Ali Meghji
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781526143075
- eISBN:
- 9781526150424
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7765/9781526143082.00009
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
This chapter looks at Black middle class consumption of ‘Black cultural capital’ – forms of dominant cultural capital mediated through a way that promotes ethnoracial affinity and resistance. I argue ...
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This chapter looks at Black middle class consumption of ‘Black cultural capital’ – forms of dominant cultural capital mediated through a way that promotes ethnoracial affinity and resistance. I argue that participants often decode certain cultural forms as ‘Black cultural capital’ when they fulfil a politics of representation, both challenging the Whiteness of the art world and controlling images of Blackness more generally. Such participants often construe themselves as having the most symbolic mastery over these cultural forms in virtue of being racialised as Black. However, those towards strategic assimilation attempt to use Black cultural capital to foster inter-racial solidarity, while those towards the ethnoracial autonomous identity prefer to keep Black cultural spaces ethnoracially closed.Less
This chapter looks at Black middle class consumption of ‘Black cultural capital’ – forms of dominant cultural capital mediated through a way that promotes ethnoracial affinity and resistance. I argue that participants often decode certain cultural forms as ‘Black cultural capital’ when they fulfil a politics of representation, both challenging the Whiteness of the art world and controlling images of Blackness more generally. Such participants often construe themselves as having the most symbolic mastery over these cultural forms in virtue of being racialised as Black. However, those towards strategic assimilation attempt to use Black cultural capital to foster inter-racial solidarity, while those towards the ethnoracial autonomous identity prefer to keep Black cultural spaces ethnoracially closed.
Oneka LaBennett
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814752470
- eISBN:
- 9780814765289
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814752470.003.0003
- Subject:
- Anthropology, American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter interrogates the common view that hip-hop culture is largely constituted in misogyny, rampant consumerism, and male violence. West Indian girls pursue a symbolic “dual citizenship” as ...
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This chapter interrogates the common view that hip-hop culture is largely constituted in misogyny, rampant consumerism, and male violence. West Indian girls pursue a symbolic “dual citizenship” as they construct their subjectivities and negotiate dialectic notions of authenticity within hip-hop culture. The girls voice strong preferences for female hip-hop artists and television personalities whom they define as “real.” Their conceptualizations of authenticity are explored in the ways in which cheerleaders at the Flatbush YMCA and youth at BCM interpret American hip-hop and West Indian dancehall music. Although the mainstream versions of both genres rely on sexually explicit lyrical content and debasing portrayals of women, West Indian girls and their mothers apply a double standard, seeing hip-hop as corruptive and dancehall as “positive.” These contradictions perhaps speak to the ways in which Black consumer culture has been demonized in American society.Less
This chapter interrogates the common view that hip-hop culture is largely constituted in misogyny, rampant consumerism, and male violence. West Indian girls pursue a symbolic “dual citizenship” as they construct their subjectivities and negotiate dialectic notions of authenticity within hip-hop culture. The girls voice strong preferences for female hip-hop artists and television personalities whom they define as “real.” Their conceptualizations of authenticity are explored in the ways in which cheerleaders at the Flatbush YMCA and youth at BCM interpret American hip-hop and West Indian dancehall music. Although the mainstream versions of both genres rely on sexually explicit lyrical content and debasing portrayals of women, West Indian girls and their mothers apply a double standard, seeing hip-hop as corruptive and dancehall as “positive.” These contradictions perhaps speak to the ways in which Black consumer culture has been demonized in American society.
Carmen L. Phelps
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617036804
- eISBN:
- 9781621039174
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617036804.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter discusses the grassroots Black Arts movement of Chicago and specifically looks at the Organization for Black American Culture (OBAC). It explains that OBAC was considered as a branch of ...
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This chapter discusses the grassroots Black Arts movement of Chicago and specifically looks at the Organization for Black American Culture (OBAC). It explains that OBAC was considered as a branch of the Black Arts Movement (BAM). However, OBAC’s aesthetic was inspired by its own unique, culturally specific objectives through the artistic and entrepreneurial collaborations among important figures and institutions that aimed to support the artistic and progressive culture in Chicago. OBAC’s agenda was influenced by the broader national movement, and its participants collaborated with BAM artists in other cities such as New York, Detroit, and Philadelphia.Less
This chapter discusses the grassroots Black Arts movement of Chicago and specifically looks at the Organization for Black American Culture (OBAC). It explains that OBAC was considered as a branch of the Black Arts Movement (BAM). However, OBAC’s aesthetic was inspired by its own unique, culturally specific objectives through the artistic and entrepreneurial collaborations among important figures and institutions that aimed to support the artistic and progressive culture in Chicago. OBAC’s agenda was influenced by the broader national movement, and its participants collaborated with BAM artists in other cities such as New York, Detroit, and Philadelphia.
