African American Community Reflection

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Prior to studying and having a better understanding of culture, I had a bleak view of one of the communities in which I am a part of, which is the African American community. My views stemmed from my parents, other relatives, and peers, all of whom are a part of the same racial group. Since a majority of our time were spent with those from within the African American community, we would have a wide range of positive and negative experiences. However, the negative experiences were the primary focus and were used to generalize our group. This misguided focus would aid in a conclusion that African Americans as a whole were solely to blame for being lower on a hierarchical basis compared to other racial groups. My family and friends were not the only aspects of culture involved in shaping my beliefs. Movies, television shows, music, celebrities, the U.S. education system, and other forms of influence were involved in …show more content…
One consistent and symbolic lesson was Jesus. In the images that were shown of him, he was a white man with long brown hair. My teachers would constantly talk about being “more like Christ.” In addition, I would learn about saints and eventually, write a research paper of the saint of my choice. Again, all of the saints were depicted as white. In this case, the representational function was associating being white and believing in God with being a good person. Surely, this was not communicated to me and my peers directly. However, I don’t recall receiving a lesson on anyone, who is not white, being an important symbol in Christianity. In fact, the only time that we covered anything African American related was slavery in the U.S. and the civil rights movement in our history class. It was as if our history began there and that since we are no longer being enslaved, that everything is right in the world for African

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