African-Americans in the United States: Their history and their present through Joey Bada$$’s ALL AMERIKKKAN BADA$$

Abstract

[Abstract] This work aims to provide an account of racism in the history of the United States from slavery to the present, illustrated by ALL-AMERIKKKAN BADA$$, a musical album created by the rapper Joey Bada$$. Therefore, this dissertation is divided into two parts: the first is a historical summary of the most relevant events regarding racism in the history of the country; the second part analyzes the lyrics of Joey Bada$$’s in this album in order to demonstrate what African-Americans feel and how they are treated at the present time. Racism has existed in the country since colonizers first brought slaves from Africa, and it is based on the assumption that black people are inferior and that they have to work for whites. Slavery ended with the American Civil War, at least on paper, but racism was still there. If it was connected to slavery at first, it ended up being connected to segregation in the 20th century (Jim Crow Laws). Even when the segregation laws were abolished after much effort from civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., racism was still a long way from being erased once and from all. Nowadays, it is so deeply internalized by the vast majority that many people do not realize that they are racist. It appears in the form of arrests and police shooting in which blacks, according to statistics, are usually the victims. With this situation, Joey Bada$$ decides to create the aforementioned album, in which he tackles all the hurdles that African-Americans have to face today, focusing on how they feel, how change could be achieved and raising awareness of present-day racism. The conclusions are that racism became less accepted with the passing of the years, with blacks becoming more aware and, at the same time, more active in trying to reach a successful end to their struggle. The Civil Rights Movement has achieved a great deal over the course of time, and now further activism can be seen in new platforms such as music, with the album from Joey Bada$$ being one example of many.