AFS 110 Welcome Video

I am body.

Good evening.

I'm Dr Davis.

Welcome to a F S 1 10 study of the

black Experience.

I really look forward to having you all this semester,

even though we won't be traditionally meeting.

Um, in such a case, this was an effort to,

um, have some respect to my own health issues, including

asthma and a couple of among disorder.

So I pray that those of you who also live

with, um sensitive conditions, um or conditions so stiff to

cultivate 19 are taking care of yourselves, have made the

accommodations that you need to make it this time that

she can make it this time.

And, you know, next year.

Uh, hopefully when everything's all said and done, let's get

it in and get back out here.

But for now, I hope that you all are safe.

Um, I hope that you are taking care of each

other and respecting each other right now, because, you know,

some of these campuses are really messing it up for

the rest of so definitely be mindful of.

You know how you're engaging community and how you're showing,

you know, a kind of a guppy love or community

love for what?

A one another, Um, And how even, you know, you're

protecting yourself so that when you go home for Thanksgiving,

um, you're not putting family members of this, so that's

just my little Ted talk.

Gonna get rid of that.

Now, Um, as you see on the screen, my information

I can be reached at Mark Davis at Hartford, at

CTU. Um, and as soon as you have time after

viewing this video, please feel free to graze the blackboard

page and get familiar with some of the content.

There is a phone number listed that can be texted

and call during respectful hours.

So if you do need assistance or emergency help, feel

free to reach out to me.

Um, you know, on the according hours Or if you

feel free to email me, um, anytime, really, cause I

answer those when I feel like it.

But, you know, phone is a different situation, but anyway,

more about the class.

Let's do that.

So this short video will just give you an overview

of what we'll learn.

What are learning goals are and how will meet for

this year.

As you can see, you were meeting visually subtle, for

the most part, will be using blackboard as a piece

for submitting work, which I normally do when I have

my him person classes as well.

But this year we're hostile, engaging with collaborate, Um, until

you know, further notice.

Because if that crashes that I do have a set

up for Zoom.

But we're going to assume that collaborates going to treat

us well this semester because nothing else in the world

is working periods.

Ho was hanging out with collaborate for now.

And, um, you'll see, like science that point you to

collaborate on the home page throughout and in this video

as well.

All right, so gonna jump on from here.

Okay, So this class dissension on the histories and cultures

of people of African descent in the United States What

this means is that it is not a course that

is designed to solely focus on the historical experiences and

shape ings of African Americans like myself.

People whose families have been here for generations, perhaps dating

back to the antebellum or, you know, pre emancipation or

colonial periods.

Those histories air definitely important, but I find that they,

you know, kind of submerge or over saturate the narrative

of the histories of black people in America, whereas you

have a plethora of other stories of how other black

people were not African American wound up on the shores

of this country.

So in building this class over the last wow, it's

been like a decade since I first started teaching some

iteration of this course using in completely different butts and

assignments. But, um, I digress.

Um, it's important for me to fold in or even

hold as equal the stories of black people who would

not call themselves African American, Um, whose histories might begin

in 1965 after the Immigration and Naturalization Act was passed,

Um, by President Lyndon B.

Johnson, Um Or, you know, like who have found in

some ways regionally as a New England?

You know, there cultural blackness is the majority experience, like

when I go to Hartford or I hang out in

cities around where I live in Massachusetts, you know, the

dominant black culture is not African American.

They try to pretend it is, you know, But there

are far more people from the West Indies, um, in

this part of the country you know, between Hartford and

Springfield and Holyoke.

You know it, especially when I think of, like, Afro

Latinos And, you know, people from, you know, all the

islands, um, and South America and Central America who feel

out the diversity of this region.

So I think that engaging that especially considering where we

are learning and you know who comprises the communities that

were occupying right now.

You know, for those of you who haven't settled in

and buy on somewhere to live outside of, you know,

the college based living or you're not from the area,

it's important to learn about those histories to so enough

on that rant.

I've been going on that for a minute.

All right, so, um, the first types that will be

taking on a zeira Berlin's the making of African America

to have a copy of right here.

I hope that it's not mirror image for you, but

I think it will be, uh and it's a fantastic

book in that, you know, as a person who's not

African American in that black, you know, he encounters this

discussion for the first time at a very old age,

Um or not very old, but he's doing about this

late sixties or seventies when he's super excited about Barack

Obama and be collected.

And then he goes over to these two black radio

workers. She's like, Oh my God, aren't you excited like

this is lit?

You know, he doesn't say that, but that's what I

would say if I was.

And they're like, Do yes, cool, you know, considering how

much black people in America been through.

But you know, we're Somali in Just got Here and

African American history.

If you could call Barack Obama African American, that's not

our jam, you know.

And I'm not here to argue the logistics of Barack

Obama's identity or Kamala Harris, for that matter.

Because you know, like as faras, they're informed culturally and

in what there have been saturated in, you know, as

people, um, who have some black ancestry in the United

States, like yes, like they've adapted some of the cultural

practices of African Americans, thereby, like there's experiences have been

largely African American.

