Black Arts & Black Aesthetic Essay Example for Free

Black Arts Black Aesthetic Essay Larry Neal’s â€Å"Black Arts Movements† and Addison Gayle’s â€Å"The Black Aesthetic† are two identical mission statements for the black audience: set yourself apart from the white culture and give your culture the recognition it deserves. The two pieces are similar in ideas and purposes. The black communities were tired of always adapting to the ways of the white culture because it was the â€Å"right† way to act. The black community wanted to define their own culture and these pieces were words of encouragement for blacks to step outside the white ways of thinking and acting and step into an acceptance of their own urbanity. Once the differences were accepted that’s when you start seeing the different relationships between whites and blacks. These written pieces were significant changes in thoughts and actions at this time, and they weren’t useless. The blacks were really hoping to set themselves apart from the rest, to have people recognize they were different from the white oppressive mind set, and it worked. Larry Neal’s â€Å"The Black Arts Movement†, written in 1968, speaks directly to the needs and ambitions of Black America at the time. The main goal in â€Å"The Black Arts Movement† is to emphasize the necessity for black culture to define their world in their own terms. Larry Neal asks the question in his piece, â€Å"†¦whose vision of the world is more meaningful, ours or the white oppressors? † (Neal page 2040). He is asking his audience to move away from a white oppressor vision of the world and create their own vision of the world: a vision that has their own beliefs, thoughts, and ideas; a vision that stands out from the white patterns that have consisted years prior. The Black artists’ primary duty is to express the needs of the Black people. Neal explains this idea by saying, â€Å"†¦main thrust of his new breed of contemporary writers to confront the contradictions arising out of the Black man’s experience in the raciest West† (Neal page 2039). In other words, the goals of these new artists is to use a concept of â€Å"protest literature† (page 2040) and direct this new literature directly towards black people to summon hope and â€Å"[awaken] Black people to the meaning of their lives† (Neal page 2042). The Black community had been living in an oppressive society for years prior to this new movement. Neal believed The Black Aesthetic was the destruction of white ideas, and the destruction of white ways of looking at their world. Addison Gayle Jr. was another of these contemporary artists who encouraged a new way of life to the black community in his piece, â€Å"The Black Aesthetic†. The Black Aesthetic movement was the practice that helped those seeking to navigate and understand the experiences of black peoples. Gayle explains the Black Aesthetic movement: â€Å"The question for the black critic today is not how beautiful is a melody, a play, a poem, a novel, but how much more beautiful has the poem†¦made the life of a single black man? The Black Aesthetic, then, as conceived by this writer†¦is a means of helping black people out of the polluted mainstream of Americanism†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Gayle 1916). This is a significant quote because Gayle, and many of the Black Aesthetic artists at the time, really believe that these works of art are not for the critics’ entertainment. Instead they are gritty stories of these Black Peoples’ experiences and they are intended to free the Black Man of an oppressive white America. They are to encourage these black men and women to stop conforming to the white culture and instead embrace their own. The black aesthetic period is so significant because it was a time where the artists made a significant shift in the opinions of the white culture towards the black culture, and even more, it gave a chance to the Black community to find their voice in the madness and be able to stand out amongst the white, oppressive view points of the society they were living in at the time. These two pieces of work connect really well with each other. Essentially I could connect Gayle’s piece to almost any Black Aesthetic piece just because they all have similar viewpoints in regards to the freedom of the oppressive white American culture. However, Larry Neal directly comments on the Black Aesthetics. He describes the Black Arts Movement and the Black Aesthetic as one. Neal says, â€Å"Black Art is the aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power concept. As such, it envisions an art that speaks directly to the needs and aspirations of Black America† (Neal page 2039). This goes with Gayle’s beliefs that the Black Aesthetic is directly made for the needs of the black peoples. Gayle says, â€Å"A critical methodology has no relevance to the black community unless it aids men in becoming better than they are† (page 1917). Gayle and Neal both have this vision for Black Americans that they be freed from this movement, not pushed further into oppression, and they believe the arts can advocate them into being better. The encouragement the artists have for the rest of their brothers and sisters is what makes