Cultural Group: The African American Culture

African American Culture
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African American Culture
Origin
The African American Culture is a mixture of cultures from the west and central Africa who moved to the United States as slaves. They occupy the southern part of the US. During the slavery era in the US, independent African cultures did not get the chance to mingle and practice their original traditional cultures. Nevertheless, over time, the cultures and interacted and mixed with the European cultures to produce a unique culture (Metcalf & Spaulding, 2016). African American culture is still very profound to date and contributes significantly to the United States culture.
The owners of the slaves in America wanted to repress the African slaves not to practice their culture. Their physical isolation led to a compact and united culture that has influenced the American culture to date. Unique rituals were part of this culture, but it has changed over time.
Residence
The African American people in by 1990 were roughly 30 million of the total American population, which translated to 12 percent. Most of these people lived in the south of America, according to the 2000 American census. During the 2000 census, 17.6 percent of the African Americans lived in the northeast while approximately 18.7 percent lived in the Midwest. The western states only had a population of around 8.9 percent of total African Americans. Most of the African Americans currently live in the south for economic and cultural reasons. Those in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles have migrated to other cities like Dallas, Texas, and Houston. However, certain parts of the west have a sizable population of African Americans, such as California. Other cities inhabited by African Americans include Detroit, Michigan, Jackson, Mississipi, Miami Gardens, and Florida (Metcalf & Spaulding, 2016).
Economics status
The racial poverty disparity ratio has dramatically declined in America, with the African Americans making a great stride. From 2010, demographics show that 45 percent of black Americans owned a home against a national statistic of 67 percent. The poverty rate among African Americans decreased from 26.5 percent in 1998 to 24.7 percent in 2004 against 12.7 percent for all Americans (Gordon & Gordon, 2015).
Currently, African Americans have a combined buying power of around $892 billion and slightly over $1.1 trillion by 2012. African Americans owned business accounts cumulatively amounting to 1.2 million against a total of 23 million for all the Americans by 2002, a figure that rose to 2million by 2011. By 2002 the African American business was recorded to have had the highest growth (Metcalf & Spaulding, 2016).
Statistics show that by the year 2000, up to 25 percent of African Americans had white-collar jobs compared to an overall 33 percent for all Americans. By 2001, over half of African American families earned a total salary of above $50000.
Politics
Most of the African Americans support the democratic party. Eighty-eight percent of total African Americans voted for a Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry. In comparison, 11 percent voted for George Bush, a Republican candidate in 2004. By the end...