Blood Quantum

    The plight of Afro-Native Americans is a very moving one. It shows that it is not only the white majority who can exclude other races from their culture. The situation with the Cherokee Freedmen is a perfect example of minorities victimizing other minorities.

   The Cherokee Freedmen had lived alongside the Cherokee Indians for most of their lives. They voted on tribal affairs and participated in the Native-American stomp dances.  However, when the tribal council passed a law requiring all Cherokee members to have a certificate of Degree of Native-American blood these Cherokee Freedmen were, for all intents and purposes, kicked out of the tribe. They were cut off from the benefits that they had enjoyed for many years and were now outcasted from the land they had once called home.
    The fact that people who were so intrinsic to Cherokee culture were ousted at the drop of a hat just goes to show how flawed the use of blood quantum is when determining who is and isn't Native-American. Using the discipline of history, we can easily see how closely the Cherokee Freedmen and the Cherokee Indians have lived for most of their lives. The fact that they are now no longer considered part of the tribe is a great injustice to both the current Freedmen and the hardships that they ancestors went through.

They ate Crow

    The connection between Latin America and African-Americans has not been frequently highlighted in popular media. In this week's English 003 reading we looked at Jennifer Domino Rudolph's essay "Pidieron Cacao". The title roughly translates to 'They ate Crow', a reference to one of Don Omar's shout-outs in his first album. Don Omar is a  Reggaeton artist of some repute and Rudolph analyzes his life and music to show the connection between the Latin world and Afro-American world.
   Reggaeton was created out of a mixture of different musical forms from the Caribbean region such as Jamaican dancehall, salsa, merengue, hip-hop and variety of other forms. This diverse set of influences can lead to vastly different songs all being classified as reggaeton. An example of this is Daddy Yankee's 'Ella me Levanto' and his other song 'Gasolina'.

  

   It's similarity to Hip-Hop has caused it to be extremely popular among urban youth and other fans of Hip-hip. The 'gangsta' mentality is present in both genres and they both share similar musical ideas. It is a perfect example of how African and Latino ideas can come together to produce a popular form of music. The similarity also highlights how both groups of people, who have been continually oppressed by the white majority have dealt with the issues that have resulted from their subjugation. They have both glorified wealth and constructed the 'gangster' archetype. At the same time, both cultures have analyzed the impacts and issues of poverty and inner-city living. In this way Reggaeton shows that African-American's and Latinos and much different from each other at all. 

Work Cited:

Rudolph, Jennifer D. "Pidieron Cacao: Latinidad and Black Identity in the Reggaeton of Don Omar." Centro 23.1 (2011): 31-53. Print.

"Left Out"

   This week our class analyzed the essay "Left Out" by Adrian Burgos which argued the case for the induction Afro-latino baseball players into the Negro League's award showcase. These Afro-latino players were just as marginalized from the mainstream as African-Americans. In some cases they were pushed away by their African-American teammates. Many of them were equally as instrumental as African-Americans in breaking down the racial barriers that divided and restricted baseball in the early years of the sport, but have become forgotten and ignored in spite of their accomplishments.

   This article highlights the plight of most people of mixed race. They are considered a minority of a minority, marginalized by the people who are supposed to be their brothers. This plight is addressed in Willie Perdomo's poem "Nigger-reecan Blues", where he talks about exactly what race he is considered to be and what hardships he has endured due to this ambiguity. He talks about how both blacks and latinos have had to overcome the same kind of obstacles. 

   Both of these readings provide strong insights into the struggles of those of mixed race and make it easy to see that race relations are much more complicated than many people believe them to be.


Work Cited:

Burgos Jr., Adrian. "Left Out." Social Text 98. Vol. 27. 2009. 37-38. Print.

Where are we?

    In preparation for writing my essay for English class, I came across a couple of sources that examined the problem of under-representation of the minorities in popular culture such as movies, music and theatre arts.
   A study by a sociologist named A.J. Weavers showed that whites preferred to watch movies that had an all white cast rather than movies which contained non-whites in leading roles. It's surprising to hear that this kind of casual racism still exists in a modern society. It just shows that society still has a lot of work to do before we reach the point each race is viewed equally.
  The other source I used was one that I used looked at the history of blacks in cinema. It doesn't take much research to realize that blacks and minorities were heavily stereotyped and marginalized in early cinema and entertainment. The movie "Birth of a Nation" is perfect example of the kind of racism that was seen in the early days of cinema. Even though many film critics consider it to be a technical masterpiece, many of the "black" people portrayed in the film were actually whites in blackface behaving stereotypically. The United States Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the national film registry for having "historical, cultural or aesthetic significance" even though it contains these racial stereotypes.
   These sources provide very compelling evidence that minorities throughout the decades have been marginalized and stereotyped by the white majority. It's unsettling that films that contain racism and negative stereotypes are viewed by some people as being masterpieces.

Work Cited:

Weaver, A.J. “The Role of Actor's Race in White Audiences' Selective Exposure to Movies.” Journal of Communication 61.2 (2011)

Cripps, T. Afrcana Encyclopedia. Web. February 16^th 2011.

