Introduction to African American Studies

[afam200-blog]

[afam200-blog]

[love-finds-me]

10 Horrifying Facts About the Sexual Exploitation of Enslaved Black Women written by Taylor Gordon is a article that analyzes the over-sexualization of African American females bodies in the media. In the article, the last fact stated by the author explained the reasoning behind why black female bodies were being shown as sexual desires in media, mainly through music. The author pointed out that the sexual violation of black women in the past has influenced a certain stereotype shown in the media today. Gordon referred to the word “jezebel” and according to Marilyn Yarbrough with Crystal Bennett’s book, Cassandra and the “Sistahs”: the Peculiar Treatment of African American Women in the Myth of Women as Liars Journal of Gender, Race and Justice, the definition of that word is “the promiscuous female with an insatiable sexual appetite.“ Gordon indicates that the jezebel stereotypes shown in mainstream media by artists’ such as Nicki Minaj, are from the sexual exploitation of enslaved black women. It paved a way for black women to be shown seductively through media and made that “idea” a social norm within today’s society. Now, due to the acceptance of those stereotypes (perception of black women), it creates a major social injustice issue.

http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/11/05/10-horrifying-facts-about-the-sexual-exploitation-of-enslaved-black-women-you-may-not-know/5/  

[humanizeblackness-blog]

The scholarly source I chose for this sixth blog post is the same as the previous week, but from the section entitled “The Mature Years: Producing and Sustaining”. In this section, authors Roberts and Wooten examine how community-based programs serve as a way for Black Greek Leadership Organizations to remain active. Among these programs were joint community service initiatives with well established organizations like Habitat for Humanity, March of Dimes, the United Negro College Fund, and the United Nations. Examples of these partnerships include  Sigma Gamma Rho working with March of Dimes to create a Healthy Start program for African American children. Additionally, Iota Phi Theta created a program to mentor boys from the ages of eight and thirteen, Phi Sigma Beta created a campaign to help curb teen pregnancy rates. Black Greek Leadership Organizations also work beyond the borders of the United States, with service projects focused within Africa and the Caribbean. Sigma Gamma Rho and Alpha Phi Alpha organized a project which provided needed grain grinders for African female farmers. Partnerships like these exhibit how BGLOs are open to getting involved in matters that serve both their local, and global communities. At the heart of the service work done by BGLOs, there has always been a focus on how to empower the black community. The Divine Nine use programs like these to sustain their organizations’ intentions to commit to social change within their communities.

[themelaninmemoirs]

Further Research

MEDIA CONTRIBUTIONS TO AFRICAN AMERICAN GIRLS’ FOCUS ON BEAUTY AND APPEARANCE: EXPLORING THE CONSEQUENCES OF SEXUAL OBJECTIFICATION (Link)

Media Contributions to African American Girls’ Focus on beauty and Appearance: Exploring the Consequences of Sexual Objectification

This research study sought to examine how young African American girls are affected by the media’s frequent depictions of Black women as sexual objects. Maya K. Gordon examined the relationship between the intake of Black media imagery and adolescent Black girls’ focus on beauty and appearance. Through issuing surveys to 176 African American girls, who were 15 years old on average, Gordon found results which suggested that the exposure to and identification with portrayals of over-sexualized Black women in the media played a contributing factor in young Black girls “emphasizing the importance of appearance in their own lives and for girls In general.”

I think it is incredibly important to pay heed to research findings such as these. Due to the dominant image of Black women being only as valuable as their physical attractiveness and/or sex-appeal, young Black girls are internalizing warped value systems before they even reach late high school. Instead of adolescence being a time of reaching within oneself and discovering parts of our own identity, for little Black girls, it appears to be a time in life where one begins to conform to a narrow and ill-intentioned vision of what we should be as women. Not only is the hypersexualized idea of Black women affecting the way that other people see us, but it is also affecting the way we see ourselves.

