No Father Figure
Tubotein Taylor
2/10/13
Humanities 2
Bastard Children In the story entitled “Desiree’s Baby” by Kate Chopin, Desiree and her husband, Armand Aubigny, were blessed with a beautiful child to whom they could call their own. They were very much in love, until the site of their child could not go unnoticed any longer. There was no place for two whites to paternally and maternally take care of a Negro child. Since this is a white male dominant society, he automatically assumed that she was at fault and wishes for her to relieve herself of his presence. It wasn’t until later on that he learned that his mother was among the very people that they were forcing to work in the fields of their plantation.
This ties into the statement that African American males aren’t able to keep in touch with many of their ancestors mainly because the grow up not knowing who they are. Dr. Carter G. Woodson believed that one of the main reasons why the Negro should study the experiences of the African American was because of something called Afrocentrism. Afrocentrism is a cultural ideology mostly limited to the United States and is dedicated to the history of Negro people. This is in response to Eurocentric or orientalist attitudes about African people and their contributions to American history by revisiting this history with an African cultural and ideological center. Afrocentricity talks mostly about self-determination and African agencies and it can be traced back to the work of Negro intellectuals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It then turned into its modern form due to the activism of black intellectuals in the United States Civil Rights Movement and in the development of African American Studies programs in universities. This relates back to Desiree’s Baby because the father “Armand Aubigny” separates himself from his son because he was a negro child, yet wasn’t aware that his own mother was a negro.
“Experiences the Negro goes through because only one
2/10/13
Humanities 2
Bastard Children In the story entitled “Desiree’s Baby” by Kate Chopin, Desiree and her husband, Armand Aubigny, were blessed with a beautiful child to whom they could call their own. They were very much in love, until the site of their child could not go unnoticed any longer. There was no place for two whites to paternally and maternally take care of a Negro child. Since this is a white male dominant society, he automatically assumed that she was at fault and wishes for her to relieve herself of his presence. It wasn’t until later on that he learned that his mother was among the very people that they were forcing to work in the fields of their plantation.
This ties into the statement that African American males aren’t able to keep in touch with many of their ancestors mainly because the grow up not knowing who they are. Dr. Carter G. Woodson believed that one of the main reasons why the Negro should study the experiences of the African American was because of something called Afrocentrism. Afrocentrism is a cultural ideology mostly limited to the United States and is dedicated to the history of Negro people. This is in response to Eurocentric or orientalist attitudes about African people and their contributions to American history by revisiting this history with an African cultural and ideological center. Afrocentricity talks mostly about self-determination and African agencies and it can be traced back to the work of Negro intellectuals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It then turned into its modern form due to the activism of black intellectuals in the United States Civil Rights Movement and in the development of African American Studies programs in universities. This relates back to Desiree’s Baby because the father “Armand Aubigny” separates himself from his son because he was a negro child, yet wasn’t aware that his own mother was a negro.
“Experiences the Negro goes through because only one
Cited: Page A Turbulent Voyage: readings in African American studies Books.google.com Floyd Windom Hayes-2000-630 pages-google Ebook-preview Psychology of Black Oppression www.nathanielturner.com/nwordpsychologyofblackoppression.htm-cached Chopin, Kate. "Desiree 's Baby." Short Stories: Desiree 's Baby by Kate Chopin. N.p.. Web. 13 Feb 2013.