African American Studies

OYEZ Class Written Assignment-Supreme Court Decisions Assignment 1: The Dred Scott Decision In 2 written pages summarize what the case was all about. Put you name and class on the paper and the date. It needs to be double spaced, Times New Roman and font 12 Tell what the court decided and mention any important comments made by the Chief Justice and/or any other justice In your own wordstell what was important about this decision and how it affected African Americans.

DIRECTIONS: *Attempt only two questions. *Question # 1, Section A, is compulsory.  *Choose one more question from Section B  *Keep your answers clear, concise and analytical.  *Address your responses to the specific demands of each question.  *Illustrate your answers with apt references, and cite key sources used.  *Limit your responses to four, double-spaced, 12 pitch font pages per question.  *Your answer scripts must include questions chosen, your name, and be in MLA format.  QUESTIONS:  SECTION A  1) Showing a clear understanding of diaspora, as applied in contemporary scholarship, discuss its significance for exploring the diverse reference points and complexities of Black Literatures. SECTION B  2) Discuss the significance of psychological distress, afflicted relationships and identities, especially as critical anchors, in A Bad Day for a Good Man in a Hard Job and The Shivering.  3) Analyze, teasing out political implications and authorial prerogatives, the interplay between history, imagination, nation and gender in Nineteen Thirty-Seven.

SECTION A  1) Showing a clear understanding of diaspora, as applied in contemporary scholarship, discuss its significance for exploring the diverse reference points and complexities of Black Literatures.  SECTION B  2) Analyze, with subtle attention to their titles and thought-provoking narrative webs, the theme of loss in Yoruba Man Walking and social critique in An Incident at Pat’s Bar.  3) Discuss the significance of psychological distress, afflicted relationships and identities, especially as critical anchors, in A Bad Day for a Good Man in a Hard Job and The Shivering.  4) Analyze, teasing out political implications and authorial prerogatives, the interplay between history, imagination, nation and gender in Nineteen Thirty-Seven.

Requesting to have an essay written. Please choose one of the youtube videos. Instructions below.  Write a 250-300 word response answering the following questions: What were your main takeaways? What stood out the most to you? How will this material help you better understand Africana Studies overall? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jEHGs36KRM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an5DAPzFS6g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVM0PHDQVZo

How the death of Harambe led to where we are today.

QUESTION: Scholars of Eurocentric origin often argue that there is nothing of political, cultural, and economic significance to talk about in the Third World. They portray the Third World as the place of backwardness that never contributed anything of importance to world culture and civilization. This is especially the case with reference to Africa. Now, using this observation as your point of departure, discuss how Walter Rodney challenges these misrepresentations of the Third World with particular reference to Africa. As you compile your response, you are encouraged to make use of the documentary by Basil Davidson to complement Walter Rodney’s argument in the reading. Also, feel free to use other sources in the form of books, videos, documentaries, and articles.  SOURCES: Go through the reading by Walter Rodney (“How Africa Developed Before the coming of the Europeans up to the 15th century” in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa: Pages 51 to 114) AND watch the documentary by Basil Davidson (https://youtu.be/X75COneJ4w8)

Read dubois work and answer the questions:  What do you think of DuBois’ conversation about the sorrow songs? What does he suggest that these songs tell us? Or do for American culture? How might his conversation about the Sorrow Songs fit into Marable’s framework for Black Studies? link: https://learn-us-east-1-prod-fleet01-xythos.s3.amazonaws.com/5dd6acf5e22a7/15358406?response-cache-control=private%2C%20max-age%3D21600&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27DuBoisWEB_Spriritual%2520Strivings_Sorrow%2520Songs_TheSoulsOfBlackFolk%2520%25281%2529.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20200826T180000Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAZH6WM4PL5SJBSTP6%2F20200826%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=6400478c43a41e83c7a7d4140e98816c0b76545d7f7944d886442493075e35ec

For this research assignment, I am expected to write an 8-page double-spaced paper. This paper should be in APA format and include all of the following: Cover Page Introduction Argument/Background/Research Question Literature Review Methodology(discussion of methods) Data Analysis/Findings(articulation of your findings) Conclusion Reference Page Research Question: How is African American hair affected in the workplace? My argument: African Americans are discriminated against on a regular basis simply due to the look and texture of their hair. They are always expected to bow down to the standards of corporate America and wear styles that society considers “professional” in the workplace, even if it means taming our tresses for the likings of others. One of the main reasons I know this to be true is because I am a hairstylist specializing in African American hair care and the first-hand experiences I hear from my clients who work in healthcare and many other fields send me into disbelief; the stories are also never-ending. I notice there is a certain look that is expected of African American hair, which is to be not too excessive or eye-catching and deemed presentable to the public. Meanwhile, those same standards aren’t placed on their counterparts. Upon research, I found that African Americans may deal with mental health problems stemmed from the stressors creating by corporate grooming policies. Anxiety, PTSD, and depression are a few to name.   Methodology/Discussion of Methods: The disciplines that I believe are most relevant to my research topic are sociology, African American diaspora studies, and psychology. Methods that are valued in these fields are surveys, interviews, and experiments; these methods fall under the Social Sciences which is qualitative and quantitative research. Surveys and interviews are what I’ll be using to further explain the data found.

