The purpose of this text is to try and have an influence on the way Caribbean culture is viewed…
The sections of ‘’Checking Out Me History’’ on individual black historical figures contain strong imagery, with the use of nature metaphors for powerful effect. Toussaint L'Overture - who led slaves to victory in the Haitian Revolution - is described as being a "thorn" and a "beacon", providing the image of…
From early ages both Douglass and Rodriguez grew up with cultural struggles of being minorities in the United States. In Rodriguez’s book Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez…
“Our America” by Jose Marti expresses the Creole sentiment against tyranny; it tells that Latin America is a mixture of different ethnicities and races. They are a good race that respects and admires the superior intelligence, but this superior intelligence takes advantage of the admiration by damaging and ignoring their pure ideals, and their pride of belonging to a beautiful continent. Jose Marti puts an emphasis that Latin America has to wake up and fight for their liberation from oppression.…
For much of the countries history, the national body has been defined as not black but more of a mixer of Indians and Spanish. Ginetta E.B. Candelario wrote, “In the place of blackness, officially identity discourses and displays have held the Dominicans are racially Indian and culturally Hispanic.” In the areas of large Afro-Dominicans, most of the population would say that they are not black or come from African heritage. The main root of this problem come from Haiti and not wanted to break all ties to them. “Haitians are textually depicted in gross caricature as embodying evil and uncivilized hypermasculinity: savage, animalistic, sexually violent, and devilish.”…
In addition films from Two-Gun Man from Harlem, Blazing Saddle, Lightning Jack and Buffalo Soldier helped clear up myths and untruths that black people did exist back then and they also could have been lawmen and cowboys. Many films just like Buffalo Soldier and Blazing Saddle and unbury America History. Walter Moses Burton was a former slaved turn farmer and then elected first black sheriff of American. Burton was the first elected sheriff in American in 1868. Also, Bass Reeves was one of the first black Deputy U.S. Marshals. Bass Reeves also arrested 3,000 people and even killed fourteen outlaws in his time as a…
During the era of US racial segregation, a handful of black female mathematicians managed to break social barriers and propel the US space agency to new heights. The heroines of the story are Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson. The US involvement in World War II in 1941 opened the door to them. The country needed engineers and scientists to come up with new technologies to help planes fly higher and faster. But segregation was still a reality.…
When immigrants from foreign countries come to the United States they are classified into many categories such as race, religion, ethnicity, etc. They leave their own country miles apart and discover themselves into a very different person, whom they never thought of they would become. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s newest noble, “Americanah,” has introduced us with a story of a girl named Ifemulu who came to America and faced the biggest challenge of her life. And through out this essay I will explore the different ways in which Ifemelu incorporate questions about her “blackness” into the formation of her identity. I will illustrate in what ways Ifemelu believes she is black and in what ways believes she is not. I will also give a definition of “black” as I think Ifemelu would define the concept.…
White supremacy is not a social issue that only affects the United States. In all parts of the world, people of color are seen as inferior compared to those with more standard European, “white” features. A place where this ideology takes a rather ironic twist is in the Dominican Republic. Although a grand majority of the Dominican people can be considered mulatto or of a mixed European and Black genealogy, many rejected their African descendants. Being “negro” is frowned upon in the Dominican Republic because it is a characteristic associated with the country’s neighbor on Hispañola, Haiti. The feud between Haiti and the Dominican Republic can be traced back to the 19th century and can be seen in modern times in the Dominican Republic’s attempt…
A question survey presented by McDaniel University found that Dominicans and Haitians make strict distinctions between their racial identity in opposition of each other. “Are Dominican people Black? Ask that to a Dominican person and you might get cursed out . . . [A]acknowledgement of one’s Blackness is perceived by many Dominican people as an irrational confession and sometimes an unforgivable betrayal, for to be Black in the Dominican Republic is to be the antithesis of Dominican national identity, to be anti-Dominican, in other words, to be an ‘inferior’ Black Haitian” (McDaniel University 5). Dominicans neglect their African identity as opposed to Haitians.…
The recent rise in Black consciousness has created an extraordinary interest in the study of Black heritage and the preservation of Black culture in America. Many scholars and students are turning their attention to A frican-American cultural patterns, which have been long ignored and often scorned. Black people are realizing more and more that these patterns exemplify key features of their heritage and may offer not only clues into the past, but also provide guides to survival in the future. As this interest gains momentum, African-Americans are looking toward the South, particularly to its rural and isolated islands where so many of the unique elements of contemporary Black culture have their roots. The culture of the Sea Islands is such a special case. The lack of contact with the mainland helped to preserve some of the important features of their African culture. Because the Africans that were brought to these islands were not sold and resold as often as those on the mainland, some of their ancestral family patterns remain even to this date.…
In anthropological discussions it has been said that cultures are never separate, pure objects, but rather are shaped and interact with the forces around them. Latin America is more than evincive of this, but also serves as a warning, with the violence caused by the conquistadors embodied in the construction and language, and the eternal aftermath reverberating in the collective memory of society (Shelton, 2007).…
This school term, along with my classmates, I have been required to view a number of documentary films dealing with the African American experience. There was so much information crammed into each of the films shown. However, each one has enlightened and opened my mind to thoughts not before imagined.…
The paper discusses one aspect of the theoretical underpinnings addressed in my ongoing doctoral research. It discusses the approval of a law making the teaching of African and Afro-Brazilian history and culture compulsory in K-12 (basic education) curricula at both public and private schools. The law is seen as curriculum policy aimed at promoting racial equality and a benchmark in the struggle to implement an anti-racist education in Brazil. The paper explores academic literature and legislation in order to understand the trajectory of Brazilian black movements. It also dialogues with epistemic perspectives stemming from Latin American postcolonial studies. I examine the rationale and context in which an education policy for race relations…
Andrade-Watkins, C. 1995. Portuguese African Cinema: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, 1969to 1993. Ed: Martin, M, T. Cinemas of the Black Diaspora: Diversity, Dependence and Oppositionality. Michigan: Wayne State University Press.…