Choreography Of Citizenship By Aimee Meredith Cox: Summary

The African-American culture is made up of a group of individuals that have resided in the United States for the last 400 years or so. Most of them have descended from slaves who were forced from Africa to work on plantations in the South. Most, if not all, of them have faced a type of discrimination at some point ever since arriving to the United States. Despite the challenges African-Americans eventually moved to big cities like Detroit to thrive and live better lives. While residing in Detroit, they shaped a sense of belonging for themselves and their offspring. They even passed on their philosophies to newer generations to keep their culture alive. The objective of this paper is to highpoint the aesthetics of the African-American cultural …show more content…
Aimee Meredith Cox, author of the book Shapeshifters: Black girls and the Choreography of Citizenship, assesses the regular lives of young black women living in a Detroit homeless shelter and facing daily challenges like discrimination and poverty. Using aspects of storytelling in chapter 2, the author explains the concept of painted figures. It starts with Miss Hannah, the instructor in the GGC art room, who instructs her students to paint ceramic Santa Clause figures. The instructor, according to Cox, spent every Tuesday presenting to her class “how to properly paint the white figures so that they looked ‘neat’ and ‘professionally done’” (107). Miss Hannah encouraged her students’ desire to paint their Santa Clause models black even though she wanted her models to be white. It is a commonly acknowledged truth that Santa Clause represents the true definition of Christmas who brings bliss and delight. Despite often being depicted as an elderly, Caucasian male in a red suit and a red hat, a black Santa Clause would possibly symbolize much more for the African-American community of Detroit. For them, such models would represent pride, dignity, and