these two pieces so important, especially when they’re being compared. The black people, whether they are the creators or just regular middle-class folks, share visions of positivity during hardships. They want their brothers to come out and top, so they fight together. The Black Aesthetic movement was a time period where the black Americans, whom had the privilege to create and share poems, stories, and plays, were able to share their creations with the rest of the population to motivate them. Gayle and Neal’s goals are the same: they want the blacks to find their own identity, present themselves differently, and stop following in the footsteps of the whites. They believe that these works of art really can do wonders of change for their brothers and sisters. These stories and creations, poem and plays, aren’t just useless, fictional words that these artist create out of air. They are real life accounts of the battles the black culture have fought in hopes that the oppressive layer of the white America finally comes off their backs. In the following quote, Neal demonstrates how the arts can really be significant. Neal says, â€Å"Poetry is a concrete function, actions†¦Poems are physical entities: fists, daggers, airplane poems, and poems that shoot guns. Poems are transformed into personal forces†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Page 2041). In relationship to Neal, Gayle compares the oppression to war. These two works are compatible to each other. Gayle believes the two cultures are at war, while Neal has the perfect weapon: works of art. Gayle explains the society’s conditions by saying, â€Å"The serious black artist of today is at war with the American society as few have been throughout American history† (Gayle page 1914). Gayle and Neal agree upon this. The Black American culture was at a war with the white American culture and the black artists were doing everything in their power to free themselves of this war using the one weapon they were best at using: words. Using these words of hope and encouragement, and visions of freedom and opportunities, the artists created possibilities. Neal and Gayle had similar visions for the future, as well. They both believed this movement was growing and they believed that growth had been evident in white peoples’ eyes already. Gayle states this growth by saying, â€Å"The white academician†¦calls upon a black man to write the introduction. The editor then declares that his anthology ‘represents the best black literature’ or that he has chosen these works which rank the best in American artistic production. †Ã¢â‚¬  (Gayle page 1918). In saying that a black man can write an introduction and rank the best in production is a significant amount of change for the Black community. The white editors are accepting of the different writing styles and topics, and still finding that it’s quality literature even when it’s unlike theirs; a goal the black aesthetic writers have worked to achieve. Neal has a similar idea on hope, but he also adds his beliefs on the growth of this movement by saying, â€Å"Afro-American life and history is full of creative possibilities, and the movement is just beginning to perceive them. Just beginning to understand that the most meaningful statements†¦must come from the Third World of which Black America is a part† (Neal page 2050). This statement is quite similar to Gayle’s in that the white society in America is starting to recognize the importance in black arts which is a significant change because it’s one that they worked towards for many years. At the time, progress was still being made, but some progress had been made and it was enough to make them feel happy and even more hopeful for the future of the movement. The significance in the pieces is that they set their black community apart from the rest of America. Years prior the whites oppressed the blacks and so at this point in time, the black people were trying desperately to free themselves. In comparing these two pieces you really start to see the similar ideas the black people had about their community. These ideas weren’t just small things a few people decided to write about. They were words of hope for the future. A mission statement to set themselves apart from the rest, testimonies of what the artists have been through, and explanations of why they’re different and why they should be recognized as that. The incredible thing about it: it worked. Gayle, Addison, Jr. , and Larry Neal. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York [u. a. : Norton, 2004. Print. ]

Nurse Empowerment Essay -- Health Care, Nursing

