Analysis Of Mary Louise Pratt's Arts Of The Contact Zone

“Perhaps the greatest Utopia would be to realize that no Utopia is possible.”
-Jack Carroll

Growing up in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, one would notice that the two dominant races that occupied the city were the blacks and the whites. Being a part of the black community, I had always thought it was a very close knit one. In elementary school, all my friends were black, I wanted to marry a black man, and have black kids. I talked black, acted black, even dressed black. I didn’t have a problem with white people, I just figured that I had nothing in common with them. I was raised one way, and they were raised another. I spoke one way, and they spoke completely different. Being black has always been important to me because I saw us
In the Mary Louise Pratt 's essay, “Arts of the Contact Zone,” Pratt reports the advantages and disadvantages that contact zones bring. Pratt emphasizes that a contact zone allows people to interact between cultures and break the cultural boundary. When a contact zone is established, people are able to gain a new perspective because they are able to interact with people of a foreign culture. For example, when I first met my best friend, Jill Simon, I saw her as a typical white girl. I figured that she probably talked proper, had a dog, and wore Juicy Couture. Although she did live up to the typical white girl standard that is expected, she grew to become one of the most important people in my life. We started our friendship when she overheard me making a comment about my hair. Being black, I obviously had different hair than she did, and she wanted to know how I worked with mine. Her interest in my hair is what led to us talking about where I was from, which led to the subject of my culture and which community I identified myself with. Our difference in race coerced us to a subject that later allowed me and Jill to adhere our different
I agree that transculturation described the phenomenon of merging and converging different cultures, and that it is much needed between the black and the white community because there has been so much separation from the beginning. The whole conflict of slavery and racism in the past, is the main thing that aides to the separation of the two communities. Although there is still sometimes conflict within the white and the black community, the past few years have brought on a sense of transculturation with the fact that we have schools exploring different cultures with things such as foreign exchange programs and international day. Interracial and intercultural relationships are becoming more acceptable and we are realizing that there is black on black crime as there is white on white crime. We are not always jumping to the conclusion that race has to do with every negative thing that happens to one us. We are slowly, but surly moving on. We acknowledge our differences, but instead of condemning each other for them, we are learning to accept and appreciate them. I feel that the transculturation of our different cultures starts at the point at which we learn to appreciate ourselves and the difference of