Blog Post #1: Africanas their Lifestyle with Community

Growing up in school, I did not understand why I was surrounded by tight-knitted groups of American Africanas in my classes. I would see American Africanas comfortably interacting with fellow American Africanas who they had never been in classes with, and I would not talk with with white classmates who I had never had classes with in school. Sometimes it was because these classmates grew up in the same neighborhood or their families were friends, but at other times they will be talking with Africanas and other African Americans that they have only met once.

Also, the Africanas in my school all knew each other, no matter what grade the Africana was a part of. This was not an approach that I would use on any white individual, because white Americans have a more individualistic lifestyle than African Americans. Since I am white, and the majority of the students that I went to school with were also white, I did not experience the connection that my American Africanas had with one another.

Patricia Hill Collins's Article, What's in a Name: Womanism, Black Feminism, and Beyond, she discusses how Womanism is representative of both African American Females and Males. She defines Womanism as "committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female" (Collins, 12). Both males and females who are African American are listed in this definition, because white individuals tend to not isolate African American male and African American female in their head.

 This has a different approach to men that identify as the same race than in the white community, because white woman created feminism to got away from the philosophies of stereotypical white men. White women have had to fight for being treated as equals to white men, but they have not received nearly as much oppression as African Americans. In class on Thursday, Dr. Muhonja was telling me that there is a strong sense of community between African American individuals was because of the oppression African Americans had experienced in the last few centuries in the United States. They have had to bond because of their desires to desegregate public areas, and for African Americans to have equal rights with White Americans.