Ibelema's Identity Crisis and Wilson's Oppositional Dress
In Minabrere Ibelema's essay "Identity Crisis", Ibelema suggests that the mainstream american culture is so powerful that all cultures conform to it. Ibelema does this by showing how the mass media portrays African Americans in relation to their cultural identity by using situation comedies as a measuring tool. Of the episodes Ibelema uses very few of them look at African Americans cultural identity. However, what they do is briefly address a cultural story line for one episode, but then revert back to the mainstream anglo programming. On the otherhand, Elizabeth Wilson says in her essay "Oppositional Dress" that sub cultures do exist in society and are strong enough to resist assimilation into the mainstream, and still exist on their own terms. Wilson proves her point by giving examples of sub cultures that appeared in society, and she shows that they still thrive today.On example Wilson uses is the hippie culture that evolved in the 1960's. She points out that hippies can be seen today in some areas of the United states, proving her point. She also mentions other movements like the Gay Liberation Movement, the Punk movement, and the Skin Heads, who can all be seen in some form today. In mainstream american culture some individual sub cultures do get lost in the mainstream, but are not forgotten, however most oppositional cultures resist assimilation into the main steam and continue to define themselves on their own terms.
In Ibelema's essay, he says that the mainstream culture is so strong that individual cultures assimilate into it. This proposition is not completely correct. The examples Ibelema uses are derived from situation comedies that are directed at a cross cultural mainstream audience. His point is that the African American culture is nonexistent, or assimilated because African American cultural values are not expressed fully in these sitcoms, thus they are a part of the assimilation process. Because these sitcoms are directed at a cross cultural audience the assumption Ibelema uses is false. The African American culture is not lost in america, its existence is found in the homes of African Americans throughout america and is passed on through mothers and fathers, and grand mothers and grand fathers.
An opposing view to this argument is Elizabeth Wilson's essay "Oppositional Dress". Her belief is that sub cultures exist in the mainstream society, and they dictate their own existence.
The black culture is the minority culture in this instance and in most cases, it is dominated by the white culture which has imposed its ideas on them (Stuckey, 2013). When two different cultures come together, different types of cultural appropriations occur. These include transculturation, cultural dominance, and cultural exploitation. The appropriation between the white and black cultures, resulting in the African American culture, is defined by cultural dominance and exploitation.
Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative provides insight into cultural assimilation and the difficulties such assimilation. The writer embraces several Western traits and ideals yet guards his African virtues jealously. In doing so however, he finds himself somewhere in between a full European and a displaced African. This problem of cultural identity Equiano struggled with is still present in modern American society. The modern day African-American appears to also be in the process of deciding the between two competing cultures and often being left somewhere in middle becoming a victim of cultural identity just like Olaudah Equiano some 250 years ago.
Next, he discusses the break with traditional African-American culture. According to Frazier, the black middle class has abandoned the folk culture of “the black masses” in favor of shell of the middle class white world that rejected them. Therefore, the black bourgeoisie lives in what Frazier calls a cultural vacuum, disdainful of the culture of most African-Americans, dismissed by the white middle class culture.
American culture is mixture of many things. Which makes it comparable to the Igbo culture in the novel Things Fall Apart. In the novel, their culture is very different from ours in America. They have different gender roles, beliefs, and how they live.
The 1918-1919 influenza pandemic stretched its lethal tentacles all over the globe, even to the most remote areas of the planet, killing fifty million people or possibly even more. Influenza killed more people in a year than the Black Death of the Middle Ages killed in a century, and it killed more people in twenty-four weeks than AIDS has killed in twenty-four years.3 Influenza normally kills the elderly and infants, but this deadly and abnormal strand claimed young people, those in their twenties or thirties as its target victims. Such was the case for Jules Bergeret. Jules was a “big, strapping man” who owned a tavern during the epidemic, and on December 11 he celebrated his 32 birthday. Within two weeks Jules, his mother, his sister, and his 25 year old wife all fell victim to the flu, and on December 22 he was dead.4 The virus left victims bleeding out of their nose ears and mouth; some coughing so hard that autopsies would later show that abdominal muscles and rib cartilage had been torn. Victims ...
