CLASS AND CULTURE IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY
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Class and Culture in the African American Community
Abstract
African Americans have been facing issues with class and culture until today in urban
American cities. All the issues are caused by slavery in the past, and in today’s century, they still
face issues due to not being given credit for what they do, what they have contributed to
America, and income inequality. This study is aimed to focus on how class and culture influence
one another, slavery, and other factors on Africa American communities. In this context, there
will be percentages of African Americans compared to white Americans to represent the
differences between the two in class.
CLASS AND CULTURE IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY
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Class and Culture in the African American Community
Introduction
Race, religion, and cultural inequality continues until today for African Americans.
African American culture has had a great impact on the growth of music (like Hip-Hop), art,
dance, manner, religion, language (that was created by the African American during slavery that
allowed them to communicate with one another of their own), style, and literature in the urban
areas and to American culture as a whole. Basically, African American culture has been copied,
but they are not receiving any credit for all they have done. Additionally, one hundred years ago
during slavery, black people did not have levels of social class that made some of them middle
class or upper class, but one class that they all were fit in by white Americans because they were
looked at as less. After slavery, black people gained freedom and the right to vote, but that
wasn’t it because they weren’t given their full rights. They still were not equal to the white
people. Still today there is a different between the black middle class and the white middle class,
even though they are in the same statue, and not many black people are in first class, nor middle.
Despite the benefits African American culture has given, there are numerous cases of the
gap between African Americans and white Americans in wealth and income inequality.
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Examples include economy, low income, discrimination (until today there are those who still
discriminate against black people), and lack of high education that then led them to poverty.
Other impacts have made African Americans struggle a lot by portraying negative stereotypes,
and they feel like they must work ten times harder than white people to gain respect or to be
treated equally.
History of Slavery
During slavery, African Americans were treated as property with no rights. African
Americans weren’t in full control over their lives mentally and physically. However, because
slaves consisted of a mix of Africans from different villages in Africa, slave owners tried to strip
their traditions away from them. Also, black people were prevented from going to schools
because white people were fearing that they might become powerful and try to overcome them.
