- One word to describe the topic
Assimilation
Kennedy, Lisa (Mar2008)The Storyteller Essence; , Vol. 38 Issue 11, p183-183, 1p, 1 color
- a brief summary of how this topic relates to your work or how it could effect it
African American youth are large consumers of media and the messages it conveys. These messages have the ability to create a generation of clone like beings.
My research is in the area of the power of the visual to influence black youth, creating a culture resembling a Borg-like generation of assimilation.
Filmmaker Spike Lee's "Bamboozled" and "School Daze" explored the concept of assimilation in the African American community.
I have been researching the impact the media has African American youth, and how it is creating an assimilated culture.
I agree that there is a mass-produced African-American identity that's not crafted by African-Americans. It's an identity produced by several different spheres of society from the media to the laws and the government. And moreover it is an identity that many youth buy into, figuratively and literally. People have become so consumed with the appearance of something that they confuse said appearance with its essence. They believe that by appearing successful, or wealthy, or hip, or black etc they actually become these things.
ReplyDeleteAnd assimilation is a process in which they seek the spaces society has already crafted for them. They contort themselves to fit into the niche--and of course, the very core of the American dream demands assimilation. To all perceive and articulate a singular, materialistic goal, that is the house (an item that represents stability) with white picket fence (a commercial product intended to represent taste, quality, and protection)and the 2.5 kids, is to give up individuality willingly and aggressively pursue a vision dictated by another, likely not of one's race, gender, or time.
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