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Multicultural America- Art 150

Social Media: Instagram- UWM

Instagram is a social media platform that everyone can post pictures or videos of their experiences. It allows its users to share their memories and experience with their friends, family, and community. This platform relates to our course topic because it allows its users to express themselves, when you look at our readings or pictures, we examined they all had something to do with freedom whether it was slavery or how we took land from the Native Americans. Today this platform allows everyone the ability to express themselves and have freedom of speech which is something people did not always have. I followed UWM’s Instagram page for this project because of the variety of things they post that relate to our course work. This account does not discriminate or judge other users, overall it includes everyone in the UWM community and expresses everyone's freedoms and interests.  

On this platform there is no cultural divide, everyone can use it and post what they like. It gives users the freedom they deserve and does not play “favorites” with users because of race, religion, or culture. UWMs page expresses these differences we all have in attempts to make everyone feel welcome.  

If we take a look back to our discussion on the Happa Project it gives us a variety of different people from different cultures. We had the ability to read about their experiences and personal encounters to where they felt “excluded” or “unequal” to others in the United States. Today we have made huge strides in the push for inequality because everyone deserves the same opportunities as someone else. This social media platform does just that, makes everyone equal and promotes people of different cultures. 

Sources:

“UW-Milwaukee (@Uwmilwaukee) • Instagram Photos and Videos.” Instagram, www.instagram.com/uwmilwaukee/.

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Multicultural America- Art 150

Film: Black Panther 

Directed by Ryan Coogler

Production Companies: Marvel Studios

Distribution Company: Walt Disney Studios

Black Panther is a superhero movie that takes place in an African nation. This movie has created a huge uproar of positivity towards the black community as it hosts major black lead roles and shapes a new future of movies and tv shows. In this film, the hero is Black Panther whose goal is to save the world. This relates to our most recent course topics because it’s a huge step for the African American community today allowing them to have the same major roles in action movies as whites do. I believe this movie relates a lot to our week one discussion about “How Images Speak” because of its effect on the movie industry including major roles for nonwhite actors. I think this movie helps advertise to others how other skinned actors can have main roles in large movies along with whites. 

In a conversation regarding race and diversity, I believe this film creates a huge case for how things today are so much different than they were in the past. We have finally created fairness when it comes to movies and tv shows that have black superheroes, and black actors in major roles in the entertainment we watch today where in the past that would have never happened. This connects to our course because of how we have taken the week to look back at history and see how other races were treated compared to today.  For example, we talk about the Latinos coming to America in hopes of a better life but when they get here they are set up for failure. But over time these have changed and a level of respect and equality has been shown across the country for other races. It took decades for other skinned actors to have the opportunity to have lead roles in movies and tv shows we watch. 

In “Picturing Us” Takaki talks about the first Africans to arrive in the United States were slaves of the white people, and how it became profitable to own slaves to work their fields. Considering this is how African Americans history started in America to now them having their freedom and the opportunity to have lead roles in the entertainment business it shows how far we have come since the 17th century.

Sources:

“Black Panther (Film).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 26 July 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_(film).

Entertainment, Marvel, director. YouTube. YouTube, YouTube, 16 Oct. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjDjIWPwcPU.

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Multicultural America- Art 150

 Television: Underground-Hulu

This TV show is taking place around the time of the civil war in the 1860s. It shows the history and struggles that took place at the time by including history legends like Harriet Tubman. Tubman was born into slavery who later in life escaped and became a famous American abolitionist leading the fight to end slavery completely. Today Harriet Tubman is an icon for women everywhere promoting courage and freedom. In this TV drama series, we start at a plantation in the deep south with brave slaves Noah and Rosalie who later on make the 600-mile trek north to freedom. But for viewers this show is more than a hit drama series that gives us an insight on how slaves were treated during this time, it also shows us the famous underground railroad. Viewers got to experience first hand how the notorious railroad worked and the type of potential safe houses that were along with it during this time period. 

 This show relates to our course topics because of the first two segments talking about adversity and race in America. “Racism itself has been intensely ambivalent about the place of skin or other physical features in determining race” (Mirzoeff, paragraph 2). This show strongly expresses how culturally divided we were and what caused this in America, while influencing viewers to treat everyone equal. Today in 2019 we now are more accepting of other races, cultures, and religions which helps unite our country while allowing everyone to be equal in a world that once use to be cruel and unfair. 

One of the main reasons I selected this series was because of how well it relates to an archive from week one's discussion. Slavery and the American Civil War have a strong connection in how our country is today. During this time our nation split into two and owning of another person should not ever be allowed. Keeping factual archives of this era is not only important in our countries history but prevents us from repeating history and entering a dark time where different colored skin people become slaves to someone else. 

Sources: 

“Underground.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 9 Mar. 2016, www.imdb.com/title/tt4522400/?ref_=ttpl_pl_tt.

UndergroundWGN, director. YouTube. YouTube, YouTube, 28 Jan. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nOEUogI7pQ.