African-American Culture - Family

Family

When slavery was practiced in the United States, it was common for families to be separated through sale. Even during slavery, however, many African-American families managed to maintain strong familial bonds. Free African men and women, who managed to buy their own freedom by being hired out, who were emancipated, or who had escaped their masters, often worked long and hard to buy the members of their families who remained in bondage and send for them.

Others, separated from blood kin, formed close bonds based on fictive kin; play relations, play aunts, cousins, and the like. This practice, a holdover from African oral traditions such as sanankouya, survived Emancipation, with non-blood family friends commonly accorded the status and titles of blood relations. This broader, more African concept of what constitutes family and community, and the deeply rooted respect for elders that is part of African traditional societies may be the genesis of the common use of the terms like "aunt", "uncle", "brother", "sister", "Mother", and "Mama" when addressing other African-American people, some of whom may be complete strangers.

Immediately after slavery, African-American families struggled to reunite and rebuild what had been taken. As late as 1960, when most African Americans lived under some form of segregation, 78% of African-American families were headed by married couples. This number steadily declined during the latter half of the 20th century. A number of factors, including attitudes towards education, gender roles, and povertyhave created a situation where, for the first time since slavery, a majority of African-American children live in a household with only one parent, typically the mother. These figures appear to indicate a weak African-American nuclear family structure, especially within a large patriarchal society.

This apparent weakness is balanced by mutual-aid systems established by extended family members to provide emotional and economic support. Older family members pass on social and cultural traditions such as religion and manners to younger family members. In turn, the older family members are cared for by younger family members when they are unable to care for themselves. These relationships exist at all economic levels in the African-American community, providing strength and support both to the African-American family and the community.

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Famous quotes containing the word family:

    It is as when a migrating army of mice girdles a forest of pines. The chopper fells trees from the same motive that the mouse gnaws them,—to get his living. You tell me that he has a more interesting family than the mouse. That is as it happens.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    It seems to me that upbringings have themes. The parents set the theme, either explicitly or implicitly, and the children pick it up, sometimes accurately and sometimes not so accurately.... The theme may be “Our family has a distinguished heritage that you must live up to” or “No matter what happens, we are fortunate to be together in this lovely corner of the earth” or “We have worked hard so that you can have the opportunities we didn’t have.”
    Calvin Trillin (20th century)

    The politics of the family are the politics of a nation. Just as the authoritarian family is the authoritarian state in microcosm, the democratic family is the best training ground for life in a democracy.
    Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)