In Minabrere Ibelema's essay 'Identity Crisis', Ibelema
suggests that the mainstream american culture is so powerful that
all cultures conform to it. Ibelema does this by showing how the
mass media portrays African Americans in relation to their
cultural identity by using situation comedies as a measuring
tool. Of the episodes Ibelema uses very few of them look at
African Americans cultural identity. However, what they do is
briefly address a cultural story line for one episode, but then
revert back to the mainstream anglo programming. On the
otherhand, Elizabeth Wilson says in her essay 'Oppositional
Dress' that sub cultures do exist in society and are strong
enough to resist assimilation into the mainstream, and still
exist on their own terms. Wilson proves her point by giving
examples of sub cultures that appeared in society, and she shows
that they still thrive today.On example Wilson uses is the hippie
culture that evolved in the 1960's.
Pie chart of religions of African Americans
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy speaking to a c...
Malcolm XShe points out that hippies
can be seen today in some areas of the United states, proving her
point. She also mentions other movements like the Gay Liberation
Movement, the Punk movement, and the Skin Heads, who can all be
seen in some form today. In mainstream american culture some
individual sub cultures do get lost in the mainstream, but are
not forgotten, however most oppositional cultures resist
assimilation into the main steam and continue to define
themselves on their own terms.
In Ibelema's essay, he says that the mainstream culture is
so strong that individual cultures assimilate into it. This
proposition is not completely correct. The examples Ibelema uses
are derived from situation comedies that are directed at a cross
cultural mainstream audience. His point is that the African
American culture is nonexistent, or assimilated because African
American cultural values are not expressed...