Africia

Africia

From African to African American

Instructor:Siri Shankar
Class: Eth/125
Date: 02/28/2010
By: Edwina Smith


   
From African to African America
      The ethnic group in which I belong is African American. This ethnic group was colonized to the United States in the early 1600’s because the English,Dutch, and the French became dominant   in New World slave trade. In the early eighteenth century, colonization efforts were focusing on the North American mainland. In August of 1619, the first ship carrying Africans sailed onto Jamestown, Virginia, and the history of African Americans had began. By the second half of the 1600s, white colonial landowners began to notice slavery as a solution to their economic woes. The Africans were somewhat strong, always available, very inexpensive, and had seemingly unlimited amounts of supplies from their native continent. Their black skin made them very visible in the white world, which decreased their chances of escaping from bondage. This group faced a combination of prejudice, segregation and racism. Prejudice is an irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion. African Americans faced prejudice mainly because the color of their skin was different shades of black or brown, often referred to as “colored”. They were judged to be a violent race and eventually succumbed to slavery. Segregation is the practice of separating people of different races, classes, or ethnic groups, in places such as in schools, housing, and public facilities, as a form of discrimination. African Americans were segregated from whites in every way you could possibly think of. For example, if they wanted to ride a city bus with whites aboard then they were told to go to the back of the bus. The segregation was because the whites didn’t want any blacks associating with the whites in anyway. Racism is the belief that one particular race is superior to others. African American experienced Caucasian Americans...