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.