Movies
-“Soul food” in 1997 starring Vivica Fox, Nia Long, and Vanessa Williams. Directed and written by George Tillman Jr. According to the internet movie database, this movie is “a story of the people who make us strong and the recipe that makes us a family.” To my mind, this movie shows at the same time a positive and negative of African American Families.
- “The pursuit of Happiness” in 2006 starring Will Smith and his son. This movie was directed and written by Gabriele Muccino and Steve Conrad respectively. According to the internet movie database, this movie is about “a struggling salesman takes custody of his son as he's poised to begin a life-changing professional endeavor.” To my mind, this is an interesting story that shows how hard life can be for some people who want to educate their kids despite some difficulties of life.
Books
-“African American Families” by Angela Hattery, Earl Smith. This book of 385 pages was published in 2007. This book is very interesting because it describes the typical conditions of African American Families during hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. One remark made about this book :
“Bravo to the authors! They have done an excellent job addressing the issues that are critical to community members, policy makers and interventionists concerned with Black families in the context of our nation.”
-Michael C. Lambert, University of Missouri, Colombia
-“African American Family Life: Ecological and Cultural Diversity” by Vonnie C. McLoyd, Nancy E. Hill, Kenneth A. Dodge. This book of 348 pages was published in 2005 by Guilford Press. To my mind, this book is interesting since it covers cultural, economic topic about African American families. Also, “Particular attention is given to how families draw on cultural resources to adapt to racial disparities in wealth, housing, education, and employment, and how culture, in turn, is shaped by these circumstances.”
Magazines
- Essence magazine of March 2008.
I like this cover because I think it shows the power of African American women. They are very dynamic figures who are at the same time mother, actress, singer, and also business women. This is a positive image.
-African American Family magazine of February 2009
I think this magazine also shows a positive image about African American people especially men. We are tired of seeing Black men going to jail or singing non sense topics.
Radio
Interview of Sean Combs aka “Diddy.” In this interview, Diddy finally admitted to be the father of his 6th child who he longtime denied. To my mind, this interview reveals the sad truth about African American men who refuses to be responsible. They just want to run after women.
After conducting some research on African American families through different media, I realized that at some point, people were right about certain negative stereotypes attributed to Black families. In fact, there is a lot of prejudice built about Blacks in United States, however, it is important to mention there are good qualities encountered among Blacks that we barely see in other colored community. In the following lines, I will share my thoughts about African American families and the images they reflect on me.
First of all, I remember back home, I thought everything was perfect in United States according to the images broadcasted through television. It never came to my mind, even once that there was also misery and families without a father to rule and protect. About four years ago, when I came in this country, I realized my perceptions and analysis were wrong and that people were suffering and struggling sometimes even harder than the ones in Africa. I hope I am not hurting any feeling but I am thinking this way because there is a huge misconception about life in Africa. All people know about Africa is generally negative and affiliated to misery, war, genocide, famine and of course AIDS. Speaking of African American Families, I realized that most of the time, black families are generally not complete in the sense that kids are raised by either the mother or the father and rarely with presence of both. Generally, there is no father to educate and raise the kids who are mostly raised by their mothers or grand-mothers. We have to take hat off to African American women given that they are left alone to raise and educate their kids. On top of that, sometimes they run between school and work to provide food for their kids. Raising a child is a task that requires patience, attention, dedication, and of course the willingness to love. Therefore, we can say that Black women are very strong, powerful, and dedicated since they are generally alone to raise their kids as compared to White women who are generally offered the help of a nanny to look after their kids. Please do not get me wrong, I am not inferring that there are no women of color living or facing the same difficulties or situations as Black women do. Movies such as “This Christmas” starring Chris Brown, Loretta Devine is a good example describing African American family characterized by the absence of the genetic father.
Single mother
Speaking of Black men, I think there are very irresponsible and coward given that their role is generally limited to the conception of the child. They are barely around to look after their children, in the contrary they keep on having children with other women who find themselves also dumped. Sometimes, it happens that they refuse or deny child paternity even though the child looks like him. To better illustrate this case, we can just refer to Sean Combs, best known as “Diddy” who finally admitted on the Oklahoma radio channel 103.5 that he was the father of his sixth child who he at first denied paternity. Thanks to the DNA test that proves that he was the father, and I think he should be very ashamed of himself since he did not want to be accountable of his acts. This is very sad because it seems like he is not the one really affected by all this mess given that he has several kids with different women. To my mind, these women are the ones suffering since they are in love with the same man who apparently is a “Don Juan.”
In the other hand, as I mentioned above, there are good qualities that can be noticed in African American families. One example is that special solidarity that members have for each other. In fact, Blacks are more likely to stand up and help a family member who is in trouble. Sometimes, they even organize family dinner or meeting to talk about some family issues. This is better illustrated in the movie “soul Food” starring Vanessa Williams, Nia Long, and Vivica Fox. This movie is about a family that decides to get together first for fun and then to solve some problems susceptible to divide the family.
That is maybe the reason why we see big house with cousins, and brothers living together, and helping each other. However, this solidarity is sometimes the source or explanation to laziness encountered in Black families. In fact, we see some Black adults unemployed or refusing to work because they know they will still have somebody who will be there to help them or feed them no matter what. Also, adults black women and men generally refuse to leave the house even when they are in their late 20’s. This is very shameful in the sense that at this age they are the ones supposed to help their parents, on the contrary they still depend on their parents’ funds. Speaking of laziness, Blacks who are lazy generally found themselves in jail because they want to live the good life without furnishing any effort.
Hopefully today, African Americans tend to be more wise and active in the society. This is very interesting and promising because these black celebrities step by step influence young generations by showing good image. Also, celebrities like couple Will Smith and Jada Pinkett can be considered good examples since they teach young people that by investing and dedicating yourself in something, you can definitely reach to your goal or dream.
Overall, I think stability is an important factor that contributes to the education of a child. Also I think that stability is observed or present when both father and mother work together and participate in the education of their children.
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