Question 2, Comparison of articles

Personally, I struggled to fully understand and analyze these articles, but I feel I gathered a general sense of each thesis.  These articles all centered around African-American identity and the question of how best to attain it.  Asante feels it is best to look back to the identity of one's ancestors in order to develop a personal identity.  Hall toys with the idea that culture (and therefore identity) is created and ever-evolving due to environment and circumstances of a given time.  Therefore, we should look at where we are now and where we want to be (?)  Hooks seems to take a similar position to Hall in that he looks at developing an African-American identity in a postmodernist era, not the past but where we are now.  West feels we need to move towards an ideal called, "The new cultural politics of indifference."  This is encouraging African-Americans to develop their own PERSONAL identity since there are several cultures among African-Americans.  However, he also encourages progressivism in a sense of bringing diversity into the spotlight.  These articles are much more complex, but I feel these are the points the authors are trying to communicate.