Afro

Greg Tate’s Flyboy 2 is a collection of African American works about music, culture, and more designed to illustrate important themes within the Black society. The main themes that Tate examines throughout his work involves the discussion of race, identity, and gender in a minority race within American society. The writings composed in the novel entail historic accounts, such as Michael Jackson’s struggle in society to Ice Cube’s perspective on rap and its influence in African American culture.…

Spirituality in Music Music is powerful and holds grave importance for culture and daily life. Creators of such art express all forms of human emotions, from lived realities to imaginary, and futuristic ideals. More than often, people are able to create their best work when they have experienced much. Looking at Dubois’s sorrow songs section in The Souls of Black Folk, and songs from Solange’s A Seat at The Table album and Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book mixtape, the power of music with…

If the characters in Dead Poet 's Society had watched Half Nelson or other movies like it that stereotype African-American youth, urban schools, and the communities in which both reside; their elitist, predominately white surroundings at Welton Academy would not have given them any reason to negate those myths. The students, parents, and school administrators/faculty in Dead Poet 's Society would most likely conclude that urban, African American youth are thugs and drug dealers who dress like…

Agree ‘em To Death and Destruction Ralph Ellison’s short story “Battle Royal” illustrates the pessimistic and ultimately futile nature of Black resistance to institutional oppression. The text utilizes the perspective of the Black narrator to convey the overt as well as subtler forms of violence perpetrated by white society. Paragraph 60 utilizes the language of the M.C. to demonstrate the subtle ways in which relations of power are constructed between racial groups. The repetition of the word…

When discussing the movement of Black Consciousness or African Consciousness one has to identify as Black or African which are defined differently depending on a person’s individual understanding of black history. Many people say, “knowing your history doesn’t matter”, and “history should be forgotten, if it is something that continuously evokes painful emotions”. However, others believe that it is vital to know and love one’s self and one’s culture. It is believed that this is important not…

Collins purpose is to construct an analysis of the underlying connections between Black sexual politics and the new racism. These analyses include, “a set of ideas and social practices shaped by gender, race, and sexuality that frame Black men and women’s treatment of one another, - perceived and treated by others” (Collins p.7). Collins distinguishes the differences between those illustrations by providing the historical context followed by empirical and conceptual studies that offer a…

In her book Playing in the Dark, Toni Morrison discusses how American literature uses distorted representations of blackness to better make sense of its own (white) American identity. She refers these black characters and images endemic to American literature as the “Africanist presence” (17). Through Morrison’s theory of the Africanist presence, we can better understand how Buffy the Vampire Slayer employs characters like Kendra and larger themes of monstrosity and darkness to uphold the power,…

The Organization for African Students’ Interests and Solidarity (OASIS) serves as a place where African students can discuss their identities and meet other African students on the University of North Carolina’s campus. Organizations like OASIS that are specifically geared towards these students are becoming more imperative because the population of Africans on college campuses is on the rise. The number of African born immigrants in the United States has doubled in size between 2000 and 2010.…

The novel The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young African American girl in Ohio who faces great adversity as a result of her race, gender, and age. She wants nothing more than to have blue eyes, believing that they would make her beautiful and improve her quality of life. She lives in a small house with her mother Pauline, her father Cholly, and her brother Sammy. In an excerpt titled “Battle Royal” from Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, the narrator faces…

All throughout Langston Hughes writing he works to make the statement that no matter what, he will never conform to white ideals. In “The Negro Artists and the Racial Mountains” he writes,” I am a Negro – and beautiful!” He even often calls out black writers for trying to conform and blend in with white culture, and he deliberately does not write in “proper” English like white people do because he wants to express his culture and where he comes from. Langston writes,” It is the duty of the…