...Gender Identity Among African Americans Danny Tarantino University of Phoenix The African American Experience SOC/338 Tara Lake May 20, 2013 In 1619, when the first African slaves arrived in the New World, their race's hardships in the new continent began. One can say that early American history is as much the story of African Americans as it is of the Whites. Only their story is about slavery and oppression and lives lived under the control of others. Centuries and many generations later, their story is written while the shadow of oppression has never left them. One would most likely see this perspective from the stories written and shared by the Black males. But this experience was shared by the Black women as well and their actions, their perspectives, and choices helped shape what would be a liberating movement in a fight for Civil Rights and equality. In the fight for Civil Rights - they were pushing for reforms on two fronts: Civil Rights for being African-American and equal rights for women. They inhibited two minority platforms - that of women and that of being African-American. They fought for it however and as a result, African American women today enjoy freedoms and opportunities that those before them did not. One of the key figures in the African American women’s movement was Mary McLeod Bethune. Something of a Matriarch, she possessed a dynamic and even aggressive personality. Not particularly well...
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...The formation of self-identity is a process each of us must go through on our journey to adulthood. The development of a system by which to lead our adult lives is difficult for all children, but especially for African American children. In addition to defining their personal character, they must define themselves in terms of their culture and nationality – African American and American. One of the ways in which black children create their self-identity is through the illustrations they see in the literature they are exposed to. We look to African American children’s books to help promote self-esteem, cultural identity, and pride for African American children. As books are read to them, children concentrate on the images, and become subject to the impressions these images create. Children’s books that are authentic to African American culture, physicality and intelligence are few and far between. With consideration to our theme, “Black Literary Contemplations on Thomas Jefferson and Western Enlightenment Ideologies of Race and Humanity” and Thomas Jefferson’s Query XIV, it is my belief that the images in children’s literature are important to development of self- identity and esteem in African American children. In Query XIV, in his comparison of whites and blacks, Thomas Jefferson commented on the beauty of whites and blacks, and critiqued blacks because of their “immovable veil of black” and lack of flowing hair. He then stated that black men favored white women over black...
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...Elements of African American Identity The Pre slavery Era brought Africans from their homes and to the United States in 1619. The Africans were sold to white settlers in Virginia as servants who had the same legal status as white servants. Slavery took place over a span of 300 years, from the 16th century to the 19th century. Slavery practices varied by state or by region (Deep South versus border South). The experience of the slave may have differed depending on the plantation size, the number of slaves involved and the convictions of the individual slaveholder. Slavery in North America delivered the harshest form of social relations to ever exist. Slaves were considered property and not humans. The plight of the slave was doomed to extreme 12-15 hour working days and often deplorable living conditions. African American slaves were beaten, whipped and even murdered, but they kept the spirit to survive. History shows that slaves tried to revolt, always to the detriment of the participants. When the slaves saw that revolting would never work, they sought ways to escape. One such way of escape was the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was an organized effort to assist slaves attempting to escape. The Railroad was believed to have been incorporated in 1804. The Railroad was operated in defiance to the Fugitive Slave Laws and white abolitionists assisted the slaves in their cause. By the middle of the 19th century, slavery had become a serious...
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...Biracial Identities within the African American and White Communities Black enough, white enough, light or dark enough are just a few aspects to a biracial individual’s physical perception. For many with one ethic background, understanding who and what they are tends to be reflections of the expectations that are held by society. Those who carry a dual ethnic background have dealt with many expectations of identification not only by society but by standards upheld culturally as well as a parental influence in regards to exposure to both ethnicities. From early interactions of blacks and whites, a slave master and his slaves operated with a purpose to erase blacks from society and purify the American race. These actions transitioned the views of biracial individuals into a focus of passing through society as color was essential and being too dark was detrimental. Historically, self identification and association with specific ethnic backgrounds were dismissed to fit society’s standards causing one to identify as more white than black. Passing through the early 20th century became an important component to a person deriving from the African American and White communities. Jim Crow laws and other governmental provisions denied many African Americans opportunities in everyday life because of their darker skin causing a huge jump for those who were biracial; black and white to take advantage of their light skin to “pass” in order to get through society. Light bright skin just...
