African American History and Society Essay

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Franklin & Higgenbotham (2011) provide an Afro-centric view of history, albeit one that focuses on how Africa evolved vis-a-vis Europe and especially with regards to the slave trade. Salient points F&H point out include the diversity, richness, and complexity of African societies and their relationships with one another as well as with outside traders from Europe and the Middle East. Social stratification, hierarchy, and patriarchy all characterized the most powerful and important African societies. The slave trade, both trans-Atlantic and across the Mediterranean, transformed both African societies and European ones as well. The F&H book offers insight into how the systematic exploitation of disenfranchised individuals creates wealth for capitalists, but the book is not focused on slavery or economics. Rather, From Slavery to Freedom talks about how people of African decent, in the diaspora and on the continent, have made tremendous but often unheralded contributions to the arts, the sciences, philosophy, religion, and culture.

To illustrate unique aspects about African culture and the legacy and merit of some of its major civilizations, F&H occasionally touch upon the power of music. On this note, the F&H book provides a foundation for further research and understanding of articles like Giddings’s “Afrocentric Jay-Z.” American music is essentially African-American music. From folk songs and spirituals in feeding the emergence of the blues, to jazz and early rock and roll, and finally including hip-hop, the most quintessentially American musical forms are African in origin and expression.

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Often these musical forms have been co-opted or appropriated, for financial gain. The arrogance of racism has enabled systematic exploitation of African people and their expressive arts. Almost without exception, a pattern emerges in which the whites in American society belittle and bemoan African arts and music, only to turn around the reclaim them as their own.

Slavery has existed since the earliest sedentary civilizations arose in Africa and elsewhere in the world. As soon as wealth can be accumulated in the form of surplus goods, people in positions of power—such as landholders or those who claim their power comes from divinity—exploit others without power. The exploitation of labor and forced servitude is slavery and was not unique to Africa. African societies, particularly the great kingdoms in Western Africa, practiced slavery just as the great civilizations of the Middle East did. During the age of exploration, imperialism, and colonialism, Europeans recognized the inherent value of New World….....

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"African American History And Society" (2017, September 13) Retrieved April 29, 2024, from
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"African American History And Society", 13 September 2017, Accessed.29 April. 2024,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/african-american-history-society-2165896
   

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