Understanding Pan-African Studies: A Personal Journey

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Hola mama, I hope you are doing well. I miss you and Papa. I know you asked me how my classes were going but because you asked me on the first day of the the quarter I was not able to give you a clear response. However now midterms are around the corner and I want to explain to you about a few of my classes, particularly my Pan-African Studies class. I know you are not quite sure what exactly Pan African Studies (or “PAS”) is, after attending class for about 5 weeks now I can say that I have some knowledge about the subject. I have to be honest with you. I took this class is because my advisor recommended me to complete my diversity requirement before converting into semesters and it was the only 9:50am class available. I know it may sound …show more content…

In the documentary Ethnic Notations directed by Marlon Riggs explains and examines the birth of stereotypes “showing blacks as sub-human or animal like”. The documentary showed caricatures and films exposing blacks as either happy slave or a rebel. From the late 1820‘s to mid 1960‘s these stereotypes were not only very popular but also created a false vision of a black person. According to the film, the first well known character introduced was the “sambo”, this was created to show that slaves enjoyed serving their master, as the whites would call “the good ol’ days” before the civil war. The second popular character was the “Nat” shown as a a rebellious slave was created after emancipation happened and many whites felt threaten that blacks wanted to be treated as equals. The documentary mentions that it is because of those degrading images African Americans have been given such as negative stigma in society. In the 21st century the racial stereotypes still exist, in Curtis Keim’s novel Mistakening Africa he states that “we(society) also stereotype because it is virtually impossible to know everything that is going on in reality and therefore we...base out judgements on partial information”. It is because of these negative images that were embedded into society roughly 200 years ago, we as a society still judge black people primarily based on such characteristics. Thus, which goes back to the question I asked mi mama, why? Why do we quickly judge and primarily only base blacks as a 2st century version of a ‘sambo’ or

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