I think you're treading on very dangerous ground by generalizing about African Americans as if they are homogeneous. If I were you I'd pick a case study and limit your interpretation to that case itself -- because if you generalize out from it, you're going to not only be inaccurate but also potentially offensive.

As an example, I've done a lot of medical work in Africa. Back in the US, I've often told African American patients of mine that I've travelled extensively in Africa and I've visited several historic sites from the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Their degree of interest in this varies from complete fascination to complete disinterest. Some really have an idea of 'roots' and 'injustice', others don't even have the tiniest scrap of this attitude.


As for being an educator, the MOST important thing I can tell you is to avoid assuming things about students' attitudes just because of their ethnic background. I'm not sure what level you're planning to teach, but I'll give you my own recent experience. I'm on the faculty of a major medical school and university hospital, and I'm running a team of residents, interns, and two members of my team (a senior resident and an intern) are African Americans. The issue of race came up last week -- I felt that students should not get in the habit of describing patients by their race (i.e. Aedes is a 33 year old white male who presented with fever) -- they can bring it up in the social history or physical examination if it's relevant. I asked my team what they thought, and the African American members of the team weren't all that opinionated on the issue -- they mainly felt that it's relevant for certain illnesses, not for others, etc.

Thanks for your response, Aedes.

I couldn't agree more with what you've written regarding describing the African American race as homogenous, however, the class of four graduate students has each been assigned a different race. So to a certain extent, generalizations will have to be made.

I took a very thorough course in school called "African existentialism. A lot of these books I had to read for the class, and some others I used for my thesis for the class.

Another Country, by James Baldwin. Its a novel, but it has some very interesting connotations to sexual/ethnic constraints.

I write what I like, by Steve Biko. It's a collection of his writings from the late 1960's to the mid 1970's. Theres a particularly interesting chapter called "our struggle for liberation."

The Invisible Man, By Ralph Ellison. It's a novel that follows the denigration of a character (nameless.. they never reveal his name... perhaps an analogy of hypervisibility) Very powerful.

The Afrocentric Idea, by Molefi Kete Asante. A good collection of postmodern suppositions and old structured Eurocentric orientations.

The Outsider, by Richard Wright. Very good narritive about Damon Cross' experiance with street crime in the inner city from the first person perspective.

Not only the masters tools, by Lewis Gordon. Collection of essays on black thought.

Existentia Africana, by Lewis Gordon. A very good analysis of primary problems facing the black community, like "what does it mean to be a problem: and " hypervisibility."

Race Matters, by Cornel West. Covers the same things Gordon does, but West is more well known. Covers topics like crises in black leadership and stuff like that.

And, my favorite book, No longer at Ease, by Chinua Archbe. Its a novel... but a very good one following the life, rise and fall of Obi Okonkwo, a byproduct of white eurocentrism.


I have to say that Lewis Gordon's books are extremely valuable and are consistently full of good information and abstract concepts.

An interesting relational notion is exoticism. I would be an exoticist if I said that "Because I have a lot of black friends, I can say this." It's a racial identification by extension. So, if you teach African American students, you have to approach the subject (if you are any ethnicity other than African American) carefully to keep a level of credibility on the matter. On a different note, the fact that you differentiate African American students from white students is a problem in itself because it denotes a white normative framework. Also, my teacher informed me that African Americans don't like to be called African Americans. Again, its sounds exotic... like a rare bird. The term "black" is a generality that has become a sort of dead metaphor and thus for the most part acceptable. But look at how I even explained that. I spoke as though African Americans were a separate species all together.

The question about Oprah isn't that she calls out "gangsta rappers," but rather that she suffers from a reverse form of exoticism herself. (i.e. investing in south African schools and consequently reintroducing the same harmful notions that Europeans introduced at the turn of the century). Also, those comments about the sneakers didn't help her much either

towpher,

You seem to be chomping at the bit, good to see such energy, but this is an intro thread. Perhaps you could start a new thread on the topic. I do not believe there will be any shortage of replies to this one, maybe some fellow scholars have been down this path or a very similar one. At anyrate, welcome! We are most pleased to have you with us.

Just a thought, I am into a relational world view, how might this be useful in your considerations?

http://www.casanet.org/program-services/tribal/relational-worldview-Inidan-families.htm#

Please do, let's cut the introduction thread and start a new one. PM me with the new thread and we can move or copy some of these posts over. Let's try to keep the intro forum for introductions.

Welcome to the Philosophy Forum by the way!

Before you do just that, Justin, how about how you can find four seperate races to begin with, that one could possibly divinate between a group of four different students.

Four race, divin...What?

Sorry VideCorSpoon, was a divining rod used to seperate one people from another.