Between Reality and Tales - From the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment to the Atlanta Child Murders

Explaining the Dynamics of African-American Conspiracy Theories


Term Paper, 2011

15 Pages, Grade: 1,3


Excerpt


Between Reality and Tales - From the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment to the Atlanta Child Murders

Explaining the Dynamics of African-American Conspiracy Theories African-American conspiracies are very unusual in comparison to other conspiracies.

African-American conspiracy theories are unlike ‘classical’ conspiracy theories, which one could describe as bewilderingly real or even regard as fact. There are no written documents in existence, no elaborate theories on black conspiracies, hence there are no serious conspiracy theorists working in this conspiracy-niche. African-American conspiracies could be seen as plain rumors and gossip. Those rumors are easily spread within black communities and the most popular ones manage it to circulate those communities for years and eventually become legends. If one asked a member of a particular community for any further details concerning a specific theory, nobody would be able to explain or qualify them, as it is the case with rumors. One could even claim that there is no such thing as African-American conspiracy theory, because mostly there is only gossip and rumor about conspiracies, which is spread in public and private places. Those gossips and rumors are told, heard and retold in schools, bars, groceries, prisons, senior citizen centers, beauty salons, on parties and miscellaneous places, which eventually leads to a whisper down the lane effect. The book I Heard It Through The Grapevine by Patricia A. Turner, a study on African-American conspiracies, explains this effect very well and already implicates this usual and more or less natural process within its title. African-American rumors are mostly “unverified orally transmitted stories circulating in African-American communities” and their topics are “not in-group discord, but rather conflict between the races” (Turner 1). There is actually an existence of strong conspiratorial motifs and motifs of contamination, genocide and suppression in African-American folklore, tipper and lore. For example AIDS is said to have been created in secret laboratories to destroy the black race, just like crack-cocaine allegedly has been generated for the same purpose.

frican-American conspiracies reveal a lot about the black worldview and uncover important cycles of African-American culture as well as common fears among the African- American community, therefore sociologists, folklorists and ethnologists try to examine common rumors to gain a better understanding of black traditions and the psychology behind them (Turner 5). It is difficult for folklorists to find concrete answers and sources whenever they search for traces of a certain legend. Although it appears to be a formidable challenge to detect the roots of African-American folklore it is a worthwhile process to get down to in order to learn to understand African-American culture and tradition (Turner 149). Since the first Slave Ships have arrived on the North American continent in the 17th century slave traders and slave owners undertook everything to prevent a proper adoption of European languages among their African slaves, also they supported illiteracy with the aim to inhibit a possible emancipation of the black populace. The Southern States of the US even prohibited by law to teach slaves to read and write (Diedrich 418). Condemned to slavery Americans of African descent had no other choice than to conserve their traditions and identities and stick to their oral culture, telling and retelling folk tales, worshipping voodoo or combining Christian beliefs with hoodoo practices, as well as creating the Gullah language which enabled the slaves coming from different regions and countries of Africa to communicate with each other. In addition to that, it is hardly surprising that the African-American oral tradition partly remains until today, which might therefore explain why conspiracy theories within this cultural background are usually transmitted in oral form reconsidering that African-American literature did not emerge until Civil War, except for a few slave narratives such as the Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African Slave (1789), the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, Written by Himself (1845) or Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself (1861) (Diedrich 420).

American history reveals doubtlessly that blacks have been exploited and suppressed by white Americans for centuries, especially in the Southern States. The suppression they had to suffer did not simply stop by the end of Civil War back in 1865. Actually, African- Americans could never assume their rights as American citizens to the full extent despite abolitionism. Due to racial segregation they could not become fully integrated members of the U.S. society until the Civil Rights Movement paved the way, whereas even to this day it seems that African-Americans are left behind in regards of prosperity when comparing to the federal average. In order to gain a better understanding of still prevalent social unfairness towards African-Americans one just has to take a look at the distribution of welfare in the United States. About 36.4 percent of the Americans live on welfare and the statistics tell us that 33 percent of welfare recipients are African-Americans and in comparison to that 61 percent are white which is nearly twice as much, but if one converts the values, relating to the background of ethnic groups within the total U.S. population, the results alter completely (U.S. Diplomatic Mission to Germany). Sighting those statistics from a different angle, one will realize that actually only 12.9 percent of the U.S. population are African-Americans and 79.6 percent are white, which means in effect that 36.4 percent of the African-American population have to live on welfare, whereas only 10.9 percent of the white population (U.S. Bureau). What has to be expressed with those statistics is that they can be a compelling evidence for many African-Americans to think that they are disadvantaged by American society and that they are a still underprivileged minority, which seems to be certainly true to a greater or lesser extent. It is exactly this ever-present and common fear that virtually paralyzes the African-American community and eventually leads to a common conspiratorial thinking.

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Details

Title
Between Reality and Tales - From the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment to the Atlanta Child Murders
Subtitle
Explaining the Dynamics of African-American Conspiracy Theories
College
LMU Munich  (Amerika-Institut)
Course
Trust No One? Conspiracy Theories in American Political Culture
Grade
1,3
Author
Year
2011
Pages
15
Catalog Number
V179501
ISBN (eBook)
9783656018223
ISBN (Book)
9783656018476
File size
529 KB
Language
English
Keywords
Afro-Amerikanische Kultur, US amerikanische Verschwörungstheorien, Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, Atlanta Child Murders
Quote paper
Magdalena Natalia Zalewski (Author), 2011, Between Reality and Tales - From the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment to the Atlanta Child Murders, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/179501

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