week 8 responses

Your two responses are due Friday, 11:55 p.m. ET and each must be at least 200 words. Respond as many times as you wish. Your best two responses will be graded.

New! Week 8

ALOYSIA JOHNSON(Sep 27, 2017 6:09 PM)- Read by: 1

Mark as Read Reply

Last Edited By ALOYSIA JOHNSON on Sep 27, 2017 6:12 PM

Every American should know African American history and that even though it was a rough time for our ancestors it is a time we should never forget that they fought blood and tears for our freedom from racism and discrimination for hundreds of years. It teaches you how things have come about from when slaves were brought to the United States and what they had to endure so that we can be free today. This lesson has taught me things I was not aware of and was an eye opener for me. Writing about African American women leaders who were rarely recognized in our Week 2 lesson has shown me that there were many women leaders who were African American and did a lot for this country and for others. African Americans in the military is not something that is really talked about and unless you are doing a class such as this one many may never know of the many African American men and women who served in the military and contributed greatly. Eleanor Roosevelt is a prime example, I knew a little about her but it wasn’t until this class that I really learned who she was and what she really accomplished and this is why African American History should be taught regardless of race so that everyone can know and learn what they sacrificed in order for African Americans today can live in freedom and not segregation anymore. Learning of James Baldwin, who was just 24 when he arrived in Paris in 1948 with only forty dollars to his name after leaving the New York life to escape Americas racism that he believed saved his life for the better and helped him to become the writer he is best known as is another example of someone I didn’t know about until this class. It is interesting to see that there were so many African Americans during this time who had become successful in their own right and had great achievements. By learning African American History it can open your eyes to the still injustice they face today and how things are still not equal for all in this country.  Listening to the Martin Luther King speech gave me chills hearing him speak and to see how intelligent he was and how such a good speaker he was. I feel it teaches you a lot about the culture and reasons why we shouldn’t forget is because it is a part of African Americans and who they are, where they came from and it shows what they are trying to achieve even now in this day and age there are still racist people and people that feel African Americans don’t belong here and it’s such an unfortunate thing to hear when you think the ancestors have died and been beaten so we wouldn’t have to endure those pains today but yet it still exist. I say keep it I enjoyed it and would take the class again if I had to.

Schwarz, B., & Kaplan, C. (2014;2011;). James Baldwin : America and beyond. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. doi:10.3998/mpub.1168369

New! Don't Stop Teaching Black History - Steve

Steven BLACKSTONE(Sep 26, 2017 8:40 PM)- Read by: 1

Mark as Read Reply

"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history" (G. Orwell, 1976).  Although Orwell's quote was not specifically in the context of African American history, it drives home a sad fact - the subject of black history and the teaching of it is disappearing from American schools and I feel it is yet another method of black exclusion from the overall American experience, or white supremacy for short.  Slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, years ofdisenfranchisement and the harsh waves and currents of black history are inherently interwoven with American history and the black experience. It's my belief that proponents who support eliminating taught black history have a more sinister and overarching goal and that is to silence and stagnate black progress.  

One of America's most influential black sociologist, writers, and minds once posed this question - "How does it feel to be a problem?" (DuBois, 1903).  Nearly three decades after the Reconstruction era, DuBois was simply pointing out the dichotomy black people found themselves in then and still do now in a sense.  Being free but invisible (or silenced) to the dominant white race in the form of systematic oppressive obstacles (social injustices, lack of political representation, truly embodying equal and inalienable rights, and having the right to protest, to name a few) while at the same time requiring social, political and economic acknowledgment to even begin to advance towards upward mobility.     

But black history, the good bad and the ugly is profoundly more complex than the Underground Railroad, the personal achievements of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr andBarrack Obama or even the staggering statistics on black incarceration.  It's a never-ending American story of human attrition, adversity and triumph, and struggle that must be told, printed and taught factually to advance humanity and for the greater good of the black race.  In his 1869 speech Henry McNeal Turner said "We are willing to let the dead past bury its dead, but we ask you now for our RIGHTS (M. Marable, 2009).  Turner's sentiment must be echoed today – Yes, I was once a slave but I'mhere and I want to advance within the context of an acknowledgment that I exist as a human being with my newfound freedom.  Please see me, please acknowledge me, please help me.  

An old and crusty Army Sergeant Major with 29 years under his belt once told me while on a deployment in Southwest Asia "If it's not recorded or documented, it never happened!" The current state of race relations in America speaks to the effects of silencing a people, their political ideologies or their rights.  The topics and harshness of American Black history are hard to tackle and discuss.  But it should not be bloated out of the American learning experience.   Black history is American history and - We must be united in opposition to all forms of oppression (M. Marable, 2009).              

Steven

References: 

“George Orwell > Quotes.” George Orwell Quotes (Author of 1984), GoodReeds, Inc., 12 Oct. 2007, www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/3706.George_Orwell.  

DuBois, W. E.B. The Souls of Black Folks. Atlanta, GA, 1903, www.gutenberg.org/files/408/408-h/408-h.htm#chap00. 

M Marable, and S Carmichael. Let Nobody Turn Us Around : An African American Anthology. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2016, ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy2.apus.edu/lib/apus/reader.action?docID=467152&ppg=505.