from an initial point that the English viewed the color of the Africans as a plague. Instead of excepting that Africans may in fact be different, the English consistently made attempts to explain the dif...
I must tell you…if you should settle down here, you’ll have to be either one thing or other—white or colored. Either you must live exclusively amongst colored people, or go to the whites and remain with them. But to do the latter, you must bear in mind that it must never be known that you have a drop of African blood in your veins, or you would be shunned as if you were a pestilence; no matter how fair in complexion or how white you may be.
Based from the film “melanin plays a role on how Africans have been able to create and developed some of the sciences that they have come to be known for”. It is also believe that melanin is a factor to soul because people with more of it moves, speaks, and acts differently than those who do not. According to a group of Africans known as the “melanin scholars” they reported a scientific base that “melanin is involved in the regulation of all psychological and physiological processes of the human body.” This makes people with more melanin stronger and smarter than those with less.² This is why, according to Welsing, whites had ambition to destroy the African race because they were inferior to their genetic superiority. In agreement to Welsing, Wade Nobles, Richard King, and other researchers/ scientists reported that whites are not entirely human since they stopped evolving with the central nervous system
Author of “The Negro Family”, E. Franklin Frazier believed that the centrality of the bible, structure of Black worship, and notion of God that evolved from the invisible institution to the Black Church was confirmation of the power of white influence . These tactics and different developments were merely adaptive methods used by slaves in order to worship freely in a confined space. Frazier’s beliefs were undermined by author Gayraud S. Wilmore’s description of Vodun in his book Black Religion and Black Radicalism. Frazier’s contention that black religion was evidence of white influence assumes a blank and passive slate. While Vodun in West Africa did have organization that was probably “infiltrated by Roman Catholicism” the goal of New World Africans was to adapt and understand their lives (Wilmore 43). Although white influence was forced upon New World Africans, slaves did not accept this influence but rather interpreted it to create a new, place-based Vodun religion. Vodun adapted to New World conditions, functioned as a coping mechanism, and possessed evolutionary qualities.
There were many social opinions of black people, mostly stemming from fear of the unknown. . Some of the earliest writings were by Frenchman Jean Bodin and Leo Africanus. Bodin wrote numerous books on Africa, the natives and why they should be made into slaves. The books would state that the Africans were lustful in nature and should be captured and enslaved so they wouldn’t continue to be sex crazed Africans. Leo Africanus was a native of Granada and raised in Morocco. He was best known for writing “Description of Africa”, a geographical description of North Africa, Timbuktu, Mali and West Africa. This book described the daily lifestyles, schooling, royal courts and markets. The ancient Greeks had a mythological reason people were “black”. There was a theory called “Ptolemy’s theory that there was less sun exposure to people who lived in the n...
Zahan, Dominique. The Religion, Spirituality, and Thought of Traditional Africa. Trans. Kate Ezra Martin and Lawrence M. Martin. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1979.
Johnson, Charles, Patricia Smith, and WGBH Series Research Team. Africans in America. New York: Harcourt, Inc. 1998.
When sixteenth and seventeenth century explorers returned to Europe from their journeys to Africa, they constructed and disseminated degrading stereotypes of African women based on the observations they had made abroad. Basing their perceptions of women off of European women’s bodies, these explorers noticed and commented on how African women’s bodies differed in many aspects—these disparities then became justifications for the differential treatment between these two groups of women. Because these African American women didn’t conform to the basic norms of womanhood that the explorers were accustomed to, they were quick to categorize them as strange, animalistic and hypersexual; their bodily forms, attire and skin color called attention to their otherness in the corporeal and social realm. Skin Deep, Spirit Strong offers a compilation of essays that document the observations made, the generalizations that were produced and the treatment that resulted from these interactions. The negative generalizations that these early European explorers made about African American women, had and to this day continue to have a significant effect on the way in which black women are viewed physically and sexually not only in the private sphere but also publicly.
In The Marrow of Tradition, author Charles W. Chesnutt illustrates examples that signify the thoughts that whites had of and used against blacks, which are still very much prevalent in public opinion and contemporary media. Chesnutt writes, “Confine the negro to that inferior condition for which nature had evidently designed for him (Chesnutt, 533).” Although significant strides have been made toward equality, the media, in many instances, continues to project blacks as inferior to whites through examples observed in television shows, music videos, films and newscasts.
The idea of being accepted in the coloured society at the time was to be to adhere to the customs and culture pertaining to the native. If singing a tribal song was a proud part of some African cultures, the second and third generation slave children who were hybrids did not find their old customs appealing which created a void in an already fragmented African society. The notion that a black child and a white child had the same level of thinking and understanding between them because they followed the same set of rules and aspirations made it a grave task for the other to stay true to his/her culture as the fight between which culture to adopt, adapt and discard created discord between a few sections within the other. While on one hand hoary values and traditions made sense, convincingly the new world theories were far more appealing in nature. If the blackness of the black was on decline, was it as we observed earlier due to the gluttony shared by the lust of progressiveness shared by the self? If this never ending mayhem of progressiveness intertwined with the most material aspect of human behaviour came out at the age of the new found discovery as the Industrial Revolution started, man, be it the self or other was doomed right from the time he sought to address the notion that religion for so long couldn’t. In simple language, man was fed up with the artificial values of progression, dictated by religious scriptures and set out a path for himself to fulfill the desire religion for so long denied him. If the Bible set out the seven deadly sins and other important concepts that religious scriptures often explain, man had set out his seven pointer to do list where the first point was power, second being money, third being able to...
Are African Americans perpetuating their own stereotypes about their culture? Possibly. African Americans are inherently less wealthy compared to whites and is an important fact to consider about the Black culture. Wealth is an...
It is generally accepted by scholars and scientists today that Africa is the original home of man. One of the most tragic misconceptions of historical thought has been the belief that Black Africa had no history before European colonization. Whites foster the image of Africa as a barbarous and savage continent torn by tribal warfare for centuries. It was a common assumption of nineteenth-century European and American Whites - promoted by the deliberate cultivation of pseudoscientific racism - that Africans were inferior to Whites and were devoid of any trace of civilization or culture.
Black Consciousness movement is “revolution in consciousness that encompasses all black institutions, including the Black Church.”(2939) This movement was a much needed awakening in the conscious minds of Black people. For years they were subjected to dehumanization tactics, which resulted in loathing of self. Collectively, Black people are thought to have an immense dislike for everything which resembled that of the African. We were a “people who hated our African characteristics.” (2931) We hated our skin, we hated our hair, we hated our features, we found ourselves feeling imprisoned in our skin. Prisoners to an unjust society merely because of the hue of their skin. They were forever in bondage; no longer were they in physical chains, but now they were in mental chains. A shift in perspective in the 1960’s and 1970’s invoked a change in the mentality of the Black community. Their consciousness was roused with a “revolution” undertone. The people wanted change. They wanted an identity that no longer made them feel hostages in a foreign land, but one which embraced their h...