More handpicked essays just for you.
African american social and cultural identity
The american dream for black americans
The american dream for black americans
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Introduction
In the traditional and nontraditional cultures include similarities and differences that will mirror human behaviors, beliefs, and values. The traditional cultures imbed traditions with social inflicted roles, habits, and ethical restrictions (Shiraev & Levy, 2010). However, nontraditional cultures work towards independence, social accomplishment in roles, and development of awareness (Knick, 2010).
Approximately 35% make up the traditional native culture of African slaves shipped to America (Mintz & McNeil, 2013). The representation of modern African American civilization is demonstrated through repression, assimilation, and compliance to Anglo Saxon group norms and ethnocentrism of native African people. Ibibio groups of Nigeria, is a smaller cultural section of traditional national African tribes. Comparing and contrasting the likes and differences between the traditional and nontraditional cultures is a means of understanding the roots in the identical traditions.
African American and Ibibio cultural values
Since their arrival in the Americas, African-American’s have maintained a strong cultural link to their American past as well as their African descent. These cultural ties are deeply embedded in the African-American culture and are often times passed down through parents and grandparents. This intergenerational transference of African cultural knowledge is thought to be how parents socialize their children. It is also believed that through these interactions with not only parents, but relatives and acquaintances African cultural behavior is taught and reinforced. (Crabbe 2013). Through this Social skill, religious views, Family, work ethic and morals are strongly developed in the African America...
... middle of paper ...
... culture and modern culture: Man’s fall from grace. Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com /stanley-knick/traditional-culture- and-m_b_655992.html
Mintz, S., & McNeil, S. (2013). Digital History. Retrieved April 23,
2013 from http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu Religion and African American
Culture. (n.d.). Retrieved from
Okon, B. A., & Ansa, S. A. (2012). Language, Culture and Communication: The Ibibio
Worldview. Studies In Literature & Language, 5(3), 70-74. doi:10.3968/j.sll.1923156320120503.1000
Roberts, J. (2009). African American Belief Narratives and the African Cultural Tradition. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com /docview/207621912?accountid=458
Shiraev, E., & Levy, D. (2010). Cross-cultural psychology: Critical thinking
and contemporary applications (4th ed). Boston: Pearson/Allyn Bacon.
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.
The second edition of “African American Religious History: A Documentary Witness,” covers the religious experiences of African Americans—from the late eighteenth century until the early 1980s. My paper is written in a chronological order to reflect on the progress blacks have made during the years—by expounding on the earliest religion of Africans to black religion of today. Race Relation and Religion plays a major role in today’s society—history is present in all that we do and it is to history that African-Americans have its identity and aspiration.
Everyone is raised within a culture with a set of customs and morals handed down by those generations before them. Most individual’s view and experience identity in different ways. During history, different ethnic groups have struggled with finding their place within society. In the mid-nineteen hundreds, African Americans faced a great deal of political and social discrimination based on the tone of their skin. After the Civil Rights Movement, many African Americans no longer wanted to be identified by their African American lifestyle, so they began to practice African culture by taking on African hairdos, African-influenced clothing, and adopting African names. By turning away from their roots, many African Americans embraced a culture that was not inherited, thus putting behind the unique and significant characteristics of their own inherited culture. Therefore, in an African American society, a search for self identity is a pervasive theme.
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.
Being raised in America is difficult because there isn't much common ground between the way African children are raised versus how American children are raised. We struggle with meeting high expectations set by our parents. For example, Igbo parents academically challenge their children to receive straight A’s. Anything lower than an A is unsatisfactory to them. However, in an American home children are praised
African-American is a politically correct term used to refer to blacks within the United States. The roots of many African-American rites can be traced back to African cultural rites. However, it is important to note that not all blacks in America identify with African cultural roots. Therefore, some of the rites found within what many in the United States call African-American culture stem from Caribbean and other cultural traditions. For this reason, when making end of life decisions or funeral arrangements the “cultural identification, spirituality and the social class” the individual identifies with must be taken into account. The black majority within the United States identifies with Afrocentric traditions and perspectives. For this reason the term African-American will be used within this paper to denote the black population found in America as comparisons are made regarding how end of life decisions are viewed and made by African-American culture verses the traditional western European beliefs of American culture (Barrett, 2002).
It must be noted that for the purpose of avoiding redundancy, the author has chosen to use the terms African-American and black synonymously to reference the culture, which...
Baldwin was successful in telling readers of The New York Times about the disrespect of African American culture by using pathos, ethos, and logos.
Slave’s masters consistently tried to erase African culture from their slave’s memories. They insisted that slavery had rescued blacks form the barbarians from Africa and introduced them to the “superior” white civilization. Some slaves came to believe this propaganda, but the continued influence of African culture in the slave community added slave resistance to the modification of African culture. Some slaves, for example, answered to English name in the fields but use African names in their quarters. The slave’s lives were filled with surviving traits of African culture, and their artwork, music, and other differences reflected this influence.
Imagine being beaten every time one makes a mistake. Imagine not being beaten and to only later be killed for committing one of these mistakes. Imagine loving this individual. Now imagine being the one to beat this person for their protection. This is the complex situation of many in the African American community. Consisting of using physical discipline as a method of protection and discipline. Many parents with children of color often go through great lengths to make sure that their child is well disciplined. Discipline, is the practice of training one to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience. The method of discipline many in colored societies opt for is physical discipline. However, there are some who
African-American parents and grandparents play a pivotal role in the socialization of children as they help
Johnson, Charles, Patricia Smith, and WGBH Series Research Team. Africans in America. New York: Harcourt, Inc. 1998.
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...
Ostracism in and of itself is a condition no human wants to experience but compounded with disrespect and abuse, it describes the condition of the African Americans prior to the Thirteenth, Fourteenth , and Fifteenth Amendments. The Thirteenth Amendment supposedly outlawed slavery; however, whites still found ways around the law in order to keep blacks below them. The Fourteenth Amendment granted blacks citizenship, but they were still denied basic rights. The Fifteenth Amendment granted blacks the right to vote; however, most blacks were incapable of voting due to specific obstacles. Jim Crow Laws were an extreme obstacle in the integration of African Americans. Hate Groups were another attempt to restrain blacks from integrating into society. Although the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were designed to provide freedom for the slaves, they were still denied their freedom by specific obstacles.
In the end, what we learn from this article is very realistic and logical. Furthermore, it is supported with real-life examples. Culture is ordinary, each individual has it, and it is both individual and common. It’s a result of both traditional values and an individual effort. Therefore, trying to fit it into certain sharp-edged models would be wrong.