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What is African American culture?

Today i went to the Black Student Union meeting at Bellarmine University. I never realised that African Americans have so much cultural challenges, from within their own black community and the outside.

 Today the topic of discussion was "What is Black Culture?" A very intriguing question.  I think no one can really define what black culture is because culture is so diluted, culture is determined by different elements of different places people live in. Culture can never really be definite because of all these elements that contribute to it. It's more like the domino effect, once touched by another element it causes change to the original element. So what can you attribute to culture if you can never really fully define it? Being South African, i find that we have is much easier, because we have the privilege of having African traditions and having African culture. What is the difference? Traditions are practices that belong to your tribe or family and have been part of your ancestral linage, so each African culture/tribe will have their own tradition. Where as in African culture, that is an identity that unites us, influenced by all  the different tribe and cultures we have.

 I feel like African American still carry around some anger, anger against slavery and against their own. I asked a few questions in the meeting just to find out more about how they feel and how they are treated as citizens. It was interesting to find out that the youth have so much to say, but i don't ever see any youth movements in the US that are highly publicized, but yet they have so much to say and what they are saying are things that need to be heard. The youth have such great ideas and visions for their country and for their communities, but there are so discouraged. The young people i met today are young African American leaders. I feel like they don't believe in themselves enough to think they make a deference and these are the kind of young people the government needs to motivate. If you can get a nation to start thinking of ways to improve their lives and the lives of their people and communities, you get a whole nation of Obamas in every black community in America.

 The topic became more elaborate when we went into how African Americans look down on each other or have negative views of each other. That is something that i find common between African American and South Africans, in SA black people have a distorted ideas and images of each other. Jealousy and strife is a common thing. It's funny how in both cultures you expect the black person (or coloured) to do something wrong and when your expectations are met, you throw around words against them. I feel like you get what you expect. Why can black people never be happy for each other, when one sees someone moving up in life they have to pull them down either with words or crime against them.
It is still horrible how the only people that are portrayed as the most dangerous or bad are black people. I decide to pull out some FBI stats on crime in the USA to see how true it is that the African Americans are the highest in crime in the country: ( the table is below this article).

 I will not comment on the stats on the table but i would like people to look at them and see how true or not these pre-concieved ideas and images of African American people are.
This is also for African Americans to stop portraying themselves as a culture that is not one hundred true of themselves. What people see on TV and in music videos, is what people expect you them to be. I know coming to the States i had my own idea of African Americans, but these are conceptions put in us by what they allow television to portray about them.

 It is so difficult being an African American actor in Hollywood, because most of the movie roles they are cast in portray them in a light they the are trying to get away from. In order for this culture to step out of the light they have been pushed in, is by not accepting roles that make mockeries of there culture. There are enough African Americans in American television to make a difference. In fact some of the most powerful women in the world are African American Michelle Obama and Uraula Burns.  I pulled out more woman in media and in business in the USA, Oprah Winfrey, Beyonce, Rosalind Brewer. There are so many powerful voice behind the voices of African American people. The most powerful man in the world in an African American man and President of the most powerful country in the world. 
African American really don't have much excuses for not being the best they can be.

I enjoyed the meeting and i had a lot of fun, thanks guys and great food. 

Table 43 A the table is from
 http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-43
Offense chargedTotal arrests
TotalWhiteBlack
TOTAL9,499,7256,578,1332,697,539






Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter8,3414,0004,149






Forcible rape14,6119,5044,811






Robbery82,43635,44345,827





Aggravated assault305,220194,981102,597






Burglary227,899151,93472,244






Larceny-theft977,743670,768281,197






Motor vehicle theft50,90232,57517,250






Arson8,9656,4792,302






Violent crime2410,608243,928157,384





Property crime21,265,509861,756372,993






Other assaults952,421625,330304,083






Forgery and counterfeiting53,79135,23917,695






Fraud127,66484,91940,621






Embezzlement12,4548,1554,032






Stolen property; buying, receiving, possessing71,72747,43423,191






Vandalism182,482132,85045,055






Weapons; carrying, possessing, etc.117,82068,45347,515






Prostitution and commercialized vice44,09023,55519,227






Sex offenses (except forcible rape and prostitution)52,89138,42213,189






Drug abuse violations1,171,866783,564371,248






Gambling6,5071,9374,351






Offenses against the family and children87,58656,97328,183






Driving under the influence924,210788,175111,480






Liquor laws380,663312,10651,446






Disorderly conduct447,201281,531153,840





Vagrancy22,37512,9898,794






All other offenses (except traffic)2,693,8231,794,893837,095






1,150634506






Curfew and loitering law violations1 Because of rounding, the percentages may not add to 100.0.









x

Comments

  1. Unknown8 September 2013 at 21:11

    Wow never really put my head around our black cultures and the images we portray against our own kind.

    great blog Naz

    ReplyDelete

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