Ibelemas Identity Crisis and Wilsons Oppositional Dress :: Identity Oppositional

Ibelema's Identity Crisis and Wilson's Oppositional Dress In Minabrere Ibelema's essay "Identity Crisis", Ibelema suggests that the mainstream american culture is so powerful that all cultures conform to it. Ibelema does this by showing how the mass media portrays African Americans in relation to their cultural identity by using situation comedies as a measuring tool. Of the episodes Ibelema uses very few of them look at African Americans cultural identity. However, what they do is briefly address a cultural story line for one episode, but then revert back to the mainstream anglo programming. On the otherhand, Elizabeth Wilson says in her essay "Oppositional Dress" that sub cultures do exist in society and are strong enough to resist assimilation into the mainstream, and still exist on their own terms. Wilson proves her point by giving examples of sub cultures that appeared in society, and she shows that they still thrive today.On example Wilson uses is the hippie culture that evolved in the 1960's. She points out that hippies can be seen t oday in some areas of the United states, proving her point. She also mentions other movements like the Gay Liberation Movement, the Punk movement, and the Skin Heads, who can all be seen in some form today. In mainstream american culture some individual sub cultures do get lost in the mainstream, but are not forgotten, however most oppositional cultures resist assimilation into the main steam and continue to define themselves on their own terms. In Ibelema's essay, he says that the mainstream culture is so strong that individual cultures assimilate into it. This proposition is not completely correct. The examples Ibelema uses are derived from situation comedies that are directed at a cross cultural mainstream audience. His point is that the African American culture is nonexistent, or assimilated because African American cultural values are not expressed fully in these sitcoms, thus they are a part of the assimilation process. Because these sitcoms are directed at a cross cultural audience the assumption Ibelema uses is false. The African American culture is not lost in america, its existence is found in the homes of African Americans throughout america and is passed on through mothers and fathers, and grand mothers and grand fathers. An opposing view to this argument is Elizabeth Wilson's essay "Oppositional Dress". Her belief is that sub cultures exist in the mainstream society, and they dictate their own existence.