Dr. Siga Fatima Jagne lectured on the role Africans have in telling their own narratives instead of having white people speak for them. Throughout her lecture, Dr. Jagne made references to there being a dominant narrative within the world which is a concept that has similarities to the concepts of a dominant and subordinate groups as described in Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum’s piece, “The Complexity of Identity: ‘Who Am I?’”. Dr. Jagne mentioned that throughout history, white people tried to erase the culture of Africans by telling the Africans’ stories for them. In the dominant narrative, as told by white people, African women are still exoticised and misrepresented due simply to the fact that African women are not sharing their stories themselves, which leaves room for misinterpretation. Dr. Jagne mentioned that there is a rise in the use of African texts in American classrooms. The stories of Africans from the white perspective are seen as novelties and not actual defining narratives of the African culture.
Dr. Jagne included a quote from David Hume giving an example of how blacks were seen as inferior to whites. This reasoning is seen in “Racial Formations” by Michael Omi and Howard Winant. In order to “prove” that blacks were inferior to whites, society overwhelmingly viewed race as a biological concept. Scientists created experiments and studies showing that intelligence was hereditary and that blacks had a different cranium size than whites. At the time, these loosely constructed lies were seen as cold hard facts which validated the exploitation of Africans in the
Claude M. Steele is the author of “ Whistling Vivaldi”, which mainly represents that the meaning of identity contingencies and stereotype threat, and how can these effect people’s ideas and behaviors. By writing this article, Steele tries to make people know exist of identity contingencies. Gina Crosley-Corcoran, who is a white woman suffered the poverty in her childhood. Through describing her miserable experiences in parallel construction to motivate readers sympathize her, moreover approving that she can as a powerful evidence for affirming the impact of identity contingencies. Crosley-Corcoran admits the white privilege really exist in some way in her article “ Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person”, and white privilege
In “From Notes on the State of Virginia,” Thomas Jefferson includes some proposed alterations to the Virginia Laws and discusses some differences between blacks and whites. First, he describes one of the proposed revisions regarding slavery: All slaves born after the enactment of the alteration will be freed; they will live with their parents till a certain age, then be nurtured at public disbursement and sent out of state to form their own colonies such that intermarrying and conflicts can be avoided between blacks and whites. Next, Jefferson indicates some physical differences between blacks and whites, including skin color, hair, amount of exudates secreted by kidneys and glands, level of transpiration, structure in the pulmonary organ, amount of sleep, and calmness when facing dangers. As he notes, these differences point out that blacks are inferior to whites in terms of their bodies. In addition, Jefferson also asserts that the blacks’ reasoning and imagination are much inferior to the whites’ after he observes some of the art work and writings from the blacks. As a result, based on his observation, he draws a conclusion that whites are superior to blacks in terms of both body and mind. However, Jefferson’s use of hasty generalization, begging the question, and insulting language in his analysis is a huge flaw which ruins the credibility of his argument and offenses his readers.
Historically, the job of women in society is to care for the husband, the home, and the children. As a homemaker, it has been up to the woman to support the husband and care for the house; as a mother, the role was to care for the children and pass along cultural traditions and values to the children. These roles are no different in the African-American community, except for the fact that they are magnified to even larger proportions. The image of the mother in African-American culture is one of guidance, love, and wisdom; quite often the mother is the shaping and driving force of African-American children. This is reflected in the literature of the African-American as a special bond of love and loyalty to the mother figure. Just as the role of motherhood in African-American culture is magnified and elevated, so is the role of the wife. The literature reflects this by showing the African-American man struggling to make a living for himself and his family with his wife either being emotionally or physically submissive. Understanding the role of women in the African-American community starts by examining the roles of women in African-American literature. Because literature is a reflection of the community from which it comes, the portrayal of women in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and James Baldwin's Go Tell it on the Mountain (1952) is consistent with the roles mentioned above.
The author suggests that racial distinctions are obscured due to the fact that one population is forced to live amongst another population and do not comprehend the repercussions of this act; for example, slaves that were taken from West Africa and put in the Southern United States. Hacking goes on to say that it is possible that “the desire of one racial group to dominate, exploit or enslave another demands legitimacy in societies” (104). Due to the history of the United States, it is clear that the white race has considered themselves superior over other races. In fact, according to Ian Hacking, most anthropologists believed there were only five races. The races were named geographically but recognized by color. Caucasian, Ethiopian, Mongolian, American and Malayan were the five
First, he breaks down the idea of race as a biologically constructed fact. He argues that race as a biological construction was used to set up a system of oppression that benefitted whites. He counters this construction by claiming that race can be constructed many different ways. Tommy Lott’s article "Du Bois and Locke on the Scientific Study of the Negro” further deconstructs the idea of race as a solely biological construction and establishes that race can be biologically, socially, and culturally constructed. Lott explains how each construction further perpetuates a racial caste, but he explains that the social and cultural construction of race, although false in its ideology about races, is how society is able to allocate a status of superiority or inferiority. Societal statuses are accompanied with privilege and economic advantages. Furthermore, Du Bois explains that white society clings to the established constructions of race because of its ability to create a caste system that affords whites with exclusive economic privileges.