[racheljsay-blog]

“Black To The Future”

The movie “Back to the Future” is a huge deal right now because it’s 2015, the year in the future that the main characters in the movie travel to. I find this interesting because 2015 is completely different from what the movie predicted. The Black Voices section of The Huffington Post published an article raising questions about how far America has truly come since the movie was created. The article is in response to a parody called “Black to the Future.” The parody follows Goldie (the token black person) who in the original movie became mayor of the town by 2015, in the parody he gets shot by a cop who “thinks” Goldie’s walkie-talkie is a gun. The video really does a great job of showing how prevalent racism still is, even though there is no colored entrance anymore and we have a black president. The video really emphasizes the dangers of simply living while black, it really embodies the nightmares every black mother has about her son getting shot by the police walking out of the corner store, it shows how far we have come but how far we truly have to go. Another article I read, by Ian Simpson, titled: “Prosecution Of U.S. Police For Killings Surges To Highest In Decade” really got me thinking about the black lives matter movement. The article talks about how the prosecution rate has surged, not the death rate. Which means black lives have consistently been taken before with no consequences for some time now. It reinforces the reason that “Black Lives Matter” must constantly be reiterated. How petrifying is it to think that the only reason there are consequences for one person taking the life of another human being is because day in and day out people are tirelessly working to remind America that black lives really do matter. So yes it is now 2015… but how far has America truly come?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/prosecution-police-killings_562e26aee4b0ec0a3894eb23?utm_hp_ref=black-voices&ir=Black%2BVoices§ion=black-voices&utm_hp_ref=black-voices

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-to-the-future-parody-shows-that-racism-still-isnt-a-thing-of-the-past_562799dde4b08589ef49dfeb?utm_hp_ref=black-voices

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oyz1KwcTyjg

[afam200-blog]

Fascinating - I didn't see this.

[mytevthedreamer44-blog]

This post is to serve as a statement of propose for our project and what we plan to discover about this topic. We hope to find out if the divine 9 more commonly known as the NPHC can survive under growing pressure to change their methods of gaming membership into each respected organization. Also we hope to look at what these organization do to serve the African American community, do these orgs help serve the needs of fellow black people or does more need to be done by the NPHC to strengthen the black community? During our discovery of the divine 9 we hope to find and highlight the positives of these orgs but also what can be improved on from the outside looking in. 

[tpigram-blog]

This article does a complete study of the 50 states’ responses or lack there of to making the education and empowerment of black males a priority for them to have high academic achievement. This article highlights various policy solutions to implement into the classroom.  I found this very interesting because many of these solutions involve encouraging and teaching students to be politically and culturally aware and promoting diversity and commonality into the classroom.  Many people believe education of required topics is the only aspect to increasing academic success so to identify these social entities within the educational system shows that empowering black males to foster academic achievement is extremely complex and should encompass a range of various solutions that contribute to making these students conscious students first and in turn, they will want to learn and grow in education.

[mykveney]

This video was released by the sheriff of Fairfax County that details the death of Natasha McKenna. 37-year old McKenna was being held in a Fairfax County jail for the alleged assault of a police officer. She was later removed from her cell and can be heard saying, “You promised you wouldn’t kill me,” and was handcuffed, tased multiple times, and forced to have a bag over her head. Upon restraint, McKenna loses consciousness and is transported to a hospital where she dies three days later. McKenna’s death was ruled “accidental” caused by “excited delirium associated with physical restraint including use of a conductive energy device, contributing: Schizophrenia and Bi-Polar disorder.” This video is significant because it shows how disvalued the lives of African Americans are and how they are handled in police custody. This video illustrates the disrespect, assault, and devaluation of how McKenna is handled in police custody.

[mykveney]

[livinginc0l0r-blog]

Ernestine Johnson Performs “The Average Black Girl” on Arsenio’s show. “The Average Black Girl” is in the point of a view of a black woman who expresses how American Society portrays her. 

[beatthesystem-bethesystem-blog]

Invest in Education, Not Incarceration - Push Back Against School Pushout

The Dignity in Schools Campaign 4th Annual National Week of Action Against School Pushout is taking place September 28-October 5, 2013.

This video displays the vast difference in the amount of money spent on prisons and juvenile detention center in comparison to public schools. It also explains the school-to-prison pipeline as many public schools call the police to come arrest students as opposed to writing them up, giving them detention or assigning them in-school suspension. It is clear that the zero tolerance method of discipline does not instill obedience but instead increases the prison population. 

[taylorjsblog-blog]

WWYD? - White & Black Teens Vandalize Cars..But Who Will Get Arrested?? Racist Pedestrians!!

As i said, i'm re-uploading all of the older scenarios slowly so these are all just scenes you may or may not have seen already. In this scenario we witness ...

