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CHAPTER 7 Epilogue: The African Self From the Past, Revelations in the Present, and Foreshadowing of the Future Nothing thefuture brings can defeat apeople who have come through three hundredyears of slavery and humiliation and privation with heads high and eyes clear and straight. -PAUL ROBESON T h e questions that have informed this inquiry pertain to the effects of systematic and continuous aggressive acts against Africans in the United States on the self-concept. With uncanny consistency, African Americans have been projected in an unfavorable light. While historically the form and the intensity of these malignant forces have changed, they nonetheless remain in existence. The larger white society has moved from considering Africans as only partial humans to granting them second-class citizenship. The struggle of Africans in the United States has been for f u l lcitizenship in the land oftheirbirth.The forces that have militated against the realization of citizenship in the United States and the world have taken many forms, from government sanctioning to government disavowal, from societal acceptance to societal rejection. I have argued that in order to get a better understanding of the selfconcept of African Americans, one must examine the historical treatment that Africans have received over time. One cannot help but be amazed at the level of rancor and hostility such an examination discloses, and the egregious behavior one sees exhibited against Africans over an extended period of history. As I have attempted to demonstrate, the onslaught has come from manydifferent circles, ranging from highly respected academicsto borderline defectives, from the scientific community both then and now, and of course, Epilogue 163 from the political community, those varying in range of political orientation. The mode of assault against African Americans has included attempts to reduce their confidence (i.e., you are inferior, your imposed station in life is justified) and to ensure what Clarke (1994) calls "historical amnesia" (i.e., your history began on a slave ship, and becoming a good slave is among your few realistic goals). To provide a flavor of some of this thinking and the techniques used to bring these states into existence, I have quoted extensively from many historical sources and have revealed some graphic contemporary instances of racist symbolism and terminology. Since mass communication has such a powerful influence on the conception oftheworld, Ihave undertaken a more detailed analysisofhowit conveys ideas. Focusing primarily on the mass media, I have been able to show how each medium has dealt with the portrayal of the African over time. Although each medium has had its own terminology for the description of the African, the essence of the portrayals of Africans has been similar during the same time periods. Moreover, looking at the current scene, it is possible to find character portrayals rooted in the earlier depictions. As I examined some of the earlier characters presented in distorted and degrading stances, Iwas able to attach contemporary labels to these characters, with little hyperbole. As a consequence of the dastardly performance of the majority media toward Africans, media fare by and for Africans was developed. With a more pronounced presence in the print media (newspapers and magazines), it also was extended to included a considerable position in radio. The black media have usually operated from a comparatively small budget. Their influence, however, belies this fact. They have tried not only to undo the damage done by the majority media during their most insidious days, but also to more positively provide aview of the world from an African American perspective. Thus, these media were and still are a source of resistance and redefinition. For example, the most blatant and horrendous portrayals, allusions, and descriptions of African people have to a large degree disappeared, yet the more subtle traces still remain. Additionally, the media provide a frame for interpreting events and people often go to the media for cues and clues on how to interpret events; the black media often serve that purpose for African Americans. Presently the majority media are the main source of information about the world, if for no other reasons than that the black media are more limited in their scope and reach. The black media are consulted for the many issues that may not appear in the majority media, and also for a black perspective on many of the issues that the majority media have investigated. Just as the black media have fostered the idea of the group, other institutions within the African American community have acted as...

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