The family is of great importance in every society and country. It is the backbone of all relationships that take place in the country, and it significantly ensures the wellbeing of the people. I belong to the African American family structure which has long been seen as a matter of national public interest.
Various types of families exist in the African Americans. These families include: African-American nuclear families, extended African-American families, African-American augmented families and the non-family household. In the nuclear family is organized into three groups. The first group of the nuclear family is the incipient nuclear family structure which contains a married couple who have no child. The second group of nuclear family is the simple nuclear family which contains a married couple who have children. This is the traditional norm of the composition of a family. The third group of family structure is the segmented nuclear family. This family contains either an unmarried mother who has children or an unmarried father who has children. The family structure in this group is contained of a parent-child relationship. (Montgomery at el, 2007)
The other type of family is the extended African-American families. This family structure is contained of primary members of the family such as the father, mother, and children plus the family relatives. The extended families of the African Americans have the same substructures of the nuclear families but with the addition of the grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts and other additional family members. Also, there is the augmented African-American family. These families contain the primary members of the families plus the nonrelatives of the family. It combines the nuclear and extended families with the nonfamily members. The last family structure of the African American is the nonfamily household. This structure of the family contains no relatives. This is whereby there is nonfamily household.
In the African American family, the father is seen as the breadwinner of the family as the mother takes over the matriarchal role. However, the role of the mother in the family is primarily determined by her relationship status. Single mothers have more roles than the married mothers for they are still the breadwinners of the family. Married mothers have fewer roles for they are taken care of by their husbands. Children grow according to acculturation depending on the place that they live in. Most significantly, African Americans tend to marry their fellow African Americans.
The African Americas are usually misrepresented as having started after the colonization of the people begun. However, the African Americans are the descendants of the African continent which is the home of one of the oldest civilizations. Africa as a continent had a lot of resources, and as a result, the powerful people established the continent as their home. This move made millions of people to be forcibly moved from their area, and they were taken and held captive in the United States from the year 1555 to 1865. An estimated population of about 10 million Africans was brought to America out of slave trade. Majority of this population came from western Africa especially from the present day Senegal and Angola. These people from Senegal and Angola had a lot of art, music, and dance. That was their heritage, and as a result, this is the reason why the black Americans are so much into art, music, and dance in the present times. The Africans from their origin did not have formal education. This is out of the fact that the Africans had not identified with the formal education and they were only using the informal education such as the basic societal roles. It is through the movement from Africa to America that they began to learn the informal language through at a very slow rate for they were slaves. This is the reason why up to date majority of the African Americans are still not yet advanced with the informal education with very few having attained university education. (Gather, 2008)
The African Americans in their stay in Africa were agriculturalists and pastoralists. However, there had emerged very strong kingdoms such as Benin, Ashanti, and Oyo. These kingdoms identified the profitability of slave trade, and as a result, they began to engage in the slave trade by selling their unwanted members of their families. These involved the criminals who existed among them. These slaves were later sold to America where they became slaves, and they are now the African Americans. The various groups of people from the African origin had various religions. However, a majority of the people were Christians for they had been influenced by the missionary activities that had set foot in Africa. This is the major reasons why the African Americans are mostly Christians. The Africans spoke different ethnic languages depending on the society that each came from. There were the people who spoke Yoruba, Hausa and others Mande. However, due to the differences in language, these Africans were assimilated to speaking in English which was commonly used by the Americans. Still, to date, the African Americans still use English as their language.
The African American is of the middle-class status. This is out of the fact that the people had very limited opportunities due to racial discrimination. The African Americans were seen to be inferior as compared to other races such as the whites or the Indians. This middle class was attributed to lack of proper education whereby the African Americans were not granted higher education. Majority of these people did not attain high school education let alone the college education. The few lucky blacks who attained higher education were used to serve the African American population who were outside the black community. Due to lack of education, the African Americans would only work in the unskilled labor professions which brought very little earnings to them. Besides, these people were taken as slaves whereby all their labor had no pay. The men were seen to have a very high role whereby they were to provide for their family through hard labor. The women, on the other hand, were used to offer cheap labor. They were highly discriminated, and they had no place in the society. However, a gender role of the African American family has changed especially with the empowerment of the woman. There is a high level of equity that has been identified between the man and the woman, and as a result, women are less discriminated. They are now seen as providers of the family and not as liabilities to their husbands.
The African Americans practice a lot of endogamy in their marriage. This was especially out of the pain that they were subjected to by the other groups of people especially out of slavery. They did not want to marry out of their social group. As a result, they established various values and norms that were to be put in place to enhance endogamy. For instance, they would disown a person who would marry outside their group by claiming it was not right. Besides, they believed that marrying outside their group was a taboo that no one should engage in if he were indeed an African American. They were to maintain their heritage and culture despite all the culture shock that they had gone through. However, endogamy among the African Americans has tremendously reduced whereby there a high level of exogamy. The African Americans are marrying the white people with no form of restriction. The values that were put in place in the past have been abolished, and the right to choose who one wants to marry has greatly been strengthened. (Gaines, 2012)
Various rules have been set in place by the African Americans regarding racial/ethnic relations. One of the rules is the equality of all. The African Americans identified that the inequality of the races is adversely affecting them as a group of people. As a result, they established a rule that no ethnic group is superior to the other hence all should be treated equally. They identify that all ethnic groups are human societies who are all humans and none should be seen as better than the other. Therefore the African Americans view the whites, the Indians, Chinese and the others as equal as themselves. They have set equal laws and forms of behavior towards the other in a manner that indicates that all people are the same. Racism in the country was a major hindrance to the growth and development if the country. This is out of the fact that slavery created more harm than good to the people. They argued that it was better to pay a worker who will do a particular task accordingly than force a worker who will handle a task just for the sake of handling it. (Verney, 2012)
Relationships in the family of the African Americans vary. For instance, a friendship relationship is not the same as a marriage relationship. Marriage is on a higher note where the friendship is taken very seriously to avoid hurting the other person. Also, gender is also a higher determinant of a relationship. Men relationships are highly accorded as compared to the women relationship that is viewed as having temporal relationships. Lastly, relationships are significantly determined by age factor. The young tend to have a higher respect relationship towards the old who are usually their parents and relatives. The young cannot behave the same way towards their fellow young people just as they behave towards the old.
The new generation of the African American family is faced with a lot of changes as compared to the traditional generation. This is out of factors such as the technological change that has taken root in transforming the family. To begin with, the future generation will be full of single mothers. This is out of the increased empowerment of the women who will dominate even in their marriage life. The role of the man in the family is slowly being neglected, and the woman is taking responsibility. Secondly, there is a future trend of a small family in the future generation. Many children are these days seen as burdens to their parents, and as a result of the parents now want to create a small family of one or two children. Surprisingly, the future generation will be made up of families who do not want children. These are the families with the husband and the wife only who will choose not to have children of their own. Also, the future generation will have a lot of lat marriages whereby couples will marry at a very late age. This is out of numerous commitments that the youths are having such that they will not be able to marry young. Such commitments are like the education commitments which will take a lot of a person's youthful life. (Gerstmann, 2017)