In 2009 Chimamanda Adichie gave a TED talk about the ‘danger of a single story’. A single story meaning, one thought or one example of a person becoming what we think about all people that fit that description, a stereotype if you will. In today’s America, I believe that we have all felt the wave of stereotypical views at some point or another. Adichie gives many relatable examples throughout her life of how she has been affected by the single story. Her story brings about an issue that all humans, from every inch of the earth, have come to understand on some level. A young child reading only foreign books, a domestic helper that she only perceived as poor. Her college roommates single story about Africans and her own formation of a single
As a Consequence of a dominant society racial and prejudicial ideology of blackness generates a stereotypical limit of black identity. Without knowing their identity, the dominant society’s racial prejudice causes them to see black individuals only as what they want to see them. The dominant society’s ideology proves too simplistic to explain something as sophisticated as human identity. Society’s Dominant organizations try to portray their stereotypical way of how black individuals should live in a society dominated by white individuals . The dominant races in society influence the way society treats the minor race by injection the racist ideas into how that race should act according to the rules of society. These racial ideologies cause the
Although the institutionalization of the fields of Black and Women’s Studies were still years away, the aforementioned black women, along with many others, were essential to the development of the epistemological and theoretical concepts that would later become the foundation. We can clearly see gaps in the literature in the area of Black Women’s Studies, as the writers discuss these women from the standpoint of either the Africana or Feminist Tradition. Some make mention of the intersection of racial and gendered oppression, but only in passing
In later years, many European scientists defined race by separating Homo Sapiens into three to six different groups. * Australoid: those from Australia, Melanesian islands * Caucasoid: Europe, North Africa, South west Asia * Mongoloid: East Asia, Siberia, the Americas * Negroid: Central and Southern Africa * Native Americans * Polynesians The scientific justification for these six groups was that members of these groups shared similar physical characteristics and originated in a particular region of the world. During the nineteenth century theories of race were advanced both by the scientific community and in the popular daily and periodical press. One idea that was taken into belief was racial standing based on skull size and features. The human skull was us...
In the novel, the author proposes that the African American female slave’s need to overcome three obstacles was what unavoidably separated her from the rest of society; she was black, female, and a slave, in a white male dominating society. The novel “locates black women at the intersection of racial and sexual ideologies and politics (12).” White begins by illustrating the Europeans’ two major stereotypes o...
“Black, white and brown are merely skin colors. But we attach to them meanings and assumptions, even laws that create enduring social inequality.”(Adelman and Smith 2003). When I first heard this quote in this film, I was not surprised about it. Each human is unique compared to the other; however, we are group together based on uncontrollable physical characteristics. Eyes, hair texture, and skin tone became a way to separate who belongs where. Each group was labeled as having the same traits. African Americans were physically superior, Asians were the more intellectual race, and Indians were the advanced farmers. Certain races became superior to the next and society shaped their hierarchy on what genes you inherited.
The core principle of history is primary factor of African-American Studies. History is the struggle and record of humans in the process of humanizing the world i.e. shaping it in their own image and interests (Karenga, 70). By studying history in African-American Studies, history is allowed to be reconstructed. Reconstruction is vital, for over time, African-American history has been misleading. Similarly, the reconstruction of African-American history demands intervention not only in the academic process to rede...
In order to justify keeping an entire race of people enslaved, slaveholders claimed that blacks were inferior to whites, placing them on the same level as livestock and other animals. “There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being, and were all subjected to the same narrow examination” (73). The fact is, whites are not naturally superior over blacks. Therefore, slaveholders used a variety of contrived strategies to make their case that blacks were inherently inferior to whites. To...
Aldridge, Delores P., Carlene Young. "Africana Womanism: An Overview." Out of the Revolution: The Development of Africana Studies. Lexington Books, 2000: 205-217. The University of Missouri-Columbia. Web. 11 April 2014.
African American people have been oppressed for hundreds of years. Slavery was a significant time period when African/African American individuals endured massive oppression, which refers to the feeling of being deprived of their human rights and dignity (Reed, 2016). Knowing that my ancestors had to conceal their feelings along with their cultural values, makes me feel more entitled to express my ethnic identity as an African American woman. My ethnic identity has increase my sense of belongingness because it gives me the ability to share and live amongst individuals with the same physical appearance and in some cases, the same obstacles. Society has placed its’ social norms on modern day women, which allows men to make more for the same labor, or that stop successful women from achieving their goals by installing the glass ceiling. However, there is a higher increase of risk for African American women, such as decrease in the male head of household, along with urbanization. Which caused African American women to work long hours that resulted in a devastating shift in the family structure (Reed, 2016). Past, present and current experiences of African American women is why my ethnic identity is so important to me, because it is used as a constant reminder of the struggles that I have to overcome for my daughter and the generation after