Our President

I think it is great that the president and first lady are getting out and about town. Not being isolated behind the white house walls. It shows the humanity and normalness in the president for him to do normal day to day things. I think it will keep him more honest and in touch with the people he is leading. This is a good political and social policy. I think that the openness of the president not only gains the support of the American Public but also Internationaly.

Time to Dig In

In response to the idea of forming African American organizations and relief entities for New Orleans to properly recovere from the Affects of Katrina faster. I guess this would work but it is a socialist answer to a problem. Government aid is all fine and dandy but the best thing is comunity relationships and hard work. If there is a community of friends that have all been displaced they can work together pool resources to get something done more efficiently. Your only option wouldn't be to just abandon ship and look to some entity for help. You can work with one another to regain what you had prior to the disaster. In life S**t Happens and your success is determined by how well you adjust and react to opposition.

More about African American culture

I that that social groups and structures are good for all people. One of the key fundamentals America was founded under was freedom to organize. the Black Church NAACP, the HBCU's and Greek communities all allow people to join together under leadership and for them to get to know each other in their community, to better themselves. group such as gay's, different races and sexes all need to have there own unique communities so they can identify with them and build there own cultural identity, and niche in society.

Black Female Stereotypes

There is one female stereotype that is portrayed most often in movies and in pop culture. It is of the hoochie momma's, baby momma's that have the huge fingernails, loud mouth, bad attitude, are broke and live day to day. however this is not the only stereotype, its just the one that gets the most attention since it is "unnatural" to the majority of society. The other stereotype is of the eduacated black woman who works hard achieves and carries herself with pride. This stereotype is downplayed in pop-culture just as the succesful businesswoman in white culture. The stereotype in white culture is of the dimb witted bimbo secretary. All cultures and people have stereotypes some have just been shown off more than other stereotypes. Ratings do twisted things to society I dont agree with them however there isn't really anything you can do to stop them from forming is to change the things that make a person fit into the stereotypes, such as hair color, attitude, poise, everything that makes up there personal identity.

Problem with this course

I Feel that this course is forcing people to relive events that have already come and past and to try and bring back up as a cause for things that are occurring currently. I am not trying to play down the fact that African Americans were extremely mistreated in the begging years of the United States of America's existence. However there are better things to do than dwell on the past and make accusations of why something occurred. I haven's heard/seen any member of Jewish society bringing back up the holocaust and dwelling on past events. We can't change the past but we can change the future. I personally or anyone in my family lineage had any role in slavery, however I feel like the finger is pointed at me during some of this class. I also think that there isn't a huge reason to be talking about "white-mainstream" that further separates people from being able to live in a society peacefully and prosperously. while i do believe a need for this course currently it wouldn't be needed if grade schools and other history courses throughout education levels taught the basis of all cultures, as something to learn from, not dwell on. There isnt a Japanese-American course provided even though the were severely wronged during WWII being put into internment camps and such. There needs to be more cohabitation and less trying to separate each other or pit them against on another. Please realize that I am just trying to advocate a way for people to get along and prosper, for the good of humanity.

Obama is an African American

In a true sense of the label African-American Obama is exactly that. Since he is part Muslim and African and lives in America now. A lot of Africans are black in skin color and practice the Muslim faith, especially in the North-Western part of Africa. He fits the demographic of African Americans. However I don't fully understand why people that have lived in America for generations feel the need to separate themselves from others by attaching the names of their family's homeland. I am personally Irish German and Swedish, and you don't see me going around and calling myself Irish-American or European-American, or anything of the sort. My family has lived in America for three-four generations depending on which side. As for my Irish Heritage they were treated extremely poorly and were often degraded when they came to America, they hold no animosity towards other peoples and worked their way up to being successful in the business world. This is a personal view that we should drop all the qualifiers, and if you or your family has lived in America for a generation or more your are an American with heritage in some country. If you want to get technical too we all have heritage to somewhere in Africa/Middle east, since that is were homosapien originated from. It is only if you are a recent immigrant the there may be a reason to qualify yourself as to some sort of American

film in class 2/10/09

Some of the things on the film I was conscious of such as the on campus shootings and the black communities efforts to be allowed in school. However I didn't know that there was such a push to get African-American studies in schools. I thought it interesting that they had to work so hard to get the curriculum emplaced in schools. This class keeps throwing more and more information at me that isn't in the text books of my previous classes.