Cultural Mulatto
The cultural mulatto is a concept introduced by Trey Ellis in his 1989 essay "The New Black Aesthetic". While the term " mulatto" typically refers to a person of mixed black and white ancestry, a cultural mulatto is defined by Ellis as a black person who is highly educated and usually a part of the middle or upper-middle class, and therefore assimilates easily into traditionally white environments. Overview Ellis writes: "Just as a genetic mulatto is a black person of mixed parents who can often get along fine with his white grandparents, a cultural mulatto, educated by a multi-racial mix of cultures, can also navigate easily in the white world" (235). Cultural mulattoes are skillful code-switchers (alternating between multiple languages during conversation) and they may be equally comfortable around blacks as around whites. Members of the New Black Aesthetic are typically cultural mulattoes. Their ability for easy interaction with both blacks and whites is what ultimately allo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Trey Ellis
Trey Ellis (born 1962) is an American novelist, screenwriter, professor, playwright, and essayist. He was born in Washington D.C. and graduated from Hopkins School and Phillips Academy, Andover, where he studied under Alexander Theroux before attending Stanford University, where he was the editor of the Stanford Chaparral and wrote his first novel, ''Platitudes'' in a creative writing class taught by Gilbert Sorrentino. He is a Professor of Professional Practice in the Graduate School of the Arts at Columbia University. Novels and memoirs Ellis's first novel, ''Platitudes'', was published in 1988 and reissued by Northeastern University Press in 2003, along with his 1989 essay "The New Black Aesthetic". ''Platitudes'' follows the story of Earle, a black, private high-school student in New York City. The novel itself wrestles with many concepts outlined in "The New Black Aesthetic," namely the existence of the cultural mulatto. Earle, as a second generation middle-class, black nerd ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mulatto
(, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese is not, and can even be a source of pride. A () is a female ''mulatto''. Etymology The English term and spelling ''mulatto'' is derived from the Spanish and Portuguese . It was a common term in the Southeastern United States during the era of slavery. Some sources suggest that it may derive from the Portuguese word (from the Latin ), meaning ' mule', the hybrid offspring of a horse and a donkey. The Real Academia Española traces its origin to in the sense of hybridity; originally used to refer to any mixed race person. The term is now generally considered outdated and offensive in non-Spanish and non-Portuguese speaking countries, and was considered offensive even in the 19th century. Jack D. Forbes suggests it originated in the Arabi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Upper Middle Class
In sociology, the upper middle class is the social group constituted by higher status members of the middle class. This is in contrast to the term ''lower middle class'', which is used for the group at the opposite end of the middle-class stratum, and to the broader term ''middle class''. There is considerable debate as to how the upper middle class might be defined. According to sociologist Max Weber, the upper middle class consists of well-educated professionals with postgraduate degrees and comfortable incomes. The American upper middle class is defined similarly using income, education, and occupation as the predominant indicators. In the United States, the upper middle class is defined as consisting mostly of white-collar professionals who not only have above-average personal incomes and advanced educational degrees but also a higher degree of autonomy in their work. The main occupational tasks of upper-middle-class individuals tend to center on conceptualizing, consult ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cultural Assimilation
Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or assume the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group whether fully or partially. The different types of cultural assimilation include full assimilation and forced assimilation; full assimilation being the most prevalent of the two, as it occurs spontaneously. During cultural assimilation, minority groups are expected to adapt to the everyday practices of the dominant culture through language and appearance as well as via more significant socioeconomic factors such as absorption into the local cultural and employment community. Some types of cultural assimilation resemble acculturation in which a minority group or culture completely assimilates into the dominant culture in which defining characteristics of the minority culture are less obverse or outright disappear; while in other types of cultural assimilation such as cultural integration mostly found i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Social Mobility
Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families, households or other categories of people within or between social strata in a society. It is a change in social status relative to one's current social location within a given society. This movement occurs between layers or tiers in an open system of social stratification. Open stratification systems are those in which at least some value is given to achieved status characteristics in a society. The movement can be in a ''downward'' or ''upward'' direction. Markers for social mobility such as education and class, are used to predict, discuss and learn more about an individual or a group's mobility in society. Typology Mobility is most often quantitatively measured in terms of change in economic mobility such as changes in income or wealth. Occupation is another measure used in researching mobility which usually involves both quantitative and qualitative analysis of data, but other studies may concentrate on social ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bill Cosby