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...clarification: • African identity- this term will be used interchangeable. (1) realizing the African continent commonality, (2) the culture and behavior of the slaves (African born and creoles)—basically what defines the slaves’ identity. • Creoles- (1) Atlantic creoles that are phenotypically and culturally mixed with African and European cultures. The Dynamic African identity: Coping with Slavery Upon considering the changes and the creation of an “African” identity (definition 2), it is important to realize that similar to the constantly changing slavery due to the frequent shifts in the social, political, and economic contexts, the “African” identity was also dynamic. Although the overall reason that prompted the development of the notion of the African continent (definition 1) might be similar across the board of slavery, the specifics of what constituted this identity (ex: religion, family formation) is largely dependent on the time period and region being discussed—ex: the 17th Century African identity in North America is different from the 18th Century identity in Europe. Several factors that enhanced the creation of the African identity (definition 2) include: (1) ability to form families as a result of the gender ratio, mortality rates, segregation from other slaves, (2) population ratio of native-born to creolized slaves, and (3) religious movement that were characteristic of the time and space. These three factors allowed for the African identity to be realized...
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...Gender Identity among African Americans Teresa Rucker SOC/338 10/29/13 Dr. A. McDaniel When defining Gender Identity it is said to be a person’s inner sense of being male or female and this sense usually developed during early childhood as a result of parental rearing practices and societal influences and strengthened during puberty by hormonal changes (Dictionary.com). This journey will examine the gender identity among African Americans and highlight the importance of African American women to the women movement. An African American woman will be chosen and a discussion will be done on her importance to the women movement era. Then the journey will end with a discussion on the differences and similarities between African American female and male identity and how has female identity change in the last thirty years. In examining the gender identity among African Americans it is said to be that men exhibit masculine traits and women express feminine traits. Even though African American men and women experience devastating times during slavery their identity roles were different. Black males were the first slaves to be brought to the colonies because they were viewed as being valuable and do to their strength they could perform various duties like building and plowing. Black women were purchased to be field workers. Mainly they worked the fields and this was seen as domestic work for women slaves. In slavery the black women identity was also seen as an economic advantage...
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...African Americans: The Role of Race Abstract The Following Essay defines and integrates the role race plays on the African American culture in their family values and politics in comparison to the Anglo American Culture. The United States has become increasingly diverse in the last century. While African American families share many features with other U.S. families, the African American family has some distinctive features relating to the timing and approaches to marriage and family formation, gender roles, parenting styles, and strategies for coping with adversity. African cultures, slavery, slave rebellions, and the civil rights movements(circa 1800s-160s)have shaped African American religious, familial, political and economic behaviors. The imprint of Africa is evident in myriad ways, in politics, economics, language, music, hairstyles, fashion, dance, religion and worldview, and food preparation methods. In the United States, the very legislation that was designed to strip slaves of culture and deny them education served in many ways to strengthen it. In turn, African American culture has had a pervasive, transformative impact on myriad elements of mainstream American culture, among them language, music, dance, religion, cuisine, and agriculture. This process of mutual creative exchange is called creolization. Over time, the culture of African slaves and their descendants has been ubiquitous in its impact on not only the dominant American culture, but on world...
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...have always identified as a heterosexual African American female. With my grandparents trying to recover from what was taken from my Granny, my family considers us as lower middle class. My family is simply made up of white-collar workers that have excelled in their positions despite their cultural identities. I typically struggle with my racial identity because there are no societal efforts to show African Americans in positive light, especially African American females. I have always felt that it is definitely harder to be an African American female versus a white female. Today, most African American females are seen acting like buffoons on reality television or as struggling single mothers, while white females are typically on shows as doctors or happily married females. These identifications affect the education of students because it affects the way they learn, but also in the environments in which they learn. Schools reflect these notions by their geographical location, their student population, and most important...
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...Development of the African American Youth After reading the article, The Relationship Among Support, Ethnic Identity, Career Decision Self-Efficacy, and Outcome Expectations in African American High School Students Applying Social Cognitive Career Theory, a realization was made that cross-cultural research is going to be biased when a person brings in their own preconceived notion about race, education and careers. One thing for sure, is that there is a need for more research to be done. The barriers that African American youths endure in urban and rural surroundings go further than culture and racial socialization. In conflict with these contextual realities, African American youth are increasingly exposed to deracialized narratives...