When they've engaged, they're black kids.

But I digress on that, um and point you back

to Berlin because it's a compelling argument, cause it's something

we're not often pointed to think about, especially when we're

in like more mainstream.

Not Africana studies classes where it's just like, Okay, black

people or they're just saying African Americans writ large and

that really, you know, showing any new once about how

ethnicity is set up or, you know, even separating ethnicity

from race like these conversations matter.

Um, and hopefully we can get into that and get

some more him put on that as class goes on

at the second book, which I love Centers, gender studies,

even though I supplemented and add like points about sexuality

studies in there, too, in the diversity within gender, um,

as we go along.

But when and where I enter by Palla getting's you

know, it's a classic, um, in black women's history and

there been books written after it.

But this one is just This is biblical, knows for

a scholarship goes.

And so like she looks at how black women have

contributed culturally, socially politically.

Teoh. You know, the shaping of the United States of

America, you know, and not too many narrative center black

women, unless they're saying, Oh, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks.

But in this book, there so many women noted, you

know, who are duly noted, Um, some who were you

know, I don't know how I feel about it, but

I think they were put front and center last week

at the Democratic National Convention like it was the first

time I ever heard Ella Baker centered in somebody speech

or Mary church to realize like, Oh, really?

You like these air Really interesting.

Ah, positionings of these women and they were put front

and center.

So if somebody says something right in those meetings, that's

all I have to say.

All right.

In the final book will be looking at is ah,

a text that some just cultural studies be a literature

and music.

I'm this cloud of hip hops inheritance, and it really

allows us to engage contemporary art, including rap music with,

you know, some of the cultural histories that we looked

at, including talks about gender and movements and migration and

diversity within, um, Black America.

So there's a method to my madness.

If there's anything you learn this semester, aside from the

books, is that all right?

So moving on, um, goals for the course and very

quickly here because of market 10 minutes, Um, discussing the

history of the field of study of African that studies

and how it connects to us.

Speaking of the field, if you would like to become

a minor of Africana studies before you graduate with your

four year degree, um, send me an email.

I am also the chair of Africana studies.

So I am a person you would come to to

learn about all of the wonderful classes we have to

offer, as well as how to get that certain certification.

All right, alright.

Second point synthesizing our understandings of history, social sciences and

humanities via half a kind of studies, um, two hitter

right here first and then to go into that next

week as we get into that discretion after kind of

studies is a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary field of study, you know,

so like, there's a lot of crossovers that you'll see

between the social sciences as listed and history and literature

and and in an end, you know, I've had students

who come in studying business who want to do something

about black economists or trends of purchasing or wealth, and

black communities like this is a place that could be

a core point for beginning those investigations.

Um, so, yeah, I've seen some really interesting projects come

out of people merging.

Um, points of thought.

All right.

And finally number three critically applying this new or clarified

information to projects that matter to you.

And if you see or one thing that you'll see

in your, um, assignments the midterm, the final, uh, the

student facilitation tze are that they're catered towards you directing

the vision of those assignments you are determining what's important

to focus on in those in a sounds like overwhelming,

But once you really get into it and look at

the block.

But I stood up in the spring and all that

stuff you're really kind of get a feel for it.

Some people get a little over excited.

I'm like, Well, calm down.

But you know, like this is an opportunity to engage

things that matter to you.

On my clarified, I mean that some of you have

already been introduced to African studies or African American history,

or, you know, your own self.

Let studies, uh, self or you know, this community that

you're interested in.

But you know, like this is a way to find

Tune and adding new ones to those understandings that you

may have or at least like get on a different

path, cause I can't say I have all the answers

for you because I don't.

You know, I have, like, gateways, and I have my

expertise, which is my expertise, which is a Blackheart black

cultural connection.

So, yeah, on that.

All right, so last meetings will be held on Collaborate

last point.

Last minute of this talk.

Um, so there's an arrow pointing to it on this

image, but it looks a little different on the patient.

I encourage you, Teoh, explore, and I'll link collaborate in

as many places.

I think you'll know to look so that you won't

ever be without a link.

Um, and finally, um, when you get to the Collaborate

page, it will always be the second link that is

scheduled dated in time.

That's the room that will be in.

That's the room that everyone will be meeting.

And so always go to that second point.

Okay, so for now again, browse blackboard and get familiar

and also review the syllabus.

Under it is it is his own category.

saw digital this time around, which is really cool to

do, like is very navigable is not like 30 pages

of garbage that nobody reads.

So you can just put through like it's a website.

And so I think that's pretty good for now.

But I do go to Blackboard playing with it.

This video will be on the home page so that

you can see it.

Um, and I look forward to meeting you, so bye

for now.

And I'll see you bright and early on Thursday that

super early, though thankfully.

So take care.

Um, eat will stay healthy.

Um, place mark if you're, you know, decided and see

your friends, and, um, we'll get through this, all right?

AFS 110 Welcome Video

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