What Would You Do is a show on ABC where actors are chosen to portray a scenario and hidden cameras are used to show how the public will react to the situation at hand.  What I love about this show is it shows true character and the people watching the actors have no idea they are being watched and that the people are actors so it has a genuine feel- you can’t fake the truth.  In this video John Quinones, the host of the show, has set up three white teens to vandalize a prop car owned by ABC in a park in broad daylight to see how people in the neighborhood would react.  People eyed the boys and went on about their walk or jog or day only a few people stopped to say anything to the boys and only ONE call to 911 was made to report the vandalism.  Before ABC switched the White teen actors with the Black teen actors there were two other calls made to 911 about “a future robbery.”  Someone called 911 to report of Black teens asleep in a car in that same park and stated that they seemed suspicious like they were going to rob someone…. (they were only sleeping in the car).  The teens in that car were simply the family to one of the Black actors and they were waiting for them to start their portion of acting the vandalism in the park.  During the scenario with the Black teens so many people not only approached them but also called the police to report the crime.  One woman said, “How dare you come to our backyard and do something like this,” as if these young Black boys can’t possibly be from/ live in that neighborhood because they were Black, they’re outsiders because of the color of their skin, they can’t possibly belong.  The difference between the Black and White actors in the case was ten 911 calls and one 911 call.  What I find most interesting about this video is the fact that TWO calls were made WHILE the White teens were vandalizing the car about the Black teens SLEEPING in a car.  If they were White they’d simply be White teens sleeping in a car, but because they’re Black everything they do is criminalizing… sleeping looks like robbery.

[jazsimone94-blog]

Blog Post 7 

Dignity in Schools Bay Area 2013 Week of Action Video Series, Part 4: Investment in Education Not Incarceration:

This short video discusses issues dealing with the “push out” method that takes place in schools as a way to punish students. Instead of using counselors as a resource for students to use for someone to talk to , work out problems with, and help guide them, they are using police officers as a way to keep students in control. Unfortunately this is causing more problems than people think. Yes, it is important for a control system to be put into place in public schools that may need them most, however, it is not okay to put more money and effort into putting students away to jail than it is to educate them. 

[sarahnawab]

This video describes one of the effects of the misrepresentation of African Americans in television news media.

[fbaez2-blog]

The scholarly article that I chose was Michael J. Pfeifer’s “The Northern United States and the Genesis of Racial Lynching: The Lynching of African Americans in the Civil War Era.” In his article Pfeifer talks about lynching being a national issue not just a Southern thing on the Mason-Dixon Line. In my Introduction to African and African American Studies course we discussed the faulty myth that slavery was just a Southern thing. Lynching, like slavery, was something that occurred everywhere. Lynching as we discussed in class was the mutilation, burning, hanging of blacks. Pfeifer talks about how racially motivated violence was not new. He says, “White southerners had collectively murdered African Americans during slavery, engaging in extralegal executions by hanging and burning at least forty-four slaves in the South from 1824-1862.” (Pfeifer, 622).  This article further shows how black bodies were devalued, commodities that were easily disposable.

Pfeifer discusses in his article the hanging of Marshall Clarke, and African American in Milwaukee. Clarke and a friend, James Shelton were walking and two white men by the names of Darby Carney and John Brady, saw Clarke and Shelton interacting with White women. An argument ensued ending with Shelton stabbing Carney. On September 6, 1861 50-75 Irishmen swarmed the jail, grabbed Clarke beating him along the way, and hung him.  Pfeifer argues that lynching was supported nationally. In Clarke’s hanging, bells were rung from the fire department to summon the community to watch. These lynchings/racial violence are powerful reminders that black lives of men, women, and children, have been repeatedly abused, tortured, and dehumanized. Pfeifer only writes about 2 lynchings in detail. How many lynchings actually took place from slavery to now in 2015? Too many lives were taken because of white supremacy and the idea that our brown skin makes us less than. We have value.

http://search.proquest.com/pqrl/docview/840968524/fulltextPDF/CD5EA20E9CBD449BPQ/6?accountid=14541

[blkmetacognition-blog]

This video is significant because one it makes light of the whole idea of Black Lives Matter. Instead of using their research team to provide the history behind this development and further educate the public on the situation as a whole Bill O’Reilly attempts to frame this complex deep idea into a box in shallow waters. Removing the history of State neglect and oppression in order to paint a false image of the movement, the idea, and the people. Such actions being done by a major social institution is further proof that Our groups social problem of raising the value of back lives is relevant and significant.