Argumentative Essay

   In Stuart Hall's Essay ,"What is "Black" in Black culture", he makes a point that the space for minorities in popular culture is extremely constrained and regulated. I agreed with him and decided to base my first argumentative essay on this topic. This control on the space allowed can be seen in almost every part of popular culture, from film and television to music and theatre.
   It's easy to see that minorities don't get to play as much roles as white actors in mainstream film. A quick  glance at the most popular movies in America shows that minorities have only minor supporting roles if they have any roles at all. I suppose, there are some exceptions. Black actors like Will Smith and Denzel Washington have gained a lot of fame and are known for being very good leading men. However, there are no latino or native americans with the same amount of fame as them in mainstream film. Most minorities are forced to play sidekicks to main actors or to provide comic relief. Action films such as The Fifth Element, Lethal Weapon and the recent Cop Out all feature African-Americans playing the comic relief sidekick to a white leading actor. Almost no films have this formula played out in reverse and gain mainstream success.
   This constraint can also be seen in music. African-Americans only become famous when performing rap and hip-hop but are not anywhere near as well-known when they branch out into other genres. Other minorities are almost unheard of in the mainstream. Native-Americans have no famous singers or performers and latinos are almost as under-represented. When you look at whites, you see that they have much more freedom in the cultural space than the minorities, while still retaining fame. Eminem and Robin Thicke have both gained faming performing rap and R&B respectively, two genres that have traditionally been considered to be "Black".
   As it stands, minorities don't have a lot of freedom in their cultural space as whites. Hopefully, this will change in the coming years as the internet and a freer flow of information allows minorities to gain attention with greater ease than in past eras.

What are we?

   The question of what it means to belong to a certain race has been asked many times by many people concerned with racial issues. Many people with defined it solely by where one's parents come from. Others would simply define it by the colour of one's skin and other superficial physical features. In his essay "What is this "Black" in Black popular culture?", Stuart Hall attempts to analyze how blacks are viewed in popular culture. He described our culture as one that has transitioned from being completely invisible in earlier times to having a "regulated, segregated visibility". "Black" culture has always been there, influencing American popular culture with their music and art. Hip hip and even rock-and-roll have their roots in African-American culture.
   However, the conclusion of Dr. Hall's essay is what struck me as the most interesting part. His final idea is that, just like the 'American' culture, there is no one 'black' culture. The idea that 'black' culture directly opposes the popular culture instead of influences is not a very progressive one. This seems to me to be the same kind of mindset that the people who create movies and music that completely exclude minorities seem to follow. There is no one way to represent all of black culture in one movie or play because of how we have been scattered across America. Blacks that live in New York are not the same as those who live in Atlanta, as anyone who has spent a day at Howard University can attest. Similarities may exist but there are just as many differences that separate us from each other.
   This issue is only complicated when we considered those of mixed ancestry. Afro-latinos and afro-native americans are rarely ever talked about or acknowledged, even in the essays like Stuart Hall's. He makes no mention of these minorities who could also be considered to fall under the umbrella of African culture yet seem to be invisible to most cultural essayists, even black ones.
   Maybe this why we find it so hard to relate to the movies that are supposedly made for black people. Maybe this is the reason why movies like Tyler Perry are criticized for being stereotypic of blacks rather than representative. It is because we are searching for a quintessential black identity when there really is none. The black culture itself is just as varied as that of America as a whole. Before we can be critical of those who try to represent us and fail we must decide exactly what we want to have represented.

Ethnic Pride Banned?

   It would seem that Arizona has once again become a hotbed for racial issues. Not even two years ago, the state passed a law, SB 1070, that many felt would encourage racial profiling towards Latino-Americans in an effort to cut down on illegal immigration. This year, the Arizona state legislature voted in a 4-1 majority to terminate the Arizona school district's Ethnic Studies program for Mexican-Americans. They also sought to ban various books from their school, many of them teaching latino-centric values and taught to rethink the euro-centric teachings of regular classes. Others, like Shakespeare's "The Tempest", were banned simply because they had a central theme of race and oppression.
   Arizona has a long history of racially charged laws, especially towards Mexican-Americans. During the 1950's Arizona was one of the few states to segregate Mexican-Americans into different schools separate from the whites.(Goddard 2005) The passing of this new law isn't much of a surprise given the state's racial history but still raises questions about why the state finds it necessary to ban these books and abolish these classes. The law, HB 2281, says that it "bans schools from teaching classes that are designed for students of a particular ethnic group, promote resentment or advocate ethnic solidarity over treating pupils as individuals." However, are classes that teach ethnic solidarity really so bad? Many Mexican-American live in cities where their national heritage is ignored or not treated with the same amount of respect as white and european based cultures. In many cases these classes are the only ones in which these children learn about their past from a Latino perspective.
   It is unfortunate to see the Arizona school board taking away one of the few classes in which Mexican-Americans can be proud and have some sense of togetherness. Once again, it seems, the people who consider themselves 'normal' feel that they have a right to dictate on how things should be. 




Goddard, Terry. (2005) The promise of Brown v. Board of education. Retrieved from: http://www.azag.gov/civil_rights/Brown%20v%20Board%20Monograph.pdf
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/12/nation/la-na-ethnic-studies-20100512