Week two blog question

The readings from Assante, Hooks, Hall and West were very challenging! But after careful reading and re-reading, I have a clearer understanding of what each was writng about Blackness and black culture. Assante prefers to view Black culture from an Afrocentrist position versus an entirely Eurocentrist positition. This places peoples of African descent as the suject in their own cultural production not as the object of a culture produced by primarily peoples of European descent. Peoples of African descent can re-claim identity and power, and their rightful position as producers of black and American culture. The Eurocentrist thinking is further based on racist ideology and white domination. It is this representation of race as social construstion that Hall addresses. He points to a turning point was when the term "black" became a unifying word for those experiencing "racism" and "marginalization." It began the struggle for blacks to re-claim the terms of representation, to frame black culture not as essentialistic and steroetypical but as pluralistic and multi-dimentional. This culture of difference was further ignoring the role of gender and class in cultural production. Culture is not something to consume, but is created not from outside, but from within. West and Hooks reminds the reader that culture is created through engagement and resistance. It is participatory, not just spectacle.