Framing Question 1

Jordan Drake-Griffiths

@02731980

Dr. Carr

Intro to African-American Studies

Through history the African American has had many a struggle, many a change, and many accomplishments. The question to ponder would be how does one study the African American? Better yet how does one go about undertaking the African experience? How does one truly understand the great people of the land of origin known as Africa?

To answer this question we must first have an understanding of what Africana studies are. Two key concepts lye behind the term, the first being that Africana study would be the study of Africa whenever and wherever you find it. The second would be more of along the lines of construction of the study, and how it is undertaken. It refers to the ideas to form out of extensive study, then the testing of those ideas.

One of the major challenges faced in Africana studies is the implantation of European history in the minds of most scholars, and educators. They are taught to believe that the only world history is out of Europe, where as a fact all history of origin is out of Africa. The effects that this has had on the generations have been detrimental to the study of Africa as a whole. As if the current educators would like to abolish the study as a whole. This would be called intellectual bi-friction between European and no European knowledge.

Take a look at what has happened so far. The language, text, and practices of the African people have been slowly suppressed over the years. The creation of one being black, or blackness to be a label or a marker to stick on our people. It is “a primary marker of power relationships. Almost as to continue to oppress the African from Africa or the African American, a term to label those who were brought here against their own will.

Now that those matters are cleared up we can begin to talk about actual Africana studies. The first piece of evidence would come from a few anthropologists discovering a...