The Vastness Of The Field Of Africana Studies - 2238 Words

Sulemana Mohammed AFST 101 May 2, 2016 Final Paper Question 1: The vastness of the field of Africana Studies encompasses multiple disciplines ranging from the individual native African to their descendants spread around the world. It delves into the culture diffusion upon contact with the external forces such as the Europeans and the egregious act of slave trade that followed suit. The effect of which yielded the ever festering wound that is racism. This subject juxtaposes the life and experiences of the continental African and their cousins in the diaspora. In the very first chapter of our Africana Studies book, Maria Azevedo noted how African was originally thought of as a continent without history or contribution to the advancement of the world (Azevedo 7). Imbecilic stereotypes, including the aforementioned one, and numerous others are debunked and corrected for the layman and interested parties alike. People that subscribe to this prehistoric train of thought contributed to the perpetual existence of racism, prominently in Ameri ca and the rest of the world. Most learned individuals have a general idea of racism, but few could reiterate its origins and why it became so pronounced today. According to Azevedo, the Europeans that settled in Africa fervently believed that â€Å"Africans should be enslaved and colonized in order to be saved from extinction and rescued from their own barbaric ways of life† (Azevedo 8). These early supposed