IMMANUEL BOATENGFive Concepts Shaping the African American ExperienceIt is argued that the "African American experience" has been shaped by a multiplicity of factors. Scholars and students have identified factors such as race, culture, identity, community, power, and agency as major factors that have shaped the African-American experience. Barbara Fields in her article “Ideology and Race in American History” analyzes the role that race has played in shaping the African-American experience. “Africanisms in American Culture” by Joseph E. Holloway provides an analysis of how culture has contributed to the African American experience. WEB Du Bois argues in his article “Of Our Spiritual Efforts” that the role of identity in shaping the African-American experience cannot be overlooked. Similarly, Kimberle Crenshaw in “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex” argued that, to some extent, identity has shaped the African-American experience. According to Michael Dawson in his article “A model of Black Utility and Linked Fate,” the community in which African Americans find themselves contributes immensely to their experience. I examine how concepts of race, culture, identity, community, and power have shaped the African-American experience. Additionally, I examine whether these concepts illuminate or obscure the African-American experience. Finally, I will provide a summary of my key points before drawing the conclusions of my essay. RaceRace has been defined as an ideological construct and a historical product. Barbara Fields provides a basic definition of race as “the notion of race, in its popular manifestation, is an ideological construct and therefore, above all, a historical product” (Fields, 150). This definition takes center stage… ace, culture, identity, community, and power in American society. Works Cited1. Fields, Barbara, J “Ideology and race in American history”, in Kousser, J. Morgan and James M. McPherson, eds., _Region, Race, and Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of C. Vann Woodward_, Oxford, 1982: 143 -177.2. Holloway, Joseph, E “Africanisms in American Culture_. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990.3. Du Bois, WEB “Of Our Spiritual Efforts”_The Souls of the Black People_. New York: Dover Publications, 1994.4. Crenshaw, Kimberle, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics,” University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989.5. Dawson, Michael, "A Model of Black Utility and Linked Fate, Race, and Class in African-American Politics", The Princeton University Press, 1994.