African American Academic Discipline Studies Sample Essay

African American Studies is a alteration agent for the political orientation of Black Americans. Black surveies as an academic subject serves to reorient the position of African Americans in an attempt to recover a sense of pride and cultural individuality stolen by white society.

Abstraction
Ever since the Europeans forcefully brought Africans west. black people have struggled with a loss of their true civilization and individuality. The exposure of a displaced and exploited race subjected them to see conformance and assimilation as a Panacea for racism. favoritism. and subjugation. It wasn’t until the sixtiess that pupils began to recognize and protest the traditional methods of higher acquisition where the course of study was taught through the White position without the recognition of parts black people have made to society. Through mass meetings and organisations. it was made clear that something had to be done about the stolen political orientations of African Americans being replaced with an mentality from the European position. African American Studies is a alteration agent for the political orientation of Black Americans. Black surveies as an academic subject serves to reorient the position of African Americans in an attempt to recover a sense of pride and cultural individuality stolen by white society.

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Critical Review of Scholarship
I will be mentioning to multiple articles and in-class treatments to explicate the beginning. development and intent of African American/Black/Africana Studies. The names for the classs and sections: African American Studies. Black Studies. and Africana Studies. will be used interchangeably. James Stewart’s and Talmadge Anderson’s article. “Introduction to African American Studies: Transdisciplinary Approachs and Implications” will help me in speaking about the history and development of Black Studies while besides supplying the definition of “Black Power. ” I will besides be mentioning to the article. “Dr. Nathan Hare” from blackthinktank. com to discourse Dr. Nathan Hare’s function in Africana Studies. From in-class treatments. I will draw a twosome points from the picture of Dr. Julia Hare and Stokely Carmichael to add more value to Africana Studies and the significance of Black Power. Discussion

In order to understand the intent of reorienting the position of African Americans and the beginning of Black Studies. it must foremost be clear why the current orientation is incorrect. Upon geting in America. Blacks were forced to conform to the ways of western colonialism. “Americanization” for Blacks meant ( and unluckily still means ) to “subscribe to and follow White Western Anglo-Saxon history and culture… ( It ) requires their societal and cultural version to White middle-class norms and European values. ”1 Curriculum in larning establishments did non include the benefactions of Africans on society. After many coevalss of larning everything about what it is to be White. African American people lost clasp of what it means to be Black.

Their heads were unwittingly disoriented from being taught to see the universe from a White man’s position ; and what a White man’s position was. was that it was bad to be black. To be knowing was to cognize White history ; to be cultured was to cognize White art ; to be American was to cognize Whiteness. Black people began to believe they themselves were inferior. making for the Whiteness placed on a base in forepart of them. Their sense of pride was lost. What would hold been the point of seeking a connexion with your hereditary political orientation if everything one learned says it is unwanted? Black was non beautiful ; it was ugly. This understanding was accepted until the sixtiess – a clip “marked by the outgrowth of pupil power. ”

African American pupils ( and enlightened White pupils ) conceived that the traditional ways of American instruction was non at all in the involvement of black people. The realisation of the absence of and the desire for Blackness in instruction began to boil in the pot of establishments for higher acquisition after the constitution of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ( SNCC ) and the impulse they created towards get rid ofing racial favoritism. Black Power. the thought of “…African Americans commanding the societal. political. and economic establishments in their community. ”3 coined by Stokely Carmichael. harvested the support of inkinesss across America as they saw that “integration is the semblance of inclusion. ”4 The thought of “Black Power” was meant “…to start conveying black people together under a motto that everyone understood. ”5 “Students began to dispute the significance and intent of instruction and forced colleges and universities to review their function and map in American Society… ( They ) demonstrated that instruction should and did function to edify a people relative to their civil rights and societal justness. “

The birth of first section for Africana Studies took topographic point on the campus of San Francisco State College on February 1. 1968 during a “five-month work stoppage by a campus-wide. multiracial alliance of 1000s of pupils and module members. ”7 Dr. Nathan Hare was called in by college president. S. I. Hayakawa. to compose a proposal and go the first coordinator of the new Black surveies plan. Prior to Dr. Hare’s credence of Hayakawa’s offer. he had been a professor at Howard University. At Howard. he joined with “militant” pupil leaders to make a Black University Manifesto. which said. “…the Negro University…should be overhauled and transformed into ‘a black university. relevant to the black community and its demands. ’”8 Dr. Hare wanted to edify the pupils of Howard on the status of black people in America in hopes of them going the “…leading Negroes if non the Negro leaders’ and in bend have an impact on the full race. ”9 However. his program was cut short when he and five other professors were fired from Howard for prosecuting in activities associated with the Black Power Movement. His acquittal from Howard was boding for his experience at San Francisco State when his refusal to side with Hayakawa and stop the work stoppage resulted in the decline of his contract reclamation. With his end still in sight. Dr. Hare continued to advance Blackness and joined the Black Student Union and others in the work stoppage for Black surveies.

The beginning of Africana Studies is realisation of how America’s instruction system was suppressing the heads of Black people and farther promoting “racialist and racialist thoughts. ”10 Africana surveies serves to “reclaim the heads of our children”11 so they can be able to battle a of course racist society and push anti-Black attitudes and sentiments out of the societal dynamic. Knowledge of and connexion with 1s beginning is what will turn American from a thaw pot. where the ingredients are assorted and blended so finely that their individualism is unrecognisable. to a salad where every add-on is embraced with its ain form. colour. feel. and gustatory sensation. With the repossessing of the true individuality of Black people and the instruction system stressing the “equality. interrelation. and mutuality of all races. ”12 Black people will be able to boom at their extreme potency.

Notes

1. Talmadge Anderson and John Stewart ; “Introduction to African American Studies: Transdisciplinary Approachs and Implications. ” Introduction and Development of African American Studies. ( 2007 ) : 32

2. Anderson and Stewart. Introduction and Development of African American Studies. 27

3. Anderson and Stewart. Introduction and Development of African American Studies. 30

4. Dr. Woods. Dr. Julia Hare Video

5. Dr. Woods ; Stokely Carmichael Video

6. Anderson and Stewart. Introduction and Development of African American Studies. 27

7. The Black Think Tank ; “Dr. Nathan Hare. ” hypertext transfer protocol: //blackthinktank. com/Drnathanhare. hypertext markup language. ( 2013 ) : 1

8. The Black Think Tank. Dr. Nathan Hare. 2

9. The Black Think Tank. Dr. Nathan Hare. 3

10. Anderson and Stewart. Introduction and Development of African American Studies. 33

11. Dr. Woods. Dr. Julia Hare Video

12. Anderson and Stewart. Introduction and Development of African American Studies. 34

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