Black Culture in Today’s World

The black culture is top-tier. This culture as a whole stands out. The black culture is very distinctive; the way they communicate it’s unique, as well as how united they are. The Black Culture is exclusive and it makes us who they are. From the African American Vernacular English to the food, the way they carry themselves, along with how they come together as one. Image, language, and unity play significant roles in being connected to black culture. 

https://forwardtimes.com/black-america-unity-answer/. 

    Your image plays a major role in black culture; people tend to stereotype people based on how you present yourself. First, if a black person was to stay in trouble a lot and have an attitude periodically; they would have a bad image of certain people. That person would now be labeled as an angry troublemaker. The A Letter to My Niece magazine stated, “Growing up, your mother was a lot like she is now—aggressively content and headstrong.”. She went on to say, “The world, however, only say a smart mouth on a black girl, and your mother was in trouble often, whether at home or school.” (Felton).  The world has placed limits on people from the culture because of who they are. Which forces colored people to think they can’t be their authentic selves. Just because one may have an attitude and get in trouble, that doesn’t define who they are as a person.  Therefore, people then begin to judge others, just like Felton judged her sister based on her image.  

Your language is conjoined with your image; people as a whole tend to judge people based on how they talk. Which, in all actuality, people of color shouldn’t be judged based on how they talk. They’ve adapted their unique language, better known as African-American Vernacular English (AAVE).  Ariel Felton wrote, how the white boy she kissed on the bus when she was seven years old, his older brother said to him “I can’t wait to tell Mom and Dad you were kissing a nigger.” Then she stated, “... the version my family spoke ended with an “a” (I almost told him he pronounced it wrong)” (Felton). People from black cultures, tend to pronounce words differently than people from other cultures. But they also communicate non-verbally in the black culture.  In A Letter to My Niece, Felton stated how her father was speechless when he was angry, “Your Granddaddy, as you’ve come to learn, is quiet when angry, and mostly spent his time shaking his head.”. In the black culture, it is likely that when someone is disappointed or upset. Without a doubt, the way the black culture communicate is unique, verbally and non-verbally.  

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ttps://unothegateway.com/opinion-the-language-of-black-culture-aave-is-not-stan-language-or-bad-english/. 

    Embodied in the black culture, unity plays a major role. The idea of a person of color calling another person of color “my brother/sister”, shows just because they aren’t related through blood but united through the color of their skin. In the black culture being joined together as a whole bring people of color joy and excitement. “Your birth was a welcome release of tension as if all had been forgotten.” (Felton) She’s pointing out to her niece that although her family was disappointed with her mom for having her at such a young age, her being born made their family united again.  Or, how in We Should Make a Documentary About Spades, he stated, “And here is all we’ll need: a card deck, quartets of sun people of the sort found in black college dormitories, some vintage music, indiscriminate spirits, fried chicken, some paper, A writing utensil, and a bottomless Saturday.” (Hayes). Typically stating that people of color don’t need much to come together to have a good time.  

Generally speaking, the Black culture stands out in various ways. In the black culture, not limiting themselves based on an image, language, and unity plays a significant role. Understanding that culture is the way of life, including your beliefs passed down from generation to generation in your society. The Black Culture created its language while evolving in history and in today’s world. To witness this culture, evolve and stand out the most, is one of the most fascinating things I’ve yet to see.  

Works Cited 

Felton, Ariel. “A Letter to My Niece.” Progressive.Org, 11 Feb. 2019    progressive.org/magazine/a-letter-to-my-niece-Felton.   

Hayes, Terrance. “We Should Make a Documentary About Spades.” Academy of American Poets, Poets.org - Academy of American Poets, January 17, 2017, poets.org/poem/we-should-make-documentary-about-spades.

https://forwardtimes.com/black-america-unity-answer/.  

Reflective Essay

As I began writing the first essay for my ENGL 1101 class, I felt like a lot was going on. Confused on where to start, confused on what to base my paper off. Although, the topic for this essay was culture, after reading the three articles I made a connection with the articles and my culture. My professor provided many examples and explained what the paper needed to cover very well, which was a significant help. In the end, this essay was quite easy, I was just overthinking it.  

At first, I struggled with connecting the three articles about culture to my culture, I struggled finding what to base my essay off on. Yes, I knew it was about culture but exactly what would be my three reasoning about my culture. I was having trouble finding my three topics to base my body paragraphs off. So, I went back through my QQC’s from the three articles, the annotations both my teacher and I got from the articles, and by rereading the text; I was able to pinpoint my three topics for my body paragraphs. Most importantly, I was able to finally make a connection with the articles in ENGLISH class for the first time in years.