African American Criticism Theory focuses on the “black experience” and how institutionalized racism is deigned to placate to that experience while also fueling it.

QUESTIONS THAT THE THEORY ASKS:

• What role does Double Consciousness play in the black experience?
• What is institutionalized racism?
• What is white privilege?
• How might an African American author convey the black experience?

-These are important questions for understanding African American Criticism because they focus on how the black experience is designed to be negative and kind of go into why that might be. Double consciousness focuses on standard societal ideals and how they are ingrained as the norm, even if another race doesn’t relate, they are sort of forced to because it is the default. This would help readers to look at both sides of the coin, and how the weight of double consciousness might affect the character in the text, as well as how it affects the reader. Understanding what institutionalized racism and how it is a system designed to perpetuate negativity in terms of getting ahead, vs. being forced to be complacent and how that would apply to a text.  Looking at how an African Author might convey the black experience is important because they could use symbols and hidden meanings, which would be essential to understanding the text.

TWO THEORISTS:

1.) Amiri Baraka discusses the importance of black writers writing about the black experience because representation provides solutions to the systematized ingrained ideals and therefore could change them.

2.) Henry Louis Gates claims that writing is a tool that provides access and understanding to a black text and is important.