Cultural Diversity In African American Education

During the 60’s African Americans were faced with hardships unlike no other, having to deal with racism, educational disparities, and segregation during the Jim Crowe era of the deep south. Fixing to fight the status quo of the segregationist American south, African American students from historically Black Institutions had demonstrated that education should “serve as a tool to enlighten a people relative to their civil rights and social justice.” With African Americans leaders of the time fighting to gain the rights of social equality that their white counterparts had the privilege of been accustomed to since the birth of the U.S. black students felt it was their duty to fight for the formal establishment of African American studies in the …show more content…
To explain why one would need to break down the definition of each term. Starting with cultural diversity, it is defined as “the existence of a variety of cultural or ethnic groups within a society.” In the Americanized textbooks cultural diversity is usually when you have a melting-pot such as where in New York City you have ethnic neighborhoods such as Little Italy, Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Guyana in one large city that is very diverse with a multitude of cultural backgrounds. When breaking down the meaning of multiethnicity you find it is stated as being “made up of people of various ethnicities.” With that being said, you would have to conclude that they are fairly close in meaning, almost identical. Finally, when we discuss the meaning of cultural pluralism being “a condition in which minority groups participate fully in the dominant society, yet maintain their cultural differences.” That can be associated with the very example used above dealing with the multiple ethnic neighborhoods in New York City. While the smaller communities within a large city of New York maintain their unique cultural identities, their values and practices are accepted by the wider culture if they are consistent with the laws and values of the society of the Nation as a …show more content…
Nathan Hare’s concept of Black Consciousness and community orientation details that “blackness and strong connections to a community base are detrimental to a strong black support system. He also states that blackness or black consciousness is necessary to counterbalance the psychological effects of white cultural imperialism. He believed that African American Studies can’t be relevant to the needs of the black community without addressing the problems of society as a whole, and that meant to change the problems of the white community where it concerned racism. Maulana Karenga’s philosophy on how African American Studies takes on a more Drastic approach when detailing his Kawaida theory. His theory more so deals with theories and programs of sociocultural reconstruction. Karenga’s theory seems to state that we should it should focus on such values such as unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith. Finally, we have Molefi K. Asante who bases his way of teachings of African American Studies on Afrocentricity. Molefi Asante would describe Afrocentricity as being “as a way of viewing and interpreting universal phenomena from African historical and cultural perspectives.” The basis of Molefi Asante’s philosophy is that each race or ethnic group develops its own perception and interpretation of the world. With this approach, Asante states that each group should be eligible of detailing their place and