Short Essay: The Appropriation Of Culture

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Ashley Marie Akins English II – Section 26 Dr. Albert Turner 27 March 2017 Fiction Essay: The Appropriation of Cultures In the short story, Appropriation of cultures, the protagonist used resistance against racial formalities to structure a new ideal, about symbols that many found offensive or viewed as negative. For instance, the protagonist, Daniel, was asked to sing a “racist” melody. When faced with something like this, a typical African American individual can feel some sort of tension, which he did feel at first. However, instead of acting on this feeling of anxiety and intimidation, he chose to overcome the internal conflict at hand. He created his own musical influence, by ignoring the negative connotation attached to the original musical production. These actions …show more content…

When Daniel speaks to his friend Sarah, his told actions of resistance of the racist tendencies given by those whom feel they are of superior status to blacks, leads her to question her own daily activities, by simply contemplating about switching up the color of her nails to “. red white, and blue stripes.” These three colors are given the “all-American” connotation, for the fact that it identifies with the color of the American flag. If she were to change her nails to these colors, she would be in a way appropriating American cultural influence. However, if Sarah chooses not to view it in that type of fashion, it would not really matter what color she changed her nails to. She would be adopting the artistic idea of combining these three colors in a uniformed pattern on her nails, and making it her own style, and not that of the American influence. Daniels own reflection of his own day to day experience moved Sarah, and allowed her to think outside of the box of cultural

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