African American Culture By Natasha Lightfoot

More job opportunities began to open up therefore, there was an increased need for skilled workers. Companies thought it was a great idea to hire African Americans who would be more than willing to work, grant them a smaller pay and have their business continue to thrive in the prosperous decade. The white leaders of the industry often took advantage of policies to ensure that African Americans would be confined to the least desirable jobs with the lowest wages (Phillips 33). Within the jobs, workers would also be faced with discrimination. The African Americans would receive death threats in their place of work almost daily and were made to feel as if they were only there to benefit the economy (Phillips 39) For many years in American History, African Americans only received training to be skilled workers, as it didn 't seem necessary for them to receive any further education (Blanton 1).

Family is what might have the greatest impact on someone's life and identity. In the memoir Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, she is an African American who grew up right after the Civil Rights Movement in the south. She went through a lot because of her race and her family was able to help her get through it. She also moved around a lot as a kid, which affected her a lot because she was with different family members every time she moved.

Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™ by Rebecca Roanhorse is a thought-provoking sci-fi short story that explores the tensions and paradoxes inherent in the representation and commodification of Native American culture. Using New Criticism Theory to analyze the ways in which Roanhorse uses language and structure to create these tensions and paradoxes. In this short story, Roanhorse uses a second-person point of view to immerse readers in a “virtual” experience, providing readers with their own Indian Experience™. The story follows protagonist Jesse Turnblatt, who works as a “guide” at a virtual reality company. Throughout the story, Jesse Turnblatt experiences the commodification and cultural appropriation involved in this virtual world,

In Alice Walker’s story Everyday Use, she represents the conflicts and struggles of earlier African American women. Walker describes the differences between the two sisters, which later shows the differences of the women in the African American culture. This is important because the ways of one’s culture and heritage is important to everyday life. One sister seems to be more of a common woman than the other.

It is important to continue to diversify these media industries because they play such an important role in our everyday lives. The United States is a country that is becoming increasingly more diverse and it is necessary that our media industry reflects that. Through print and broadcast journalism, advertising, public relations, television and film, one’s perception of the world is formed. A person’s story is best told by that individual and the same thing applies to media in terms of race. If a white person is telling the story of an African-American, the reality of that story may be misconstrued.

Throughout the 70s, innovative and impactful movies featuring heavy African-American involvement hit the scene of thousands of theaters across the United States. The overall positive perception of Blaxploitation films provided many opportunities for black involvement in America’s entertainment industry that Hollywood failed to provide. Audiences positively perceived things that were not brought to light in the white dominated entertainment industry such as, new stereotype defying roles, uplifting messages, and the exposure of different communities and their issues. Blaxploitation was a result from African-Americans having a very strong desire to “see themselves empowered” in films (Christian). This genre of 70s cinema, were mostly set

To Be or Not To Be Marlon Riggs’ documentary, “Black Is…Black Ain’t” explores several untold truths of African American culture. These truths are expressed by African Americans who have lived during and dealt with countless sufferings of being black in America. Based on the testimonies given throughout Riggs’ film, the black community is known for being sexist and denouncing those who are homosexual. Molefi Asante believes that “homosexuality is a deviation from Afrocentric thought.”

In Natasha Trethewey’s Native Guard book of poems she uses many themes and idea to narrate her life. Two of the poems included in this book: “What is evidence?” and “Southern History” she shows how abuse was hidden, documents, and she gave voice to the voiceless. Although these poems appear in two separate sections of the book they both touch on the topic of hiding abuse.

The black sitcom, is a sitcom in American culture that features a primarily or entirely black cast in the lead role. Although sitcoms with primarily black characters have been present since the earliest days of network television, this genre really rose to fame in the 1980s and 1990s. The black sitcom as described by Coleman and Mcllwain was a form of cultural expression for the black community. It was finally a way they could express current issues, whether it be in society or just everyday family obstacles, through comedy television. In 1984/85 NBC created the hit show The Cosby Show.

Oppression: The Inevitable Devastation of A Generation Imagine being forced against your will to stand on a platform completely naked and physically incapable of fighting or even running. Imagine standing there with your hands and feet in chains and your body sore and exhausted from hours of picking cotton under the penetrating rays of the sun. This dramatization was not just a powerful perception of the physical, mental and emotional barriers set forth during slavery but a depiction of the reality African Americans were forced to endure. Furthermore, it serves to remind us of a time in history where the concept of “us vs. them” nearly destroyed an entire culture and dramatically altered what it meant to be human.

Even though white people in the 1970s do not own slaves, African Americans are still being oppressed, many of them are forced to live in poor neighborhoods with lots of crime, from which they might never

Film is a very powerful way to distribute ideas to many people in a very simple and quick way. This means that when a movie is filled with disparaging racial stereotypes these ideas can easily be made the norm in society in the way that people view a certain group of people or culture. These stereotypes can easily be seen in the films of the early 20th century. They had no problems using racial stereotypes and lies to hurt the name and reputations of the people of Africa. A lot of these are spelled out in the in “White” by Richard Dyer and in “Lights…Camera…Africa: Images of Africa and Africans in Western Popular Films of the 1930s” by Kevin Dunn.

We need more movies like Hidden figures showing the positive attributes of our history. So, for now, I just say we should stop putting money in those slave movies/shows. And start supporting as much positive black films/shows as we can. That's what I'm doing.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the author of the book “Americanah”. . Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book “Americanah” was one of the ten best books of the year when it was published according to the New York Times. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, this book is comical, defiant, and so wise. Throughout the story she is narrates a story of what it means to be black through the eyes of a Nigerian woman who questions her identity when she moves to America. She narrates the main character's life, Ifemelu, to tell the reader what it means to be black in present-day American from a non-American black.

Movie is always known as the source of entertainment and knowledge as well. It is a way to let people know about life, people, places, culture, norms and general human behavior that we are not aware of. By watching a movie we can relate ourselves with the characters and the stories. I always like to watch movies. But the movie that I was asked to watch recently was never that I would choose to watch.