The African American culture is one that has suffered from slavery, human rights violation, racism, discrimination, police brutality, and even gun violence. This has been as a result of the physical appearance and cultural characteristics of African Americans, which have singled them out in terms of their race and social class. The African American culture is one that is centred on African tradition and the American culture. It is a diversified culture that cannot fall dominantly on African or the American culture, and thus, it borrows from the aforementioned cultures. African Americans themselves have somehow failed to see themselves succeed though pursuing education and graduating with diplomas or degrees. This comes from the fact that a lot of narrative indicates that the African American ethnicity will achieve success through engaging in physical activities, instead of pursuing education. This paper provides a narrative of how the African American culture has perpetuated the cultural stereotypes that have been used to label community in contemporary America.
The African American culture came into being when slaves from Africa were brought to the U.S. to serve as working slaves in large plantations, in the southern states. The slavery continued for over 400 years after which it was abolished and the fight for rights for freedom started. In contemporary America, race and social class go hand in hand, and as one race is seen as superior to the other, then it tends to be considered as having a higher social class. Therefore, African Americans in most occasions have been categorized as the inferior race while white Caucasian have been in the category of the superior race. This understanding helps in analysing how stereotyping in contemporary American is present.
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"Narrative of African American Culture".
The African American culture has perpetuated the cultural stereotype that it is a race that does not value education. It has been seen as a culture that value co-curriculum activities more that class work, and as such a lot of youth from this race will avoid pursuing college diplomas and degrees since they perceive it as something that is not in their nature. African American youth will pursue sports and entertainment industry as they see it, as the only way in which people from their race become successful in life. Moreover, through this notion, government and non-governmental programs have somehow not focused on the education of African Americans, which they have seen as a culture that does not take education seriously. To ascertain that the society at large has stereotyped how education of African Americans is viewed, it is important to check how educational resources have been distributed among the people from a higher race compared to people from a lesser race.
Contemporary African American culture has influenced African American youths to engage in sporting and entertainment activities as they have the most chances of making a person successful. Therefore, the youth have ventured into singing, acting, dancing, and various sporting activities such as basketball and football. As such, when the youth grow up they focus on the talent they have, as their key to success, at the expense of education.
In recent months, which can also be extended to a couple of years back, there have been cases of gun violence and police brutality. This has resulted in rise of a number of deaths committed by police in African American neighbourhoods. African Americans have been seen as violent individuals who are ready to commit crime at any time and in any place. That view is expressed by police when they have shot unarmed individuals in a number of times. In some instances, the shot individuals had surrendered and others were fatality shot. The stereotyping comes from the 1960s when the struggle for human rights was at its peak. Police used absolute force to disperse thousands of protestors whenever a gathering was ensuing. During the fight for rights of freedom and activism in the 1960s the African American community has been stereotyped as violent, and just as it was back then, it is back now through police brutality and extrajudicial killings.
Stereotyping in contemporary America of the African American culture is present when crime is analysed. The approach that the law enforcement takes when they tackle crime in an African American neighbourhood is different from the approach used in a neighbourhood that hosts a different race. In the African American neighbourhoods, unarmed suspects in petty crimes such as home violence or disturbances have been fatally shot without questioning or being arrested. This has escalated the issue of human rights violation and disregarding to the constitution of the U.S. by the law enforcement.
The African American culture is also responsible for perpetuating stereotypes that have resulted in violating the rights of American citizens who in this case are African Americans. This was evident when racist organizations come together with the objective of undermining the rights of certain people based on their skin colour and place of ancestral origin. The racist people in this case are the white supremacists who want a contemporary America that is only composed of people belonging to the white race.
In essence, the stereotyping has basically been centred on skin appearance. However, the whole community of African Americans has suffered heavily through slavery, human rights violation, racism, discrimination, police brutality, and even gun violence. Contemporary America will be much better off, if it can strive to remove stereotyping of the African American culture by ensuring that human rights are observed as the constitution had spelled out.
