Black Arts Journal Entry - Week 8 (3/8/23): Creating a Course on the History of American Culture

If I were in the place of a teacher who had the goal to teach a class about the history of American Culture, I would primarily focus on the Hispanic community and how they contributed to the development of the history of what the American Culture is today.

When people think about the history of American Culture, they usually think about the feats that the white Americans have accomplished in contributing to the development of their nation. What people don't realize or appreciate, is that various groups of people with various different cultures from around the world have just as mostly contributed to the development of American Culture.

There are the Blacks, the Asians, the Hispanics, the Jewish, etc. who have done so much for this nation, but receive little to no recognition or appreciation for what they have done for the development of this nation's history.

I am Hispanic myself and I had a first person experience in seeing and understanding the struggles my family have gone through when they moved to this nation long ago and the accomplishments they have made. So with my familiarity with the subject, I would focus on teaching a course that focuses on the contributions Hispanic culture has made to this nation's history.

My course will focus on how these people have migrated to the nation in the first place, how they colonized it, how they were then overthrown, leading to a history of discrimination and segregation from the whites who have overtaken the land, who have now become diminished to a community, despite it's large size, that has been pushed back into obscurity and rarely get any recognition in the development of American history. I would teach the history of the Hispanic community in American culture, but also how the discrimination that followed carried out into modern eras. Such as asking how has social media helped bring more cultural appreciation to the community or how has it increased discrimination in society?

I would like to find other fellow students who are a part of this community to join my course or people of different cultures who have taken an interest in learning more about this culture. It would show that there are still people out there who have a genuine interest and appreciation in learning more about this community and potentially learn how to give it more recognition in today's societal mainstream media.

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Black Arts Journal Entry - Week 8 (3/8/23): "Nothing But A Man" and "Killer of Sheep"

In the early 1960s, a Black man named Duff Anderson lived in the American South. His experience is told in the indie film "Nothing But A Man" filmed in 1964. In a society that is severely divided by racism and segregation, the movie examines issues of race, class, identity, and relationships. Duff Anderson, a train worker, develops feelings for Josie Dawson, a teacher. The social and cultural obstacles erected by their various cultures, as well as Duff's own struggles to find his identity and sense of purpose in a world that doesn't treat him with respect or decency, complicate their connection. The film's portrayal of the Black experience in the South is unvarnished and honest, highlighting the widespread prejudice and violence that Black people must endure on a daily basis. The movie also conveys a message of optimism and resilience, as Duff and Josie face their difficulties with strength and grace. "Nothing But A Man" is widely considered as a poten...

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Cultural Production in the media in 2022 is nowadays more expansive and more diverse in the communities the media decides to represent. But this exact issue of what the media can choose what communities to represent and what about that community they can represent can lead to several issues. It can give the public a false view of what that community actually is, leading them to create hurtful stereotypes of them or to mis-accurately represent their culture. Just like in Thomas Allen Harris' film, "Goes Through Darkly Lens", he discusses how the media representing the African American community in America's history of archives represent hurtful stereotypes of his community. If it isn't a black person behind those camera lens taking these images, then that is what leads to these hurtful stereotypes and for them to be discriminated against in a majorly white society. Representation matters and it is what shapes people's images of the black community.

Black Arts Journal Entry - Week 11 (3/29/23): Raoul Peck's "Exterminate All the Brutes"

Raoul Peck's four-part miniseries "Exterminate All The Brutes" examines the history of colonialism, genocide, and white supremacy from a variety of angles. In the first episode, Peck examines the historical causes of racism and colonialism in ancient Greece and Rome. He contends that Europeans established the idea of the "Other" to legitimize their dominance over other cultures and peoples. In episode 2, Peck looks at the awful effects on indigenous communities of the genocidal acts committed by European colonizers in the Americas. He also examines the ways in which the concept of the "frontier" and the notion of "Manifest Destiny" were utilized to support the colonization of the West and the eradication of Native Americans. Peck explores the horrific realities of slavery in the Americas and the transatlantic slave trade in episode 3. He also looks at how systematic inequality and racial relations are still shaped by slavery in contemporary...

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