Blog 2

For this last week's reading, I must admit, I was a taking a leap at understanding the main messages from the authors. As I stated in the last blog, I have not had much introduction into African American culture so jumping into these readings have been quite the challenge. However, I do grasp that all four authors have their own views and outlooks on African American history. Asante believes in the concept of Afrocentricity, reconnecting all the way back to true African roots. He believes Afrocentricity as a theory change intends to re-locate the African person as a subject, not just an object. This is basically saying that African American culture needs to be studied as a whole, not just as a part of a wider subject. This makes clear sense to me; that African American culture needs to be studied and looked at as African American culture, not just an aspect on how it affected white culture. In my previous knowledge of African American culture, we studied exactly the way Asante believes we shouldn't, which I wish hadn't been the case. African American culture deserves a subject of its own, which I feel I haven't gotten a grasp on. Similar to Asante, Hall also believes in focusing just on African American culture to get a better understanding, without other outside influences like polities. This piece I was a little lost on, however I did take out of it that African Americans are not all innocent, as well as every race. Hooks looks closer on the class aspect of race and gender. She states that historically society is dominated by white men. Blacks also tend to do the same thing, and that as a culture we need to recognize that it is not fair how we divide up white men unlike black men. I wish this piece would have explained this a little better, because I think the idea she was very interesting. Finally, West is very basic in the idea of equality. This is upfront and very agreeable to me, because in this day and age his idea would make so many conflicts peaceful.