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Titel
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Black Voices (EKSAMENSEMNE)
The purpose of this topic is to learn about how the history of racism in the US has impacted the lives of Africans-Americans negatively, even to this day.
The key text in the course is the documentary "13th" (2016) by Ava Duvernay. When slavery officially ended in 1865 (President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves), the 13th amendment (= ændring) was made to the constitution, to ensure the end of slavery.
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
Link: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/13th-amendment
However, because of the phrase "except as a punishment for crime", the 13th amendment created a loophole for criminalizing African-Americans.
In "13th", Duvernay argues that African-Americans have systematically been targeted as criminals (even for petty crimes), causing the mass incarceration of them (Black people only make up 6.5 percent of the U.S. population, but they comprise 40.2 percent of the prison population).
Key concepts: Slavery, lynchings, the 13th amendment, Jim Crow laws, Segregation, Civil Rights Movement, racism, discrimination, stereotypes, systemic racism, mass incarceration, police brutality.
Texts studied in the course:
Clint Smith, “How to raise a black son in America” (2015) (TEDtalk/speech).
Link: https://www.ted.com/talks/clint_smith_how_to_raise_a_black_son_in_america
James Baldwin, excerpt from speech given at Cambridge University in 1965. From a debate between Baldwin and William F. Buckley: “Is the American Dream at the Expense of the American Negro?”
Link: https://vimeo.com/202536999 (2:57)
Ava Duvernay, "13th" (documentary, 2016)
"Filmmaker Ava DuVernay explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation's prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans."
Slavery - Introduction - in Black Voices pp. 8-14 (keywords: slavery and the earliest settlements in the US, The Cotton Kingdom, slave voyages, the auction block, Slave life, slave codes, abolitionism, The Civil War).
Common, "Letter to the Free" (song, 2016 - played at the end of the "13th" documentary) https://genius.com/Common-letter-to-the-free-lyrics
- Eleverne lavede en mundtlig analyse af sangen som de afleverede på video.
Supplerende stof i tværfagligt forløb som enkelte af eleverne har arbejdet med:
"After You, My Dear Alphonse" (Shirley Jackson, short story, 1943)
"Invisible Man", (Ralph Ellison, excerpt from a novel, 1952)
"I have a Dream" (Martin Luther King, speech, 1963)
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