Introduction Nurses have a vital role in the rapidly changing healthcare setting, which are characterized by critical care patients and shortages of nurses to meet demands of patient care (Ning, Zhong, Libo, and Qiujie, 2009). Therefore, it is important to maintain good working environments for nurses. Empowerment is seen as an effective method to advance nurse’s satisfaction (Ning, Zhong, Libo, and Qiujie, 2009). Empowerment as stated by Wittmann-Price (2004), is â€Å"the process of reaching a more positive state of being, a state of relative freedom in choice by first acknowledging an affective experience of oppression†. The purpose of this paper is to write a narrative about an experience as a student nurse practicing in a clinical setting where we felt oppressed due to class, race, cultural or gender biases. This narrative will be analyzed using relevant concepts in the literature. Narrative My experience happened when I was in second year nursing. We are just starting our clinical rotations in KGH. At that time, our instructors assigned us one patient to do our nursing care. The goals for the day are to do our head to toe assessments and be able to chart our findings. Throughout the shift, we have a co-assigned nurse that will aid us in our duties for the day. I did what I was supposed to do and charted accordingly. After the end of the shift I thought that I did everything right, until one of my classmates told me that my nurse talked to her and stating that I did not do a good job and telling her that I do not know how to chart. Upon hearing, this from my classmate I did not say anything to my clinical instructor and just let it slide. I felt embarrassed and ashamed. I thought that I cannot change what happened and I ... ...against oppressors I must recognized that I am being oppressed. I also must learn to change my attitudes towards my oppressors and change the way I am responding and thinking. Conclusion Empowerment is a vital factor in creating a positive working environment. Nurses that see their work environment as empowering are more likely to provide quality health care. Positive environments are important for the future of nursing development (Ning, Zhong, Libo, and Qiujie, 2009). Nurses should not only have the ability to recognized differences but also they must have the capacity to transform and change structures within the profession in order to achieved emancipation. To achieve empowerment they must take steps to overcome oppression. They must face their fears and be able to make dialogue with their oppressors and let them know that their actions are unacceptable.

Badminton Essay Essay

Self-efficacy and social influences are two guiding principles in the study of sociology of sport. Self-efficacy is an individual’s personal estimate of confidence in his or her capability to accomplish a certain level of performance, whereas social influence occurs when others affect one’s emotions, opinions, behaviors and choices. These sociocultural factors are linked to Figueroa’s framework, which influence my participation in badminton. In this essay, the focus in on self-efficacy and social stigma-related socio-cultural factors, which are constituent elements in the sports socialization process and have influenced my active involvement in Badminton. The purpose of this assignment is to evaluate the impact that sociocultural influences have had on my decision to play on the Moreton Bay College badminton team. Professor Peter Figueroa developed a tool also known as Figueroa’s Framework, which investigates the issues surrounding access, equity and equality in sport and physical activity. It is structured over five different levels: individual, interpersonal, institutional, structural and cultural, these areas are used to investigate the ways in which inequities challenge the area of sport and physical activity. All five levels connect within each other and they all influence the shaping of the overall effect. They show the different functions that reinforce, create, remove and eliminate barriers and inequities within sport and physical activity. The level of Figeuroa’s Framework that affects my participation in badminton the greatest was the interpersonal level and individual level. The interpersonal level of Figueroa’s framework is used to investigate the relationships that affect whether an individual will develop a lifelong association with sport. Most individuals ar e influenced directly or indirectly by the people around them such as parents, peers, siblings, teachers, coaches, or sporting role models. In particular, one barrier that had an impact upon my participation in Badminton is self-efficacy. The theory of self-efficacy â€Å"was developed within the framework of social cognitive theory, which views individuals as proactive agents in the regulation of their cognition, motivation, actions,  and emotions.† When playing badminton I feel vulnerable to this problem of self-efficacy as my self-esteem is affected by my performance because I feel as if I am judged by how well I perform. As I have such high expectations to perform well in badminton, I am very critical and hard on myself. This leads to poor self-efficacy which forces me to believe I do not have the capability for success in Badminton. Someone with high self-efficacy is confident and motivated to work toward a learning goal and someone such as myself with low self-efficacy in badminton is not as motivated, which effects how much effort is put into a particular task. Self-efficacy is based on a social learning theory and is a construct that affects motivation and thus can promote or inhibit learning different skills. Consequently, as Allender et al. (2006) suggests, when an individual has limited confidence in their own ability to perform, enjoyment levels decline and inevitably, participation ceases. Pratt et al. (1999) found that perceived competence and sport ability beliefs had a â€Å"strong and direct impact on enjoyment†. As enjoyment is a precursor to ongoing participation, it is thus evident that self-efficacy is an important factor in my participation in Badminton. A study by McCarthy, Jones and Clark-Carter (2008) investigated the sources of enjoyment reported by youth sport participants and found that positive parental involvement was one of the most frequently reported results by young males and females. This implies that when children in sport perceive parental involvement as positive, they are more likely to enjoy their sporting experience. When we are young, our families influence us more than outsiders do. If your parents played sports, took you to sporting contests, helped you learn basic sport skills, and encouraged you to participate, chances are you gave sports a try. It has been proven that parental influence extends to the parents perception of the sports their children choose to participate in. That is, parents can transmit values through communicating their beliefs, acceptance, and support to their child’s participation in sport. Numerous studies have demonstrated the importance of parental interpretation, often showing th at too much parental feedback causes undue stress in young athletes and can cause them not to participate in certain sports, but the appropriate amounts of encouragement and support can increase enjoyment and longevity of the athletes’ involvement. Parental  interpretation is a powerful mechanism because it communicates expected and valued behaviors. Children internalize parental values and expectations therefore; children try to behave in ways that maximize their acceptance in the social setting. Thus, as my parents communicate that they do not value badminton as an exceptional sport, it is unlikely for me to participate in this sport. Also as my parents are not actively involved, nor intentionally provide sporting experiences for the sport of badminton; it is very unlikely that I was ever exposed to the sporting world of badminton as a child. In conclusion, self-efficacy and social influences are two of the central motives that have influenced my decision to play on the college badminton team. These sociocultural factors target the Interpersonal and Structural level of Figueroa’s framework. The influence of outsiders such as family and peers and my perceived capability at a particular time to perform the specified badminton skills has led me to the decision of not participating in the Moreton Bay College badminton team.

Broad Spectrum Revolution Giving Up the Paleo Diet

The Broad Spectrum Revolution (abbreviated BSR and sometimes referred to as niche broadening) refers to a human subsistence shift at the end of the last Ice Age (ca 20,000–8,000 years ago). During the Upper Paleolithic (UP), people all over the globe survived on diets made up primarily of the meat from large-bodied terrestrial mammals—the first paleo diet. But at some point after the Last Glacial Maximum, their descendants broadened their subsistence strategies to include hunting small animals and foraging for plants, becoming hunter-gatherers. Eventually, humans began  domesticating those plants and animals, in the process radically changing our way of life. Archaeologists have been trying to figure out the mechanisms that made those changes happen since the early decades of the 20th century. Braidwood to Binford to Flannery The term Broad Spectrum Revolution was coined  in 1969  by archaeologist Kent Flannery, who created the idea to get a better understanding of how humans changed from Upper Paleolithic hunters to Neolithic farmers in the Near East. Of course, the idea didnt come out of thin air: BSR was developed as a response to Lewis Binfords theory about why that change happened, and Binfords theory was a response to Robert Braidwood. In the early 1960s, Braidwood suggested that agriculture was the product of experimentation with wild resources in optimal environments (the hilly flanks theory): but he didnt include a mechanism that explained why people would do that. In 1968, Binford argued that such changes could only be forced by something that disrupted the existing equilibrium between resources and technology—big mammal hunting technologies worked in the UP for tens of thousands of years. Binford suggested that disruptive element was climate change—the rise in sea level at the end of the Pleistocene reduced the overall land available to populations and forced them to find new strategies. Braidwood himself was responding to V.G. Childes Oasis Theory: and the changes werent linear. Many of scholars were working this problem, in all of the ways typical of the messy, exhilarating process of theoretical change in archaeology. Flannerys Marginal Areas and Population Growth In 1969, Flannery was working in the Near East in the Zagros mountains far from the impacts of sea level rises, and that mechanism wasnt going to work well for that region. Instead, he proposed that hunters began to use invertebrates, fish, waterfowl, and plant resources as a response to localized population