William Henry Cosby Jr. ( ; born July 12, 1937) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and media personality. He made significant contributions to American and African-American culture, and is well known in the United States for his eccentric image, and gained a reputation as "America's Dad" for his portrayal of Cliff Huxtable on ''The Cosby Show'' (1984–1992). He has received numerous awards and honorary degrees throughout his career. Cosby began his career as a stand-up comic at the hungry i nightclub in San Francisco during the 1960s. Throughout the decade, he released several standup comedy records which consecutively earned him the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album from 1965 to 1970. He also had a starring role in the television crime show ''I Spy'' (1965–1968) opposite Robert Culp. Cosby made history when he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1966, making him the first African American to earn an Emmy Award for acting. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the United States. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004, and previously worked as a civil rights lawyer before entering politics. Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. After graduating from Columbia University in 1983, he worked as a community organizer in Chicago. In 1988, he enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the '' Harvard Law Review''. After graduating, he became a civil rights attorney and an academic, teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Turning to elective politics, he represented the 13th district in the Illinois Senate from 1997 until 2004, when he ran for the U ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lisa Jones
Lisa Victoria Chapman Jones (born August 15, 1961)Ellis, Trey (1988). ''Platitudes & "The new black aesthetic"''. Northeastern University Press, Ann Arbor. is an American playwright, essayist, journalist, and memoirist. Personal life and education Jones grew up in New York City and Newark, New Jersey.Perkins, Kathy and Uno, Roberta (1996). ''Contemporary Plays by Women of Color: an anthology''. London: Routledge. She is the daughter of poets Hettie Jones and Amiri Baraka (formerly known as LeRoi Jones).Stetler, Carrie"Still rebellious after all these years: Amiri Baraka turns 75, and Newark celebrates with five days of events" ''The Star-Ledger'', Newark, NJ, October 2, 2009. Jones graduated from Yale University and received a MFA in Film from New York University. She married Kenneth S. Brown in 2004 and their daughter was born in 2005. She is Jewish. Her sister, Kellie Jones, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University. Jo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. It is a member of the Ivy League. Chartered by the Connecticut Colony, the Collegiate School was established in 1701 by clergy to educate Congregational ministers before moving to New Haven in 1716. Originally restricted to theology and sacred languages, the curriculum began to incorporate humanities and sciences by the time of the American Revolution. In the 19th century, the college expanded into graduate and professional instruction, awarding the first PhD in the United States in 1861 and organizing as a university in 1887. Yale's faculty and student populations grew after 1890 with rapid expansion of the physical campus and scientific research. Yale is organized into fourteen constituent schools: the original undergraduate col ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kellie Jones
Kellie Jones (born 1959) is an American art historian and curator. She is a Professor in Art History and Archaeology in African American Studies at Columbia University. She won a MacArthur Fellowship in 2016. Biography Jones is the daughter of poets Hettie Jones and Amiri Baraka. Jones graduated from Amherst College in 1981. She was awarded a Ph.D. by Yale University in 1999. Her research interests include African Diaspora and African American artists, Latin American and Latino/a artists, and problems in contemporary art and museum theory. Jones has been published in journals such as ''NKA'', ''Artforum'', ''Flash Art'', ''Atlantica'', and ''Third Text''. Jones has worked as a curator for over three decades. Jones has a half-brother, Newark, New Jersey, mayor Ras Baraka, and a half-sister, Dominique di Prima, from Amiri's relationship with di Prima's mother. Awards and honors * 2005: David C. Driskell Prize. * 2012: Artist-in-Residence at the McColl Center for Art + I ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola (the island containing the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic); the British Overseas Territory of the Cayman Islands lies some to the north-west. Originally inhabited by the indigenous Taíno peoples, the island came under Spanish rule following the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1494. Many of the indigenous people either were killed or died of diseases, after which the Spanish brought large numbers of African slaves to Jamaica as labourers. The island remained a possession of Spain until 1655, when England (later Great Britain) conquered it, renaming it ''Jamaica''. Under British colonial rule Jamaica became a leading sugar exporter, with a plantation economy dependent on the African slaves and later their des ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Queens
Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long Island to its west, and Nassau County to its east. Queens also shares water borders with the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island (via the Rockaways). With a population of 2,405,464 as of the 2020 census, Queens is the second most populous county in the State of New York, behind Kings County (Brooklyn), and is therefore also the second most populous of the five New York City boroughs. If Queens became a city, it would rank as the fifth most-populous in the U.S. after New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston. Approximately 47% of the residents of Queens are foreign-born. Queens is the most linguistically diverse place on Earth and is one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the United States. Queens was est ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |