Progression Two: Interacting with Representations of Blackness
Symbolism
"Beauty Within" by Dead Prez
Post-viewing Reflection
1. What symbols are expressed in this video?
2. Why are they important to Black people?
3. What is the video responding to?
4. Write down at least two sentences expressing the ideas that are expressed through the symbols in this video.
Word Picture 1
#RhodesMustFall #UCT
This is an explanation to the event in the picture.
Word Picture 2
Choose one of the five pictures and write a description of what you see. Use descriptive words in a way that would allow someone to imagine the picture that you see without seeing it. What feelings are evoked? What is going on? What is the world like for those in the picture? Use whatever tone you would like. (100 words)
Word Picture Reflection
Why do you think these images were taken? What do they represent? How are they meaningful to Black people around the world?
Scene
Required Reading: The Meeting: A One Act Play
Read the excerpt from The Meeting: A One Act Play by Jeff Stetson.
Scene Assignment
Write a dialogue between yourself and the people (or just one person) from the word picture that you wrote about in class. Be as creative as you like, but remember to use academic language. You can also indicate physical movement in your scene. (600-900 words). Alternatively, you can film this scene with another student(s) and upload the link to the scene (approximately 3-5 minutes) from YouTube on Moodle. If you work with others, all students will receive the same grade.
Required Reading: The Spirit of Black People's Expressions
Post-reading Reflecton
1. What is soul force and how does it connect to the expressions of Black people?
2. What is the importance of rhythm, song, dance, and music in the cultural expression of African people?
Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony
FILM REVIEW; The Sounds and Rhythms That Helped Bring Down Apartheid
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: February 19, 2003
From ''The Marseillaise'' to ''We Shall Overcome,'' there has probably never been a revolution that did not use songs to give voice to its aspirations or rally the morale of its adherents. As the South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim remarks in ''Amandla!,'' a documentary directed by Lee Hirsch that opens in Manhattan today, the toppling of apartheid may be a special case, the first revolution ever to be conducted ''in four-part harmony.'' Mr. Ibrahim's observation, which supplies this restless, moving film with its subtitle, points to the central role that music -- in the streets, on records, in prison and in exile -- played in black South Africa's long struggle for liberation from white domination.
Threading together interviews and archival clips with a percolating soundtrack, Mr. Hirsch makes the case that musical expression was central to the project of self-determination. Every chapter in the often brutal, ultimately triumphant saga that stretches from 1948 (the year the right-wing National Party came to power and began to institute its infamous policy of racial separation) to 1994 (the year of Nelson Mandela's victory in the first election open to all of the country's citizens) is accompanied by songs of defiance, mourning, pride and despair. ''Amandla'' is the Xhosa word for power, and the film certainly lives up to its name.
Mr. Hirsch and Sherry Simpson, the executive producer, who are both American, have spent much of the past decade interviewing activists and musicians and combing the South African broadcast archives for historical material. The film they have put together is dense with sound and information, but it moves with a swift, lilting rhythm that is of a piece with the musical heritage it explores.
The end of apartheid was stirring and in retrospect seems to have been inevitable, but ''Amandla!'' reminds us just how harsh and tenacious the system was, in part by interviewing some of its enforcers as well as its victims. Soon after the elections of 1948, the National Party enacted a series of cruel and humiliating laws that codified and deepened the racial injustice that already existed in the country. In response the African National Congress initiated a campaign of nonviolent resistance, which was met with government repression culminating in the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960. The early 60's were a period of ferocious oppression during which many activists were jailed, killed or driven into exile.
Among the exiled were Mr. Ibrahim, Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba, all of whom became internationally prominent musicians, and who speak poignantly here of the pain of being uprooted from their homes and families. In the course of their careers they served as ambassadors for the anti-apartheid cause.
''Amandla!,'' though, does not ignore less widely known musicians and militants. Some, like Thandi Modise and Lindiwe Zulu, were part of Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation, also known as MK), the armed wing of the A.N.C. (Ms. Modise is now a member of Parliament, while Ms. Zulu works in the Foreign Affairs Department.) After the bannings and jailings of the 1960's and 70's and the police massacre of Soweto schoolchildren in 1976, the MK's tactics gained support, and the music of the era reflected this defiance.
If there is anything missing from ''Amandla!'' it is attention to the nonpolitical aspects of the music itself: what folk and popular traditions fed it, how it was disseminated through the country, how it intersected with other forms of cultural expression. That would have been a different kind of film, and Mr. Hirsch has wisely allowed the music to speak for itself. Sometimes, as with the spirituals of American slavery, it speaks in code, a subterfuge made easier by white ignorance of African languages. So a popular tune from the 50's sounds like an upbeat, lighthearted dance number, even as the words, referring to the Nationalist prime minister who was apartheid's chief architect, warn, ''Watch out Verwoerd, the black man's going to get you.''
The sprightliness of that song's music and the anger of its lyrics capture as well as anything the spirit of black South African resistance. And this spirit -- resilient, at times bitter, finally unstoppable -- shows up in different forms at different moments.
During the demonstrations of the 1980's, young people did a high-stepping dance, accompanied by chanting, called ''Toyi Toyi,'' that terrified the country's heavily armed police. (This we learn in a candid interview, long after the fact, with the former head of riot control.) Other songs address the basic indignities that apartheid inflicted on individuals: workers taken by train to mines far from their homes, domestic servants exploited by their employers, schoolchildren denied instruction in their own language.
''Amandla!'' begins with the exhumation, in post-apartheid South Africa, of the remains of Vuyisile Mini, a composer and activist who was hanged in 1964 and buried in a pauper's grave. At the end he is reinterred as a national hero at a state funeral, and the film, fittingly, is partly dedicated to his memory.
''Amandla!'' is rated PG-13 for scenes of rioting and police brutality and discussions of torture. AMANDLA!
A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony Directed by Lee Hirsch; in English, Xhosa and Zulu, with English subtitles; directors of photography, Clive Sacke, Ivan Leathers and Brand Jordaan; edited by Johanna Demetrakas; produced by Mr. Hirsch and Sherry Simpson; released by Artisan Entertainment. At the Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, west of Sixth Avenue, South Village. Running time: 103 minutes. This film is rated PG-13. WITH: Hugh Masekela, Abdullah Ibrahim, Miriam Makeba, Vusi Mahlasela, Sibongile Khumalo, Sophie Mgcina, Dolly Rathebe, Sifiso Ntuli, Duma Ka Ndlovu, Sibusiso Nxumalo, Thandi Modise and Lindiwe Zulu.
Ethnography
Ethnography Assignment
Critical ethnographers do not want to make assumptions. They note things that you observe or hear, never making casual explanations for their findings. They look for deeper meanings, and try to understand from the participant's point of view. One cannot accurately complete an ethnography while carrying negative feelings and/or ideas about the people being observed.
Step 1: Observation
- Watch Amandla! again and/or go over your notes.
- List some of the symbols, images, songs, dances and performances expressed by Black people that were memorable in the film.
- Under each of these, write down some notes on the ideas that each of these expressed. Why were they important to Black people? What role did they play within that moment in history, society, or community?
- What is the historical and cultural context of each of these symbols/songs/dances/performances/protests?
- How might these symbols continue to be meaningful in contemporary South Africa?
Step 2: Discussion
- In groups of 3-4, discuss each of the most prominent examples that you wrote about. Choose the ones that have the most support. Let each student share the symbols and their importance in the context of that particular moment in South African society.
- Take notes on each person's presentation.
Step 3: Organization and Upload
- Choose 3 ideas that you belief Black South Africans are communicating through the symbols/songs/dances/performances/images and organize your notes once again.
- List each of the 3 ideas, for example, pain, joy, resilience, anger, power, and then list the symbols, song lyrics, dances, performances, images from the film that support each of these ideas.
- Organize in a chart form (it can be whatever kind of chart you would like to use such as a Venn diagram or a linear chart) to use as an additional visual for your assignment.
- Upload your chart.
Thesis Statements
Citations
Here is an example of how to cite a YouTube video. This additional guide to integrating citations may also be useful.
Essay #2 Assignment
You have examined literature in the first and second progression that expresses cultural pride and a desire for progression for Black people globally. Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony detailed the importance of songs in the liberation struggle for Black people in South Africa. This cultural expression was often considered as integral to the struggle as an armed freedom fighter.
Write an essay discussing the ideas expressed through songs, symbols, images, music, art, dances, and performances in the film Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony.
Your analysis should be from the point of view of the culture that the expression emanates from. You are a simple observer trying to analyze the meaning of the symbols/expression, the importance of the expression, the utility of the expression, and the historical and cultural context of the expression. You are trying to understand aspects of the expression simply by watching, even though an outsider may not be privy to the exact meaning of the symbols. Your quest is to search for a deeper analysis and understanding from the point of view of the people themselves.
Make sure to follow all of the conventions of essay writing that you have learned thus far. Create a question for your assignment and a thesis statement that answers the question. Remember, the first sentence of your body paragraphs directs the entire paragraph. Topic sentences are important. Do not forget transition signals. Work hard and good luck! Your audience is a general audience - wider than the previous essay, but continue to use academic language. Your tone should reflect the seriousness of the issue discussed. Your analysis, above all else, should be respectful to the people that you write about.
You should have 3 body paragraphs, an introduction and a conclusion. Your essay should have 1,000 words minimum and have a word count in the heading.
APA format style should be used. Be sure to include a References page and use proper quotations and citations.
Be sure to write in 3rd person and integrate your evidence. All paraphrase and direction quotations should be cited using APA citations.
Your audience is an academic one - me! The paper should carry a professional voice with academic language.
Use this generic outline as a guide to complete an outline for your second essay. Your can have much more detail than this outline provides, but your outline should not be incomplete.
Use this peer review sheet to guide you in reviewing your classmate's work.
All essays will be submitted via Moodle as ONE Microsoft Word document. The order for the submitted document is as follows:
1. Your final draft (for me to grade)
2. References Page
3. Outline (typed)
Before you submit your essay, fill out the Self-Assessment Form. You will want to revise your work accordingly. This gives you an idea of what I am looking for when I grade your essays.
The first document that you upload will be graded - no exceptions. Please be careful to upload the correct version.