density. Flannery argued that, given a choice, people live in optimal habitats, the best places for whatever their subsistence strategy happens to be; but by the end of the Pleistocene, those locations had become too crowded for hunting big mammals to work. Daughter groups budded off and moved into areas that were not so optimal, so-called marginal areas. The old subsistence methods wouldnt work in these marginal areas, and instead, people began exploiting an increasing array of small game species and plants. Putting the People Back In The real problem with BSR, though, is what created Flannerys notion in the first place—that environments and conditions are different across time and space. The world of 15,000 years ago, not unlike today, was made up of a wide variety of environments, with different amounts of patchy resources and different levels of plant and animal scarcity and abundance. Societies were structured with different gender and societal organizations and used different levels of mobility and intensification. Diversifying resource bases–and particularizing again to exploit a select number of resources–are strategies used by societies in all of these places. With the application of new theoretical models such as the niche construction theory (NCT), archaeologists today define the specific shortcomings within a specific environment (niche) and identify the adaptations that humans used to survive there, whether they are expanding the dietary breadth of their resource base or contracting it. Using a comprehensive study known as human behavioral ecology, researchers recognize that human subsistence is a nearly continuous process of coping with changes in resource base, whether people are adapting to environmental changes in the region where they live, or moving away from that region and adapting to new situations in new locations. Environmental manipulation of the environment occurred and occurs in zones with optimal resources and those with less optimal ones, and the use of BSR/NCT theories allows the archaeologist to measure those characteristics and gain an understanding of what decisions were made and whether they were successful— or not. Sources Abbo, Shahal, et al. Wild Lentil and Chickpea Harvest in Israel: Bearing on the Origins of Near Eastern Farming. Journal of Archaeological Science 35.12 (2008): 3172-77. Print.Allaby, Robin G., Dorian Q. Fuller, and Terence A. Brown. The Genetic Expectations of a Protracted Model for the Origins of Domesticated Crops. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105.37 (2008): 13982–86. Print.Binford, Lewis R. Post-Pleistocene Adaptations. New Perspectives in Archaeology. Eds. Binford, Sally R., and Lewis R. Binford. Chicago, Illinois: Aldine, 1968. 313–41. Print.Ellis, Erle C., et al. Evolving the Anthropocene: Linking Multi-Level Selection with Long-Term Social–Ecological Change. Sustainability Science 13.1 (2018): 119–28. Print.Flannery, Kent V. Origins and Ecological Effects of Early Domestication in Iran and the Near East. The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals. Eds. Ucko, Peter J. and George W. Dimbleby. Chicago: Aldine, 1969. 73 –100. Print.Gremillion, Kristen, Loukas Barton, and Dolores R. Piperno. Particularlism and the Retreat from Theory in the Archaeology of Agricultural Origins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition (2014). Print.Guan, Ying, et al. Modern Human Behaviors During the Late Stage of the MIS3 and the Broad Spectrum Revolution: Evidence from a Shuidonggou Late Paleolithic Site. Chinese Science Bulletin 57.4 (2012): 379–86. Print.Larson, Greger, and Dorian Q. Fuller. The Evolution of Animal Domestication. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 45.1 (2014): 115–36. Print.Piperno, Dolores R. Assessing Elements of an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis for Plant Domestication and Agricultural Origin Research. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114.25 (2017): 6429–37. Print.Rillardon, Maryline, and Jean-Philip Brugal. What About the Broad Spectrum Revolution? Subsistence Strategy of Hunter–Gatherers in Southeast Fr ance between 20 and 8  KA BP. Quaternary International 337 (2014): 129–53. Print.Rosen, Arlene M., and Isabel Rivera-Collazo. Climate Change, Adaptive Cycles, and the Persistence of Foraging Economies During the Late Pleistocene/Holocene Transition in the Levant. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109.10 (2012): 3640–45. Print.Stiner, Mary C. Thirty Years on the Broad Spectrum Revolution and Paleolithic Demography. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98.13 (2001): 6993–96. Print.Stiner, Mary C., et al. A Forager–Herder Trade-Off, from Broad-Spectrum Hunting to Sheep Management at Asikli Hà ¶yà ¼k, Turkey. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111.23 (2014): 8404–09. Print.Zeder, Melinda A. The Broad Spectrum Revolution at 40: Resource Diversity, Intensification, and an Alternative to Optimal Foraging Explanations. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31.3 (2012): 241–64. Print.---. Core Questions in D omestication Research. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112.11 (2015): 3191–98. Print.