Journal Entries: African-American History

Student Name Course Instructor Date Journal Entries Journal Entry 1 In the video, Kerry James Marshall takes about his art. In this particular case, Marshall is talking about Plunge, a painting he did back in 1992. Marshall contextualizes the painting in terms of African-American history. In particular, Marshall demystifies the backward 1½ and how it related to the idea of Afrocentricity. Backwards 1½ is a reclamation project for the African-Americans. The project is based on the idea that if blacks can recover the lost creativity, glory and glamor, then they can be in a position to get closer to where they came from. This can assist them to re-center and develop into what they are supposed to be. The problem is that they would return to what they do not know, which is nostalgic. The video has allowed me to see the challenges with the concept of Afrocentricity. While Afrocentricity is a brilliant concept, it disallows the African-American from living in the present. In The New York Times article, “Kerry James Marshall’s Paintings Show What It Means to Be Black in America,” Holland Cotter reviews some of the works of Kerry James Marshall. One of the paintings that caught my attention was 1980 “A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self.” In the image, the black-skinned figure’s contours are barely readable since it is against the lighter black background. The most visible parts of the painting are the eyes and the teeth because they are white. I was surprised to learn that the achievements of the blacks have remained invisible because of white-dominated America. Merely because of skin color, a majority of the achievements of the African-American have not been celebrated in the public. There is a need to celebrate the progress that African-Americans have made over time. Journal Entry 2 In an article titled, “Who counts as black?” appearing in The Conversation website, Ronald Hall, a Professor of Social Work, Michigan State University, explores the meaning of being black. The meaning of what means to be black has become more complicated with since the 1967 Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia which allowed blacks and whites to intermarry. As a result, the number of interracial marriages has increased in the U.S. This has changed the notion of black identify which was once confined in dark skin or kinky hair. While this is remarkable, Professor Hall notes that some individuals in the black community do not consider the mixed-race people as “black enough.” The same idea has been reinforced in Professor VoiceThread, “Fundamental Terms and Questions / How the Course Works.” Here...