African American Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

African American Culture - Essay Example African American Culture is one such culture, which exhibits certain uniqueness, as the Afro-Americans practice certain activities in various spheres of their life, which is quite different from the dominant culture of White Americans (Marionis, 2004). But, on the other hand, certain activities or characteristics of African-Americans are stereotyped by the majority. So, this paper will list certain cultural characteristics, which are stereotyped. The immigration or the influx of African Americans into U.S. from a diverse range of cultures and countries started in the early centuries itself. As, they came from Africa, and later from the Caribbean countries and the Central and South American countries, they brought majority of their cultures, and this culture continues in their population, generations after generation with modifications in tune with changing times. Music of Afro-Americans is mainly polyrhymic music with roots in the African tradition, but now they are stereotyped as creators of only Rap, hip-pop music, with limited talents in other genres. The ethnic dance of the Afro-Americans is mainly based on the dance practices of the African slave communities, but now that cultural perspective is changed and break dances, which are done mainly done in the streets, are stereotyped as the dances of the Afro-Americans. When it comes to Literature, the Afro-American cultural characteristic is the verbal tradition of story telling. And as the modern day writers like Alex Haley, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, to name a few, started to write works based mainly on Afro-American themes, they are again stereotyped. (Scott, 2005). Theirs distinctive Language patterns are also stereotyped nowadays. For example, Pidgins, a mixture of several languages, is normally spoken by African Americans. But, today inner city young people speak AAVE which is