African American culture is rich, vast, and varied, with deep historical roots. It includes many symbols that permeate the entire African American heritage: from the church to literature, movies and TV shows, music, and many other types and genres. Many attitudes and symbols present in this culture are in one way or another connected with the plight of the people and, of course, racism. Thus, African American culture is heterogeneous and cannot be precisely defined towards the pole of traditionalism or non-traditionalism. For example, on the one hand, in the upbringing and life path, the church is of the utmost importance, which can be considered as a sign of traditional culture. On the other hand, African Americans create and develop innovative cultural movements and items that can break with established rules and regulations. For example, the genre of rap and hip-hop can serve as examples of nontraditional cultural manifestations, especially at the dawn of its development. These artistic genres demonstrate the heterogeneity of cultural perceptions of African Americans: conflict related to cultural appropriation can occur within the same community. When the hip-hop subculture was just forming, their main opponents were middle and upper-class African Americans. In their opinion, loud and cheeky youth discredited them in the eyes of whites. Gradually, hip-hop became native to the broad masses of African Americans – and was literally “appropriated” by them.
As Hofstede states, power distance is “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally” (2001, p. 98). Since African Americans have a long history of oppression and their own experience of unequal distribution of power and resources, the people tend to believe in this statement, and thus, the culture in question belongs to the pole of high power distance. The same goes for the uncertainty avoidance defined by Hofstede as “the extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by uncertain or unknown situations “(2001, p. 161). Much of the sense of a high level of certainty is dictated by the presence of institutional structural racism that affects the lives of African Americans. For example, when hiring or discrimination in the workplace, especially when gender discrimination is added to it.
It seems that the orientation of the culture in question to the pole of collectivism is inextricably linked with these provisions. While America as a whole shows a strong orientation towards individualism, African Americans are more inclined to show mutual assistance. In addition, it is also noticeable in more extended families and the connections within them.
As for culture-bound syndromes, there are at least two of them which are very specific to African American culture: “falling out” and sleep paralysis. Whereas people of this culture regard these conditions as real and discreet, outside of the culture, it is believed that these manifestations are misconceptions of depression (Sohail et al., 2014). However, for African Americans, sleep paralysis is a specific condition; a person is in a semi-conscious state: their brain wakes up, sometimes they can even open their eyes and look at the room, but still cannot move. At the same time, sleep paralysis is a fairly common phenomenon: according to American studies, almost 8% of people have experienced it at least once during their life (Olunu et al., 2018). Perhaps the point is not in the condition itself, which is inherent only in people of a particular culture, but in the ways of explaining its causes and etiology.
References
Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions and organizations across nations. Sage publications.
Olunu, E., Kimo, R., Onigbinde, E. O., Akpanobong, M. A. U., Enang, I. E., Osanakpo, M.,… & Fakoya, A. O. J. (2018). Sleep paralysis, a medical condition with a diverse cultural interpretation. International Journal of Applied and Basic Medical Research, 8(3), 137-153.
Sohail, Z., Bailey, R. K., & Richie, W. D. (2014). Misconceptions of depression in African Americans. Frontiers in psychiatry, 5, 65-78.