Artifacts And African-American Culture

For many centuries clothing was used namely as a form of symbolising one’s ascribed class and social honour. A good example of this was evident in Feudal European times when sumptuary laws were created in order to regulate and specify

Some suggested that it was a cultural heritage shared by both black and white southerners (Blassingame 1979; Holloway 2016).9 As with European peasants, preexisting cultures brought to urban America were suspect and were depicted as largely a rural, lower-class culture of poverty (Johnson 1930,

During the struggle to rise to a higher social class, many African Americans have chosen to embrace white ideals while rejecting their heritage and anything that associates one with their “blackness” This type of rejection to one’s culture has been shown many times in African American literature. In “The Wife of His Youth,” by Charles Chesnutt, and Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, the authors use their writing to show this disconnection; both Chesnutt and Ellison are able to capture the struggle and help their characters to overcome it by embracing their pasts, which can be a very difficult ideal in African American heritage.

From the earliest colonial settlements, folktales and fables circulated within slave communities in the South, reflecting the oral traditions of African societies and incorporating African symbolism and motifs. In colonial times, African American slaves practices oral traditions by telling fables and folktales. These stories were a way to express African American culture in the oppressive situation that the slaves were in. The stories often contained concepts that traveled from Africa.

Appropriation is very disrespectful and harmful to the culture being appropriated. In everyday society, African-American culture is being used to be “cool” and “different”. The fact that society values a white person for doing the same things black people having being doing for decades, “everyone wants to be black until it’s time to be black”, and allowing people to remain prejudice and/or ignore the racism the black community deals with, has led me to believe that the appropriation of African-American culture is significant and its effects cannot be ignored or washed away.

The people who lived during the Elizabethan Era were not allowed to wear whatever they like or desired. Their Fashion choices had to be followed by a strict law! The English people chose to establish social classes by the colors they wore and this had an affect on costumes used in theatre. Queen Elizabeth I followed the sumptuary laws, which was only certain classes were consent to wear specific fabric and colors. Therefore in plays the actors could only wear certain colors for their costumes that displayed what role and class their character was in. The clothes worn during this era was a result of Queen Elizabeth’s sumptuary laws, which had an affect on costumes used in plays, and each color a person wore had a significant meaning.

In order to understand hip-hop dance, it is important to recognize hip-hop music and where it came from. Many scholars of rap music relate the founding of rap to African and African American oral and musical traditions, specifically African griots and storytellers. They link the rhythm of rap to the use of drums in Africa and to African American music in the United States, from slave songs and spirituals to jazz and R&B. Scholars have found very interesting connections between rap music and Black nationalist traditions (traditions historically practiced by black people that serve as part of their racial identity). Rap is similar to the “call and response of the black church, the joy and pain of the blues, the jive talk and slang of the hipsters and jazz musicians, the boasting of street talk, the sidesplitting humor of comedians, and the articulateness of black activists.” All of these African American oral traditions, including rap, can be traced back to West African oral traditions. In traditional African societies, the spoken word and oral culture included poetry, storytelling, and speaking to drumbeats. The links between rap music and African American oral and musical traditions demonstrate that hip-hop music represents more than just sound. It represents history. This aspect of it, in my opinion, makes this type of music very unique and makes it carry more value.

One of the many dresses at that SCAD museums is a dove gray tulle gown that was custom made by Carolina Herrera. The gown was worn by Renee Zellweger wore to the 2011 Golden Camera Awards in Berlin Germany. The gown is made out of layers of dove gray tulle layered one on top of the other giving the gown an A line shape of the dress instead of a ball gown feel if it was mad out of another material. The tool also gives the gown a light airy feel and would give the gown a lot of movement as the wear walks. On the bodice of the dress is strapless with a straight across neckline give it a modest look to the wearer. On the dress is platinum embroidery lines the dress going up and down, with some curve where the top starts to flair out into the gown.

An American is somebody who is willing to except others culture, no matter how strange it is compared to the “American culture”. An American is somebody who excepts others reliogion, race, ethnictity, gender, and sexuality even if it opposes what he or she was raise to believe. An American is someone who doesn’t consider others as outsiders, but welcome new comers with great hospitality, and encourage them to bring along their culture. America itself was founded by immegrants from Spain, France, Great Britain, the later came African Americans and more. If America was founded by new comers who brought along their cultures and those cultures mixed to form America the Great then why cant, even more new cultures come and be mixed to create America the Greatest?

Looking at photograph two I learned that in that era black people were oppressed, discriminated against and used peaceful protest to gain equal rights. The photo shows a peaceful protest for equal rights, in the street orchestrated by African Americans. The book “How to Kill a Mockingbird” takes place during the 1930’s, but published in the 1960’s and the photo was taken during the Civil Rights Movement (the 1960's). The book may have reminded people of how it was in the past and how they needed to keep fighting.

This photo called attention to the issues in civil equality that are still prevalent today, it was the start of a very long fight for equality.

While the whole country is debating today’s racial issues after the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO and Baltimore protests over the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African American, a group of Chinese Americans have organized Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE) to fight for their children’s equal rights in the admissions to Ivy League colleges. In Chinese communities, Chinese newspaper commentaries, Chinese chat groups or discussions at any gatherings, it would seem that Ferguson, Baltimore, and other similar cases had never happened because our minds are somewhere halfway around the world. In this country, diversity, a multicultural phenomenon, surrounds us everywhere we go; however, it is something we look, but we don’t see simply because it doesn’t matter to us.

Rather improbably, perhaps, the necktie may have originated with the ancient Egyptians. Wrapped around the neck and a long rectangular fabric is hanging on the shoulder. It is similar to a short shawl and that is the prototype of neckties in the legend. This accessory has very important implication which represents the wearer's social status in ancient Egypt. Not the ordinary civilians, only the noble is eligible to wear it. Of ancient Egypt the modern tie is the derivative of a conceptual product which is a symbol of the feudal system in a sense. Inherited through the necktie evolution, it represents a clear class differentiation.

This chapter began with it was summertime 1999 in New York City platform. He didn't how to start conversation with this young, dreadlocked, in a baggy, charcoal gray jean suit. Somehow they stared conversation with gay people and god. Then he accused lesbianism and devil. He spoke in a assertively, artistically, and hurtfully, weaving language. There was was a young man in hip hop as hip hop artist, a feminist man and also lyrics composed. There is usually a man who is interested in hip hop but here was was a black woman who was also interested in hip-hop. On the subway platform this woman saw a bad side of hip-hop. Gender hip-hop has termed “femiphobia”. Hip-Hop is a masculine music. In this chapter it discuss about

Laws and policies related to special needs students are set in place to assist in providing an appropriate education in the most least restrictive environment possible for special needs students.