Enslaved black people

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Enslaved Africans apart, creating trauma and confusion, eventually brought them back together as a tight-knit community when they were forced to learn the oppressor’s language. “Possessing a shared language, black folks could find again a way to make community, and a means to create the political solidarity necessary to resist” (hooks, 170). Enslaved black people took broken bits of English and created a counter-language and put their words together in such a way that the oppressor had to rethink the meaning of English language. “For in the incorrect usage of words, in the incorrect placement of works, was a spirit of rebellion that claimed language as a site of resistance. Using English in a way that ruptured standard usage and meaning, so that white folks could often not understand black speech, made English into more than the oppressor’s language” (hooks, 170). With the black community, being defined now by their language, having this sense of “us” and “them”, blacks versus whites, they now had something again the white man didn’t and in no way could take from them. There is a connection between the broken English of the displaced, enslaved African and the diverse black vernacular speech used today in the black community, enabling rebellion and resistance. bell hooks states, “The power of this speech is not simply that it enables resistance to white supremacy, but that it also forges a space for alternative cultural production and the alternative epistemologies—different ways of thinking and knowing that were crucial to creating a counter-hegemonic worldview” (171). It’s interesting to take a step back and analyze the contradictions we face in our society when it comes to language and culture; White Supremacy and Capitalist P... ... middle of paper ... ...is limited the exposure blacks were able to see. Therefore, they were only represented as musicians. Some of these short performances were well known. For example, “Symphony in Black” (1935) and “Jitterbug Party” (1934) As blacks was able to play roles in larger films, they were perceived in a negative connotation. They showed black women as battered, promiscuous jezebels. Men were perceived as thieves and slaves. These perspectives were instilled into society’s mind, because this was the only direction the blacks were being displayed. Therefore, this created many different stereotypes about blacks. In today’s film, blacks are still being portrayed this way. In films like For Colored Women it shows the portrayal and tribulations that some black people face. However, when society views films, like this, it is difficult for them not to believe in these stereotypes.

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