Week 5 - Barker 9

I'm Sorry Wes. I will post on the individual chapters in Barker from here on.

This being Black History month, I thought it would be appropriate to comment on Barker's discussion in chapter 9 about African American culture. Barker discusses at length the impact of media and assimilationist strategies on African Americans. Barker also goes at length to show that African American culture exists separately in many ways from white culture. B.E.T. is an obvious testimony to this fact. However, I struggled with Barker's point that hard work, honesty, responsibility and education are valued by the middle and upper class of African Americans but that lower class of blacks, while containing these same qualities, simply lack the opportunities and options to utilize these values. What opportunity or option do we need to be able to act responsibly? Bill Cosby has been maginalized by the African American left because he criticizes American black culture for thinking like this. However, I see Barker's point that the "macho black man" and "strong black woman" image is a cultural response to years of white oppression and forced assimilation .