African American Citizen Book Review

African American Citizen Book Review

Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America, explores what it means to be a Black woman and an American citizen. MHP argues that misrecognition, through stereotypes and shame, delineates African American women's lived experiences and their political decisions and participation. Recognition functions as an essential tool to contextualize the connection and interconnections between groups of people and individuals. The other premise of the text and its argument lies within the cognitive psychological study of field dependence by focusing on whether research participants adopted or readjusted themselves within the "crooked room." HP states that, "Field dependence studies show how individuals locate the upright in a space." Interestingly enough, cognitive psychologists found that if subjects were placed in a crooked room, in a crooked chair and then asked to stand up 'straight,' some of the participants adopted to the angle of the room and ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...In addition to offering a narrative in which Black women have navigated the historical stereotypes of Jezebel, Mammy, and Sapphire, she introduces the research methodology of focus groups to offer the insight of 'real life' Black women and how they identify, contextualize, rationalize and combat these stereotypes in comparison to their role as citizens. –––– The Chapter 2, is dedicated to the description, and historical and contemporary manifestations how the crooked room is prescribed to the Black women through three distorted angles: the licentious and hypersexual Jezebel, the asexual, white family devotee, Mammy, and the angry black woman, Sapphire. MHP assists her exploration of these stereotypes with discussions shared by the focus groups and props her analysis and discussion using public figures, public policy, slavery, and popular culture.

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