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...America began transiting to the 19th and 20th century, African-American men and women were officially freed from slavery due to the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation and Thirteenth Amendment declared their freedom, they were deprived of their identity and became “emasculated by a peculiarly complete system of slavery.” The destruction of the African-American identity caused enslavement to a submissive mentality. The submissive mentality was a significant factor that slowed down the process of African-Americans expanding their knowledge and becoming American citizens. African-Americans faced the challenge of overcoming the mental blocks caused by slavery, which allowed them to revert their labor training and disregard the ability to succeed academically. Until African-Americans rallied a sufficient number of graduates from college, their help came from organizations that supported educating African-Americans and the Freedmen’s Bureau. Some organizations and Bureau agents from the Freedmen’s Bureau would send northern teachers to the...
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...of positions, both on the domestic front of African American politics and on the international front of the anticolonial politics of the emergent Third World.Du Bois explored and revealed the concept of double coinciousness in his book “The Souls of Black Folk”, which was published in 1903.he explained the term double concioussness to observe the thought process of both the Negro and an American.Du Bois has introduced this term to study the physcology of African American people living in the united states.he believes that double consciousness comes from African American viewing themselves through the eyes of the society.he states that sincle the black community have lived in a society that has devalued them and it has made it difficult for them to unify their black identity with the American identity.the concept of double concioussness enables the African Americans to view themselves from peoples point of view.in his book he has talked about the race relations in the united staes and talks in detail about it.he mentions in the book “The sense of looking at one’s self through the eyes of others”. Discussion Double consciousness Du bois has describe the term double consciousness as a process of describing an individual indentity.double consciousness describes the several facets of a human identity.Du Bois has used the concept of double consciousness as a theoretical model for understanding the physco social divisions in the American society.di bois describes double consciousness...
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...October 3, 2011/Fall 2011 African Diaspora & The World (SADW 111-05) Shaping my Diaspora Consciousness vs. Society An old saying about the African American slave trade still circulates amongst us today: "they set us 'free' while keeping us enslaved." After the abolishment of physical slavery, the self-esteem and sense of identity of many African Americans remained in the hands of the dominant race. Their tools of malice and control transitioned from whips and legislation to social stigmas and stereotypes. The social stigmas and stereotypes formed are the concepts of identity, race and gender. As notions of equality grew more popular, the malice diminished but the social stigmas and stereotypes remained. To deny their influence on the shaping of my identity would be equivalent to denying the slave trade's existence. Despite the relevance of both in today's society, both are starting to fade away into the thick cloud of historical amnesia that tends to grasp the minds of every American generation. In order to ensure that the lesson’s learned, and to be learned from both remain, it is imperative that such topics be discussed and evaluated. Identity is a complex shaped by individual characteristics. Gender is however a group defined by masculinity and femininity, the attributes attached to being born male or female. Race is framed by social relations and historical context. All social conceptions formed by social construction. People don’t have an understanding of how society...
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...Malcom X, in the speech The Ballot or the Bullet, invokes an emotional reaction within the audience by using the word “trapped.” Malcom X vocalized the fear African Americans feel by stating, “So we’re trapped, trapped, double-trapped, triple-trapped. Any way we go, we find that we’re trapped. Any kind of solution that someone comes up with is just another trap” The white aristocratic society African Americans are surrounded by leave them economically cornered. Malcom X reinforces the idea that African American’s feel trapped within their own community by using repetition. Malcom X reiterates the words “trapped” and “we” to reinforce the idea that the African American community is being affected as a whole. The word “we” emphasizes that Africa...
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...Double Consciousness In the United States, every minority sees the sense of division within themselves and the rest of the Americans. In 1903, W.E.B. DuBois expressed his internal conflict with his identity in Souls of Black Folk. DuBois explained, “It is a peculiar sensation, this double- consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks in amused contempt and pity.”, with double consciousness meaning that he felt his identity was divided into different faces and he could not be just one identity. (DuBois) It is hard for Blacks to unify their black and American identity because blacks have always been looked at as a “problem” in America. DuBois was...
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...Racism and the trauma that African Americans endure is not a new concept. Racism can be defined as a “socially organized set of practices that deny African Americans the dignity, opportunities, space, time, positions, and rewards this nation offers to white Americans. (Bryant Davis & Ocampo, 2005). The interplay of racism, ethnic identity development, and racial socialization appear to be dominant themes, as African Americans interface with the legacy of slavery. Although slavery was deemed illegal in 1865, its aftermath brought about specific trauma legacies in the form of laws and policies which supported the powerlessness of African Americans. This phenomenon is known as cultural trauma. Cultural trauma is the idea that slavery as the initial...
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