He also converses about assimilation and social orientation and how people fail to see the commonality to them. Though assimilation and social orientation are synonymous, assimilation has this stigma to it while social orientation has a positive connotation because it is “useful”. To get back on tangent, Paul Wallis explains how America is the perfect archetype for cultural diversity, as Wallis writes “America [is] arguably the greatest example representative of cultural diversity...Multiculturalism was the term designed to cover co extant cultures in a society. The term ‘multi cultural society’ implies a composite entity, but also implies a functional society where the various cultures coexist.” the evidence suggests that the phraseology multicultural society
Many people in America want to assimilate to the U.S. because they think that being American is a better option. People such as the Italians in the 1870s tried to assimilate in order to become an American to not become an enemy in the U.S. Also, the Mexicans today are constantly coming to the U.S. to have a better life because they know being American is the best solution for their problems at home. What assimilation mean is when a person leaves one’s own culture to join a different culture the person wants to be. For the purpose of this essay, an American is a person who has commitment to succeed in what one wants, able to speak english, to love the pop culture in the U.S. at the time one is living such as the hit songs, games, T.V. shows, etc. but not to other cultures, and be a citizen in America. People throughout history must assimilate to become a true American
In the fall of 1918 influenza appeared for the first time in pockets across the globe. At first it was pushed aside as a case of the common cold. The influenza of that season, however, was far more than a cold. In the two years that this scourge ravaged the earth, a fifth of the world's population was infected. (1) Including twenty-eight percent of all Americans. In those two years an estimated six hundred and seventy-five thousand Americans died because of influenza. This was the greatest scare Americans had ever seen from a single disease. People between the age of twenty and forty were at the greatest risk of infection. Even President Woodrow Wilson suffered from the flu in early 1919 while negotiating the crucial treaty of Versailles to end the World War. The public health departments distributed gauze masks to be worn in public. Stores could not hold sales; funerals were limited to 15 minutes. Some towns required a signed certificate to enter and railroads would not accept passengers without them. (1) Influenza had killed nearly as many American servicemen as died in battle, ten times and over that number of American civilians, and twice as many people in the world as died in combat on all fronts in the entire four...
The social effects of the influenza epidemic of 1918 were severe: (1) The medical and scientific communities had to develop new theories and “apply them to prevention, diagnostics and treatment of the influenza patients” (Barry, 234). Something that, until then, no pandemic had forced (or allowed) such a collaboration. (2) In some cities and towns residents were required to wear surgical masks to protect themselves from the virus because influenza can penetrate even tightly woven clothing. (3) Children made up rhymes to jump rope to: Its name was Enza. / I opened the window, / And in-flu-enza. (4) The precautions set by city officials to help minimize influenza’s effects, such as closing schools and churches and limiting commerce, all changed
African American culture is defined as the learned, shared and transmitted values, beliefs, norms, and life ways carried by this group of people, which guides their decisions, thinking, and actions in patterned ways. The individual in society is bound by rules of their culture. Culture of people are different in that the same events that maybe fear- inducing in one culture, maybe anger-inducing in another culture (Leininger's, 1991).
Today the flu we have is not as deadly as it was in 1918. Now we have medicines and vaccines for the flu, but still today about 200 thousand people in America are hospitalized. Still about 30-40 thousand Americans die from the flu every year. The flu in 1918 was called Influenza Pandemic, also known as the Spanish Influenza, but there’s no proof that the virus came from Spain.
Even though medical advances in the 21st century are far better than they were in 1918, there is still the problem for dealing with the sheer number of patients that could be infected by a flu pandemic. Without the ability to increase medical resources like doctors, PAs, nurses, hospital beds, medicine and medical supplies the healthcare system would be overwhelmed and could possibly
Influenza is a very serious disease that can lead to hospitalization and even fatalities. There are many different strands, infecting people of all ages and originating from different animals, which can be extremely fatal if the right care isn’t provided. Care for flu patients have changes tremendously over the years from once having no vaccine to having a limited amount of vaccines, only for the most prone individuals, to now having yearly vaccines to prevent the most common cases of flu. Doctors have learned just how deadly the flu virus can be which has led to the importance of them educating their patients of the flu virus and explaining the importance of getting the vaccine in order for their bodies to get an immunity of the many flu viruses that many in our country have previously faced. Many in our county in the past have died from the H1N1 virus due to no vaccines, poor precautions, and being uneducated on the virus because it was new, but new vaccines and precautions are being taken in order to prevent pandemics such as the Flu Pandemic of 1918.
One of the most important concepts that I have learned from class is Assimilation Theory. This theory is based on the adaptation that a certain ethnic group goes through in order to fit in and survive in the new dominant society. For example, according to the book the United States in known to be a predominantly white cultural society, therefore many ethnic groups from all over who choose to come to the U.S often have to assimilate and adapt to the social and cultural norms. Assimilation theory affects many ethnic groups in sense that it can change the way they behave and live in a society. Whenever another ethnic group immigrates to a place where there is a dominant ethnic group they often have to assimilate to the dominant group’s social, economic, and cultural behaviors and customs to survive. For example in the U.S, there are many minority groups from all over the globe who immigrated to this country and they often have to go through various changes and adaptations to fit into society and gain citizenship in the country. These changes can be a challenge for them because they have to choose between their own cultural values, beliefs, and behaviors and assimilate to the U.S’ cultural values and customs. In the book it states that “their cultural ancestry is English, Scottish, Dutch and German which is the Anglo-Saxon core.” Therefore, the culture that immigrants in the U.S. have to adapt to is the Anglo-Saxon culture/ “American culture.” For most minorities immigrating to the U.S, one of the major factors that affected them is language barrier. In the United States English is the dominant language, many ...
In the article “America the Promised Land,” Oskar, argues that even though America is the land where a person will be free to work out his/her destiny as he/she chooses, but people still lose their cultural identity. In addition, Oskar states, “The consumerist society flashes us with announcements everywhere, telling us to be somebody other than ourselves. We end up believing we need to adopt those false appearances to be accepted and to finally feel as if we belong.” There are a lot of people who agree with Oskar, and they believe that people do lose their cultural identity in America because they experienced these situations, but some people totally disagree with Oskar, and they do not believe that people lose their identity. I agree with