Growing up I never had to ask my parents what race they were, I knew they were both black. Not mixed with anything, just black based on the fact that their parents were simply black. Now I know that somewhere in my family there are Caucasians and Indians, but to claim cultures that I know absolutely nothing about would make me a hypocrite. I use black and African American interchangeably, but ultimately I have no right to claim African American when I don't know what part of Africa my family is from. I know my ancestors were kidnapped by slave traders and then sold to wealthy merchants and plantation owners (my ancestors on my father's side were bought by Finns hence the name Ollison, not sure about my mother's side of the family) but I would have to do something like ancestry.com or 23&me to find out the detailed history. While I know a little about who I am, I don't know who I am on a deeper level. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay While doing research to find more information about black culture, I came across a CNN article about Justin Simien (the man behind the hit Netflix series Dear White People) and what he learned about black culture. Justin said: “Black culture is the sum of cultural contributions made to the mainstream by black subculture, while “black culture” is a lifestyle standard made of assumptions about black identity, often used successfully by marketers , studio heads, fashion brands and music labels to make money” (Simien, 2014) which caught my attention struggling because if Oprah Winfrey can do it, why can't you? Black culture is our music, our food, the way we talk, our hair, our dance and so much more. It's our unique way of express who we are like no one else can other than "black culture" on the powers that be, so we are basketball players and famous singers, we are the faces attached to welfare and the poor. We are the ones who eat chicken and watermelon, we are the ones who are thugs, gangsters and loud. We are used by the system as puppets to make money with, but when we cannot be useful to them we are the most vindictive, dangerous and evil people ever. When I think of the men of my country there is a notable absence of them, due to the fact that a large number of them are in prison. For some it was the wrong place at the wrong time, for others they did bad things to survive, and for others they were just young and stupid. “The expectation wasn't necessarily that we would go to prison,” Betts said. “But we lived in a climate and an environment where these things happened every day and no one questioned what they meant. (Lee and Stasio, 2015). Black men are incarcerated at a higher rate than Black women, White men, and White women. This leads to fewer male figures to look up to, children growing up with only one mother, men leaving prison unable to get back on their feet due to their pasts, and the stigma that men don't try and are simply lazy. because if Obama and Lebron James can do it, then there is no excuse for black men in our culture. Not everyone has a success story, not everyone has a happy ending, not everyone can represent the "good part" of our community. We are human, we are neither magicians nor miracle workers. The National Museum of African American History and Culture is America's first national museum dedicated to the full breadth of the black experience. This museumit's so important because for over 150 years after the abolition of slavery we didn't have a huge museum representation of all the great things black people did for this country. Mullen reports: “The museum's job is very simple... to use history and culture to create a better America, to give America an opportunity to bridge the gap between its stated ideals and the realities of life, is an attempt to to say that this history and this culture have profoundly shaped our notions of freedom, of citizenship, of who we are as Americans” (Mullen, 2016) . Black people aren't just fighting to celebrate our skin tone, we're fighting for representation, we're fighting for respect, we're fighting to be seen as a force to destroy. We are underdogs and we are fighting to prove that we are an important part of the functioning and shaping of America. I was trying to think of a tradition my family follows and was stumped for a while, but then my father told me something about everything men were taught. My father grew up in the South, where you had a farm and farmed and grew your own food. There were no nearby grocery stores, no harsh chemicals were sprayed on food to preserve it, and there were no processed and artificial foods/flavors. You woke up early, fed the cows, pigs, chickens, horses if you had them, etc. You cleaned their stables, collected the chickens' eggs, milked the cows and cleaned their stables. All to make you understand the tradition of killing a pig every year. You would get a pig in October, then raise it for a whole year, and the following October kill it for all it's worth. You would get bacon, sausage, ham, lard, offal, meat in gravy, pork udders and much more from the pig. This stuff could be used for the rest of the year until you are able to raise another pig to that standard for the following year. It was best to do this in October because it was cold and there were no flies or bugs to ruin the food. Women did more of the housework and making things like butter and jam, so, as is tradition, all the men in the family learned these methods down in the South. My great grandfather, my grandfather, my father and my paternal brothers all learned this. I believe this is an important part of my family's history because this was commonly done before grocery stores, food processing, spraying harsh chemicals, and artificially flavoring our cherished food. Even though I have never killed a pig, this is something that was explained to me and taught me how different the world is now. Machines do everything, and half the food we eat contains slime, chemicals, and other harmful substances, but we are so used to this unnatural food that we can't tell how much damage it is causing to our bodies. mum and her side of the family had a religious tradition, we went to see mass from every New Year until New Year's Day. You were supposed to fast from when you woke up until the next day as a way to enter the new year with a cleansed soul (this part my church does but I don't think all churches do this). This gives Christians the opportunity to review the past year and make confession, then prepare for the year ahead by praying and resolving. We have a few songs sung by the choir and then we usually recite a church story for fun. After the show there are some words from the bishop and then we pray for the new year. After it's officially a new year, stay in church until it gets quiet and it seems safe to go out, drive, and go home. This is something I have managed to do.