Cultural Oppression Of African Americans Summary

The article titled "Cultural Oppression and the High-Risk Status of African Americans" by Jerome Schiele focuses on three main risk factors that African Americans face due to cultural oppression. These three risk factors are cultural estrangement, attenuation of Black collectiveness and spiritual alienation. Schiele describes that African Americans today are facing modern institutional discrimination that is less subtle compared to discrimination in other historical eras. Also, due to the Eurocentric dominate ideologies, Schiele concludes that African Americans are still victims in our cultural system despite the perceived idea that African Americans are facing less inequality today. In this case, cultural estrangement is the risk of African Americans failing to see the value of their origin …show more content…
Because of the oppression that many African Americans face, they band together to fight everyday struggles; however, material deprivation and internal class stratification had caused tension within the African American community. This material deprivation and lack of collective conscious has caused some African Americans to fall victim to consumerism and given rise to the increase of income inequality within the race. This ultimately leads to an increased lack of collective conscious since it is thought that middle and upper-class African Americans are following the White's culture of competition rather than helping the African American population rise and gain more power. Furthermore, the income inequality causes differences in residential areas of living. Poor Blacks are left to expose themselves to street life in urban areas that are high in violent crime while the Blacks with money get to live in suburban areas where violent crimes are