Read my lecture, “Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X,” now available in the Content area, and the texts linked from it: “The Ballot or the Bullet,” “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” and an interview with a scholar about them. Then start a thread in the discussion forum “Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X.”  THIS IS A DISCUSSION ASSIGNMENT MINIMUM OF 2 PARAGRAPHS Lecture: Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X   I am pretty sure you are already familiar with the lives and cultural prominence of both King and Malcolm X. I also think it will be clear how activists working toward racial justice for Black people in the future are engaging in Afrofuturism.   Letter from Birmingham Jail In 1963, Rev. Dr. King was in Alabama leading protests against discriminatory laws, and he was imprisoned for it. Eight white clergymen wrote an open letter condemning King as an outside agitator, and saying this kind of unlawful protest was uncalled for. They stated that the protestors should have instead attempted negotiaton. King wrote the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in response. It is addressed to these eight white clergymen, including one rabbi, and leaders of several different Christian congregations, but was subsequently published and made public.   Read “Letter from Birmingham Jail” here: https://swap.stanford.edu/20141218230016/http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/kingweb/popular_requests/frequentdocs/birmingham.pdf   In the “Letter,” King’s goal is to explain the role of nonviolent direct action to these men, and to a broader audience. To this end, he employs biblical imagery to address the clergymen, since he, of course, was also a clergyman. He relates personal anecdotes of suffering from discriminatory laws, and states that passively accepting unjust laws does not uphold the value of justice. He also points out that the protestors DID, in fact, attempt negotiation in a variety of ways before they felt forced to action.   The Ballot or the Bullet Almost exactly a year later, Malcolm X gave his famous speech, “The Ballot or the Bullet” to an audience of Black Americans who did not have the vote. In it he speaks against infighting, and urges Black Americans to form a unified front in going after rights regardless of small differences between ideologies. He says that rights already belong to Black Americans, and are being kept from them, and Black Americans should be able to employ whatever means necessary to take back what’s theirs.   Read “The Ballot or the Bullet” here: http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/malcolm_x_ballot.html   (Optional: and if you want a little bit of biographical reading and to hear a snippet of what the speech sounded like, both those are available here: https://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/blackspeech/mx.html )     Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X in Combination The internet is full of “student” essays you can purchase that compare and contrast Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. I think people are used to seeing them as two ends of a spectrum of Civil Rights Era ideologies. Further, the contrast between them has been played up as an echo of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois’s differences of philosophy.   Personally, I think it makes more sense and is more fruitful to see both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. as two strong parts of a movement, less in opposition than working different areas of the same problem.   To think about this, read this synopsis of an interview with a professor who studies them, Peniel Joseph, “Black Power Scholar Illustrates How MLK And Malcolm X Influenced Each Other:”  https://www.npr.org/2020/08/12/901632573/black-power-scholar-illustrates-how-mlk-and-malcolm-x-influenced-each-other The interview itself is linked and you can listen to the whole thing if you’d like, but the part that’s assigned is the stuff that’s written on that page as “interview highlights,” in which Dr. Joseph delineates the “nuance” he sees in these historical figures. PLEASE ONLY USE THESE AS SOURCES AND NO OTHER SITES PLEASE!

Module 4 (half- module)- Theme 10: African Experiences in Film Required Reading(s): Khan, Mariama. (Chapter 10) “The Reincarnation of Colonial Imaginaries in Nollywood Films.” In Africa, History& Culture. Edited by Mariama Khan & Grasian Mkodzongi, Kendall Hunt Publishers, 2020. https://he.kendallhunt.com/product/africa-history-and-culture Assigned Film: Liberian Film Siatta Will Kill Me New Liberian Movie 2017 Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goXzXAdlvFU Theme 11: African Futures Required Reading(s): Khan, Mariama & Grasian Mkodzongi (chapter 11) “Advancing the Need for decolonized African Knowledge: A Case Study on Senegambia Knowledge Systems.” In Africa, History& Culture. Edited by Mariama Khan & Grasian Mkodzongi, Kendall Hunt Publishers, 2020. https://he.kendallhunt.com/product/africa-history-and-culture Assignments Due: Final paper Due Augu Assignments: Final Paper Due Date: Thursday, August 6, 2020, at 11:59pm Individual Research Project (Final Paper) Task Using examples from the readings and films assigned for Module 4 and other selected outside sources write and submit a response to the prompt below. The 10-pages (double spaced) should include full references and proper in-text citations. Identify an issue/theme of your choice that is related to the reading(s) and films assigned for Module 4. Frame it as a debate question. Develop your own response to the question choosing a stance that is either for or against the motion. Again note: (You can right “for” or “against” the issue you have identified). The response should do the following: 13. Examine how relevant the issue you have identified is in contemporary Africa 14. Examine how that issue is affecting African society. You can draw examples from a selected African country 15. Discuss why you think the selected issue needs urgent attention . 16. Use different methodological and disciplinary approaches to discuss the evidence you present in your group research project.