Black Studies - Essay Example

Black Studies Historically, Africa is considered as one of the earliest hubs of both human civilization and humanity. The Kush, developed in Ethiopia and Sudan - the Kemet of Egypt have casted considerable influence over development of other civilizations and such impact is so profound that even after thousand years of human civilization, scholars find explicit traces of such elements among several nations across the globe. Despite such great deal contribution to the entire human race, Africa is commonly viewed as the “dark continent” and people, belonging to this continent or having association with it, are considered as uncivilized as well as far removed from enlightenment (Hilliard 7). Due to their spontaneous urge to survive, a huge part of the African population migrated to different parts of the world and later on, the brutal slave trade process also played an important part in the migratory process of these people to the United States. Interestingly, some of the most “powerful legacies of continental Africa remain in population in the African diaspora, including the United States (Hilliard 7)”. Reception of such African American descendents in the American socio-cultural level as slaves has led them to encounter a wide range of problems in American society, such as, slavery, social injustice, racial discrimination, unequal treatment and separation from the purview of civil rights. Such oppression over the African American population continued almost for consecutive four centuries, until inception of the Progressive Era (1900-1917 approx) (Carlton-LaNey and Yolanda Burwell 8). During this period of time, intellectual movement among African American people and their increasing social awareness led them to adopt the community building initiative. The main purpose behind such community building was “social betterment and social protest” (Carlton-LaNey and Yolanda Burwell 8). During this Progressive Era, African American people casted such huge impact over every aspect of human life, including politics, literature, visual art and music that there was a sudden change in the field of their altogether social perception in the country. Among all these aspects, musical creations from African American people in the 20th century proved to be extremely effective as it played a major role in orienting aesthetics of the American population towards different socio-cultural transformations. Issues like slave trade, social segregation, racial discrimination and colonized existence are some of the very crucial aspects that greatly contributed in determining both socialization and nature of the existential crisis among individuals of African American communities in the United States. Different cultural outlook and separate perception of life were the most conspicuous barriers that prevented the African American people to successfully fulfill the process of community building. During the early 1900s, with effective initiative from leaders of the African American population and huge scholarly study over these people clearly made them understand that if the process of community development cannot be fulfilled, it will surely lead to worsen the condition of their social existence. It is clear from reflections of several African American scholars that there was a desperate attempt both by American citizens and politics to obliterate impact of the Afro American culture from the society. Despite such attempt, existence of African American community in the social context cannot be entirely ignored as their cultural elements already contributed to some extent in the field of American culture. In this context Asa G. Hilliard has observed, “Those who enslaved us wanted us to be either culturally naked or dead. They wanted to take us out of the human historical and cultural process. They wanted to say that we had never done anything that mattered” (8-9). Such realization prevailed among the African American population and their quest to retain a dignified social identity led them to development of the African American community, forgetting all sorts of apparent cultural differentiations. Music was an important instrument in the hands of African American people for conveying manifold problems related to their social existence. This particular type of art form has always been an important source, which helped scholars to receive adequate impression of changing human perception about society at different time. Compared to the sophisticated, traditional Western music, the African American musical compositions differed drastically from the perspective of tonality, application of technology, beat and rhyme scheme. While the Western music, during inception of the 20th century, was more focused over elevating an impression of sophisticated aesthetics, Afro American music conveyed the impression of deep connection with natural existence, pain generated through separation from root, free outburst of personal emotions and angst of modernist existential crisis. The contemporary young generation of the United States was going through these crises and traditional sophistication of the Western music was incapable of fulfilling emotional requirement of mass. Naturally, Afro American musical genres like blues and jazz immediately received high appreciation from the common people. Compared to Western musical discourse, African American music differed in every aspect, namely, mode of construction, presentation and technical emphasis. Notably, in each of these cases Afro American musicians provided highest importance to qualities like improvisation and spontaneity (Hilliard 30). Successful implementation of these aspects were previously unknown to composers of contemporary white American musicians; thus, they also found it quite difficult to interpret this form of music, “White musicologists … have always had great difficulty in understanding and explaining or interpreting African American music” (Hilliard 25). Automatically, Afro American music became subject of great criticism from traditional musical scholars but in the post 1950s era, emergence rock n’ roll and other forms of popular music clearly explained the importance of African American music in determining the taste of common people. Thus, music became an effective medium for the African American people to secure a social position and enjoy a relatively better social existence within the domain of modern social structure. Unless people belonging to different African American cultures would not have come together and developed a unified community, creation of such impact over socio-cultural trends of the United States could have never been possible. Formation of the African American community helped the artists to mix freely among themselves and also helped in the preparation of a fertile ground for musical experimentation. The traits of existential angst and identity crisis that people of this community were experiencing for centuries, contemporary American young generation also faced the same due to social metamorphosis, caused by outbreak of two consecutive World Wars. African American community building became an effective platform for black artists to come together and fuse their respective taste of music. Finally, it gave birth to a universal language that became voice of an entire generation. Other forms of art, namely, literature, painting, film also focused over African American people as individual entities but none of those received such huge success compared to music. It is through music that people belonging to African American community were capable of conveying their requirements to the society as well as to the government. Additionally, it also generated a great deal of interest both among scholars and common people in the context of attaining equal protection of civil rights and in demand of a harmonious social existence. Works Cited Burwell, N. Yolanda and Carlton-LaNey, Iris., African American community practice models: historical and contemporary responses, London: Routledge, 1996 Hilliard, Asa G., The maroon within us: selected essays on African American community socialization, Maryland: Black Classic Press, 1995 Read More