Armenian diaspora

Conservative estimates put well-established, dynastic African civilization as beginning nearly 5,000 years prior to the first slaves landing in North America. Perhaps the greatest injustice ever conferred onto the African diaspora in America was the large-scale insistence on minimizing the vast and bountiful history from which they originated. W.E.B Du Bois, in writing The Souls of Black Folk draws a powerful comparison between this categorical miseducation that was necessary to perpetuate…

blood in human veins.” Hughes conception of the black experience and rich ancient existence in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” can be analyzed through Stuart Hall’s second definition of cultural identity presented in his essay “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”. Stuart Hall defines cultural identity in two ways. The first is an essentialist identity, which focuses on the…

If you were to type in “beautiful girls” into the Google search engine and go to images the only females shown are with traditionally European features and light skin. A study by William Janowiak and associates found that those of Eastern Asian background are more fond of large eyes and pale skin, which Westerners are typically portrayed with, to be more aesthetically pleasing. Another race’s analysis of European features reflect a similar report, the infamous “Doll Test”; the babydoll test,…

“At birth, you are given a pair of binoculars that see black life from a distance, never with the texture of intimacy,” writes Michael Eric Dyson in his essay “Death in Black and White”, which is a New York Times article in response to the deaths of Alton B Sterling and Philando Castile by “the hands of the police.” Dyson is talking about how white America will always struggle to understand black people. White America’s inability to understand African Americans is echoed in Claudia Rankine’s…

The Effects of Reconstruction After reading Voices of Freedom, the chapter that really resonated with me was “‘What is Freedom?’”: Reconstruction” In this chapter, the overall theme or topic is the period of time in history when Reconstruction was taking place. Reconstruction can be defined as “something that is being rebuilt after being damaged or destroyed.” After the Civil War finally came to an end in 1865, that “something” that needed rebuilding was our country, as well as the rights of the…

What kinds of fruits emanated to your mind when the word ‘strange’ comes before it? In the song “Strange Fruit” the singer of the song sings about some rather strange fruit. The singer is an African American, female Jazz singer called Billie Holiday. “Strange Fruit” was released during 1939 in the time where segregation was still pretty big in the south. Lynching had been happening for a few years before the song was released. While definitely a way to dehumanize African Americans, which is…

Second sight refers to African Americans ability, or need to see themselves not only as they are, but also as the rest of white America sees them. With this type of experience, a person becomes used to the idea that they are what white America portrays them as. A relevant example that describes second sight is the idea of a black maid working for a white family. The maid becomes contempt with being just a maid, and forms the idea that this is all she can ever be. Relating it to society today, a…

In Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, The Beautiful Struggle, he speaks on the experiences he faced throughout his childhood. Ta-Nehisi was raised in Baltimore, Maryland, which is a predominately Black community. Growing up Ta-Nehisi witnessed and was faced with many street challenges such as, violence, gangs and drugs that were too advanced for him to handle. His father, Paul Coates, worked hard to transition Ta-Nehisi from a naïve boy into a strong and…

Reading these articles supported the idea that stereotypes influence the development of identity for African American women. In developing social identity, the identity developed because of membership to a group is crucial in developing identity to one’s self (Thomas, Hacker, and Hoxka 530). As shown in Bany, Robnett, and Feliciano’s article, the stereotypes depict African American women as obese, highly sexual, and highly talkative to name a few stereotypes (Bany, Robnett, and Feliciano 203).…

Every Tuesday and Thursday, my first class of the day is Politics of Black Identity, taught by Professor Cokley, and each day I get increasingly excited about the topics we will discuss in class. Every topic we have discussed in class has been very real and open minded subjects that have all had my brain working in new ways in order to determine my opinion on questions and topics I have never been asked or discussed before. Two issues we have conversed about in class that have stuck out to me…