Afro-Asian

In W.E.B. Du Bois’ texts “The Forethought” and “Of Our Spiritual Strivings” both from the book The Souls of Black Folks, he reveals that black people are born with a “veil” (4) that represents a barrier between white and black people. Additionally, black people struggle to find their identity, making them have “double-consciousness” (5). The concepts of the veil and double-consciousness depict within the poems “The Beard” by Amit Majmudar, “liberation/poem” by Sonia Sanchez, and “Ka ’Ba” by…

What’s it like to be African American? What is it like to be constantly judged because of your skin color? The novel A lesson before dying took place in the south in the year of 1948. African Americans were still slaves and forced to work on plantations. At this time blacks had separate facilities they had to use aside from whites. The book shows the struggle that African Americans went through, the struggle where no one would believe you or even try to side with you. A young boy’s life gets…

Throughout history, there have been a number of black public intellectuals. Black Intellectuals adeptly narrate a history of important black thinkers within changing contexts of slavery, race, and modernization, but it also emphasizes a narrow understanding of black intellectualism. “The cohort of black people who call themselves black public intellectuals seem to suggest that they constitute a new social and political identity. But on a closer examination, the role is all too familiar.” (Reed…

Both “Kiswana Browne” by Gloria Naylor and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker focus on female characters with identities in conflict with the way in which they were raised. Kiswana, formerly Melanie, revolts against the older generation’s investment in politics of respectability, instead searching to reclaim her older, African roots. Kiswana is dedicated to a movement that advocates pride in being black, rather than a conformance to white normativity. This approach, unfortunately, splits the world…

Shapeshifters: Black Girls and the Choreography of Citizenship, is a cultural ethnography detailing the lives of African American women in the Fresh Start homeless shelter. Author Aimee Meredith Cox argues how different techniques used by homeless black women including the arts allow them to make sense of the different ways they experience things like racism, violence, and poverty as it relates to their everyday lives. Cox also uses these stories to highlight broader issues in society as well as…

In chapter VI, The Educated Negro Leaves the Masses, the question that will be addressed are: What is Woodson’s argument about the relationship between individual’s education and their connection to the “masses,” especially the black church? The author Charter G. Woodson sheds light on how many blacks who tend to seek and obtain higher education tend to separate themselves from other black individuals who lack the same educational background. Also in chapter VII, Dissension and Weakness, Woodson…

‘Still I Rise’ by the American, Maya Angelou presents the character of a black woman who is oppressed in the 1970s but refuses to accept this. ‘Disabled’ by Wilfred Owen, however, is concerned with a character who is ‘broken’ after the disabilities he suffers in the First World War at the beginning of the twentieth century. The poem ‘Still I Rise’ is about a woman who discloses that she will overcome anything due to her self-confidence. The line ‘But still, like dust, I’ll rise’ is a metaphor…

One way of admiring and understanding Shakespeare’s plays is through critical reading and analysis. The play Othello stars a Black, Muslim—Othello, sometimes, having a character who, is by race, black in a play or story, would somehow automatically contain issues about racism. This paper uses the combination of African American and Ethnic studies to analyze the play “Othello” by William Shakespeare. Racism is clearly manifested throughout the play, Othello was written some time between 1600 and…

“All money ain’t good money and fast money ain’t easy” is a common idiom utilized as a part of the African American community. Growing up, I watched motion pictures that depicted the life of African American men through their journey of selling drugs. Moreover, one of my favorite movies that represent this issue is “Menace II Society”. Despite the fact that this movie renders many topics, it above all delineates the issue of young African American males getting involved in illegal drug trade.…

African American Equality Student’s Name Professor’s Name Course Date Outline 1. Introduction 2. African American Equality 3. Conclusion 4. Works Cited African American Equality Introduction Like African-American culture, African American literature got spurred by the harsh realities of life that the Black community went through in North America. During these times, Whites subjected Blacks to severe pressures which inadvertently eroded their African…