Voices in America

The video I looked at is by Ron Christie, under struggle. The first point that I picked from the text is black struggle. In the video he talks about how everything starts from the family. He also said that 80% of children in the African American Culture is born out of wedlock. On page 40 Cornel West says that there is loss of hope and absent of meaning in the black culture. He also said that black families need to come together and reestablish our black family roots because we have been missing this for generations. The second point I want to used is the black images. People tend to fellow the things that they see. So most likely if a mother had a child out of wedlock, her child might also repeat the same steps as the parents. In the book on page 42 Cornel West said that African Americans are influenced greatly by the images of comfort, convenience, machismo, femininity, violence, and sexual stimulation. SO what most people see, kind of inspire others to do it too. Cornel West also said on page 42 that these seductive images contribute to the predominance of the market-inspired way of life over all others-and thereby edge out nonmarket values-love,care,service to others-handed down by preceding generations. The third point i will use is liberal structuralist because the black community need to step up and form leaders. Cornel West said on page 44 that liberal Structuralist shapes the suffering and the lives of people. These are the people that you can call our freedom fighters, if we had more people that would complain about the things thats going on, maybe people will be more willing to do better and we could correct some of these problems that we face in the black community today.

Black Pleasure, Black Joy

In the introduction Cornel west said that joy is a collective experience, or at least provides the possibilities of one. So I compared the introduction to an article that I found on Ebony Magazine website called "Howard or Harvard?" In this article they talk about would people that went to HBCU's, had a chance to re-do their choice of colleges would they. They spoke about the good experiences during college and the great careers after college. The article also talks about how these black college is powerful, but after people go to them; they discovered isolation and the perception that their academic opportunities are unearned, leaving them even more insecure about race. It was said that people from ivy school would make more money than a person from an HBC. But when making your choice you should pick which ever will open the door for you and how wide do you want the door to open. I picked this article to go with the introduction because it had issues of collective struggles and that touched base with the article. The choice of college could affect how well you do in life; as when explaining pleasure Cornel West says you take it with you, and it's a highly individuated unit; and explains joy as being the possibility of bringing people together. So I was thinking if you do attend a HBC it would be kind of hard to bring people together because of the lack of diversity.

language retentions

Other research revealed beyond Hollaways focus on names was how Africans begin to speak English if they all ready didn't know it when they came here. Most Africans new English or a little English that was coming from west Indies or central Africa, the African along the coast was speaking Creole or pidgin. Most of the Africans had to learn English and fast because they were house servants; they picked up English faster because they interacted with the Europeans more then the field slaves.

Hollaways talks about how younger slaves learned how to speak and learn English before the adult slaves. The Africans that was born here had little trouble learning English than the ones that was not. The adult slaves would either speak no English or bad English, unlike their children. There were still generations of interactions with African speech patterns produced with the white Southern accent.

Asante's argument about Language retentions

The problem and weakness that I see about Asante's theory, is that Asante did not realize that Africans had their own way of speaking way before the came over to North America. Asante stated that most words from the African origin are either misspelled or African words interpreted as English words that blacks could not pronounce. Since Asante and other white American linguists failed to realize that Africans brought their own way of speaking habits with them; so they all think it's broken down or washed down English.

Asante also believe this is true because of slavery. He think during slavery, blacks lost their form of previous cultures. Asante says that slaveholders prohibit slaves from participating in traditional ceremonies and rituals; so Africans did not develop complete and formal art form. Then Turner says that no displaced of people have ever completely lost the forms or their previous culture and black retained basic components of the African rather than specific artifacts.

What Africans have Given America?

The first two examples that stand out to me about African retention is enslaved Africans, not free to openly transport kinship, courts, religion, and material cultures, were forced to disguise or abandon them during the middle passage and the Wolof and other Senegambians was the first Africans whose cultural elements and language were assimilated into and retained within the developing culture of America. Both of these examples are showing that the Slaves had to give up their cultural to adopt to the European cultural to fit their life style as house workers and servants. The slaves was retained from practicing what they were use to like religion and material culture; and forced to learn the Europeans ways and life style.

The Wolof and other Senegambians were the first African culture to come into the New World and form the basis of the New World African American culture. The west Africans came first and formed the culture because they had greater opportunity for admixture and interaction with other races more than any other group. When they first came to North America trained as house servants and other jobs that they had to interact with the Europeans. The slaves that had to interact with the Europeans are the ones that formed the New World African American Cultures, the slaves that worked in the field did not interact with the Europeans so they did not have to adapt that much to their life style.

West Africans and Central Africans

The point that i highlighted between the West Africans and the Central Africans was cultural interaction. I choose this because the West and Central Africans both dealt with this Whites (European) Americans directly. The West Africans that was Guinea that were called Wolofs was made into house servants; which means they had to adjust to their masters language, culture, and mixtures between the Africans and Europeans. When the Central Africans arrived to North America some also became house servants and even planters; that cased the Africans to adapt to the Europeans ways and forced to develop their culture.

Some parts of these two different regions of Africans cultures have not been lost. The Europeans placed different groups of Africans to what they was familiar with. If a group of Africans were good planters they gave them the role of growing rice, cotton, and other things; they gave another group of Africans to look over other Africans. But Africans was traced to be using words like ok, bogus, boogie moogie that they were not using before they arrived in North America. Most Africans were able to retain their cultural but in the New World alot of it has changed because of the mixing and habits they adapted to.

Race, Life, Death, Identity, Tragedy, and Good Faith

The first point that are similar between these two stories was race. In today's world many people still can't get alone with people that look different from them, talk different from then, or dress different from them. People always categorize others before they get to know them.

The second point that caught my attention were that both stories needs a rebuilding system. In Naomi Zack story Race, Life, Death, Identity, Tragedy, and Good Faith it says that if your racialized that demographically their lives are shorter and they are more likely to be mudered than a nonracialized person. So if people could come together there would be less death because of race.

The third point that stands out to me from both stories; is that you have to find yourself. In Curry A Paradigm for Transformative Education if the people was able to get the education they needed they would have been able to create their on idenity. In Zack story Race, Life, Death, Identity, Tragedy, and Good Faith idenity could of been found by; taking care of their selves and focusing more on there lives than others

A Paradigm for Transformative Education

First Point

The need to rebuild the education system

• "integrating elements for knowledge"
• The prevailing American view of education does not see culture differences positively.
• "if we are to achieve the objectives of reorientation and integration in education."
• "critical relativism"
• "The Need for a New Organon in Education."
  

Second Point
People are focused on race, location, and class more than education

• "dominant culture"
• "institutional inertia to achieving diversity"
• Lacke argues that racial temperaments are regularly traceable to historical economic and social causes.
• Cultural pluralism.
• "the belief that before people of different races and cultures can live together they must adhere to the same principles and values.
• "relativism"
  

Third Point
People need others to look up to (Role Models)

• Our behavior, thoughts, perception, values, goals, morals, and cognitive processes count as knowledge that is derived from our cultures.
• "functional adaptations"
• this approach also understands that we truly know ourselves only when we know ourselves in relation to others; similarly, we can appropriately appropriate one another's experiences.

These are the three most important points in this story to me. In the African American culture today; i see a lack of role models that children can look up to, i see that while going to school that there are other obstacles that you still have to face; like race, location, and things to wear; i also see that some school systems need to be rebuild, and help more people get educated so that others can feed off one another.