African Diaspora Essay

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When considering what the African diaspora is, there is one period of time that people commonly refer to. This period of time is the Atlantic Slave Trade. While not the only diaspora of the African people in history, the Atlantic Slave Trade is most commonly thought of due to the scale at which Africans were being emigrated, with around 10-15 million Africans being brought over to the Americas, as well as the effect it has on us today. When looking at the experiences of Africans, they greatly differed dependent on where they landed. These experiences affected later generations of Africans, forcing them to adopt their own culture based on their surroundings and what they were accustomed to from Africa. According to Colin A. Palmer, a Professor of History at the City University of New York, the African diaspora can be categorized into "five major African diasporic streams that occurred at different times and for …show more content…

Looking at the interview conducted with Barbara and Karen Fields, the two sisters discuss how racism has affected us as a people. While most non-person-of-color Americans like to perpetuate the idea that American is a land of equal opportunity and treatment, African-Americas as a whole group of people have experienced the opposite. Barbara Fields sums up these conflicting mindsets very well by stating that, "black has been the virtual equivalent of "poor" and "lower class" since very early in the country 's history". She then goes on to discuss how these preconceived notions have made the many setbacks towards African-Americans, such as Jim Crow, slavery, and segregation invisible causes as to why many African-Americans are in a position where they can 't

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