African American Culture Research Paper

Words: 1307
Pages: 6

African American culture has always been seen as a culture of resistance. The difference between African American culture and the rest of the world lies within the historical experiences of black slavery and the structure of American society itself. The people who believe in its practices and form their own individual identities based on that culture identify within that culture. Criminality, sexuality, and poverty overshadow the historic and influential members of the black community and are therefore associated with inferior attributes.
The African American race and black culture have endured extreme criticism and scrutiny. Black households are often led by a motherly figure creating a lack of male authority and disruption in the hegemonic
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Black inferiority in the United States stemmed from slavery as early back as the 17 th and
18 th century. The United States was founded and built from the extensive use of slavery to form the colonies when the British first colonized the Americas. Because of this long and abusive history of slavery, African Americans as well as Blacks in other regions of the world have been dehumanized in the eyes of their peers. Slavery and unequal rights are the primary causes for what is known as the poverty cycle and initiated negative ideas about Black culture.
Consequently, following post civil war and reconstruction era, African Americans fought for equal pay but were met with an economic decline. An economic decline led to low personal income, which then leads to less access to food and water. A general reduced source of resources also means no funds for school and generally a lack of adequate education. Without adequate education, one is unable to positively contribute to national productivity. Blacks have become so accustomed to living in the poverty cycle; it’s a natural way of life. Everything from
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Franklin Frazier but later deeply explained by Moynihan going deep into the black roots of poverty. During the mid 1960s, the
Civil Rights Movement aided in the eradication of de jure racism creating an opportunity for the disadvantaged members of the United States to have equal opportunities, but the Moynihan report publicized that equal outcome was not the result. Moynihan believed that the problem behind African American culture lie within a cultural deficiency of African American individuality. African Americans are believed or expected to act in a manner that is different from societal norms.
Many surveys were conducted during the Moynihan report of African American families with dependent children who were of color and were compared to data of those families who

were white. According to the report, many members of the African American community were not apart of a nuclear family. Roughly eight percent of white women dealt with a lack of a husband or encountered divorced in the 1960s and given the same conditions, nonwhite