In week 7, you will submit a written proposal (due before lecture on Nov. 14) in which you will write a brief description of your plans (topic, argument, division of responsibilities, time table) and an annotated bibliography of each of the readings used (max. 1 page per reading). While the proposal will be a single document for each group, each member should contribute towards one of the readings for the bibliography (i.e. you should have at least as many readings as group members). The readings should be readings from the course, and your annotated bibliography entries should focus on what parts of those readings are relevant to your project and how.
This is our group topic:
Proposal: Black Cultural Appropriation
Brief Description
Our topic is on celebrities and their influence in different communities, specifically the leverage that they hold when relating to the Black Community. We argue that non-black celebrities have a certain fluidity to move from nonblack to black culture, thus having an influence on black cultural appropriation. Celebrities like Gina Rodriguez, a well known Hispanic actress, posted a video of herself singing along to a rap song stating the “N-word”, which later received a huge amount of backlash. Although not being white herself, her useage of the N-word was unacceptable, which raises the question of who is allowed to say the N-word and what constitutes someone this allowance? While Gina Rodriguez apologized for this accidental post, it goes to show the ability a celebrity has to attempt an association with the black community. Her actions had an influence in the community because despite the backlash, she did receive immense support from her fans saying that the incident was not on purpose and had no malicious intent. Additionally, there are celebrities like Kim Kardashian West who are also receiving backlash but not for culturally appropriating vocabulary, but for attempting to culturally appropriate darker skin tones (“Black-fishing” / “Black-face”) by posting edited photos of herself with darker skin and promoting her makeup line through these photos. In terms of division of workload, Pedro will be talking about the article “All The Real Indians Died Off” and explaining its relationship between white people claiming native american culture, the same way that celebrities are claiming black culture.
This is my reading need to relate to my group topic:
[OL] Carey, Nessa. 2012. “Beyond DNA: Epigenetics.” Natural History (http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/features/142195/beyond-dna-epigenetics)
Epigenetics – skin color having to do with proximity to equator, connect to how people are getting darker in order to be a part of the trend aka black culture…. Wanting to associate with the community… explain how skin tone is just about being exposed to more sunlight/UV Light… therefore this connects to social construction and how skintone is giving meaning by cultures.. Therefore causing these kinds of problems with celebrities wishing to be included in these communities.
“Black Fishing” – means to appear darker than one actually is (another example besides Kim K, ariana grande going from really pale to really tan)
This should be about one page.
The jpg is about the organizing of the proposal.