Paul Newland
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719082252
- eISBN:
- 9781781705049
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719082252.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter explores the ways in which the racial tensions pulling at traditional notions of Britishness during the 1970s are represented in a number of films of the period. Primarily focusing on ...
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This chapter explores the ways in which the racial tensions pulling at traditional notions of Britishness during the 1970s are represented in a number of films of the period. Primarily focusing on Pressure, Black Joy and Babylon, the chapter specifically examines the ways in which black immigrant communities are depicted. Particular attention is paid to the formal, aesthetic qualities of the films, and the ways in which they choose to tell stories about black communities. The chapter concludes with an examination of the ramifications of the endurance of social realist aesthetics across a range of British films of the period.Less
This chapter explores the ways in which the racial tensions pulling at traditional notions of Britishness during the 1970s are represented in a number of films of the period. Primarily focusing on Pressure, Black Joy and Babylon, the chapter specifically examines the ways in which black immigrant communities are depicted. Particular attention is paid to the formal, aesthetic qualities of the films, and the ways in which they choose to tell stories about black communities. The chapter concludes with an examination of the ramifications of the endurance of social realist aesthetics across a range of British films of the period.
Eric Gardner
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780190237080
- eISBN:
- 9780190237110
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190237080.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter introduces readers to the Civil War–era Christian Recorder, the official newspaper of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It examines some of the paper’s intersections with the site ...
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This chapter introduces readers to the Civil War–era Christian Recorder, the official newspaper of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It examines some of the paper’s intersections with the site most often considered as the center of the American Civil War era, the Lincoln White House, including a key meeting between Lincoln and Bishop Daniel Payne that is essentially absent from American memory. It uses this comparative exploration to mark the kinds of recovery in which the book engages, and it summarizes the book’s contributions to the study of nineteenth-century African American literature, African American history, and African American culture; debates over print, periodicals, and community; perceptions of Black pasts and historical memory, and the growing nexus of print culture studies and African Americanist inquiry in the study of Black print culture.Less
This chapter introduces readers to the Civil War–era Christian Recorder, the official newspaper of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It examines some of the paper’s intersections with the site most often considered as the center of the American Civil War era, the Lincoln White House, including a key meeting between Lincoln and Bishop Daniel Payne that is essentially absent from American memory. It uses this comparative exploration to mark the kinds of recovery in which the book engages, and it summarizes the book’s contributions to the study of nineteenth-century African American literature, African American history, and African American culture; debates over print, periodicals, and community; perceptions of Black pasts and historical memory, and the growing nexus of print culture studies and African Americanist inquiry in the study of Black print culture.
Amanda Bidnall
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781786940032
- eISBN:
- 9781786944191
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781786940032.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
Between Britain’s imperial victory in the Second World War and its introduction of race-based immigration restriction ‘at home,’ London’s relationship with its burgeoning West Indian settler ...
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Between Britain’s imperial victory in the Second World War and its introduction of race-based immigration restriction ‘at home,’ London’s relationship with its burgeoning West Indian settler community was a cauldron of apprehension, optimism, ignorance, and curiosity. The West Indian Generation revisits this not-quite-postcolonial moment through the careers of a unique generation of West Indian (British Caribbean) artists that included actors Earl Cameron, Edric Connor, Pearl Connor, Cy Grant, Ronald Moody, Barry and Lloyd Reckord, and calypso greats Lord Beginner and Lord Kitchener. Colonial subjects turned British citizens, they tested the parameters of cultural belonging through their work.
Drawing upon familiar and neglected artefacts from London’s cultural archives, Amanda Bidnall sketches the feathery roots of this community as it was both nurtured and inhibited by metropolitan institutions and producers hoping variously to promote imperial solidarity, educate mainstream audiences, and sensationalize racial conflict. Upon a shared foundation of language, education, and middle-class values, a fascinating collaboration took place between popular West Indian artists and cultural authorities like the Royal Court Theatre, the Rank Organisation, and the BBC. By analyzing the potential—and limits—of this collaboration, Bidnall demonstrates the mainstream influence and perceptive politics of pioneering West Indian artists. Their ambivalent and complicated reception by the British government, media, and populace draws a tangled picture of postwar national belonging. The West Indian Generation is necessary reading for anyone interested in the cultural ramifications of the end of empire, New Commonwealth migration, and the production of Black Britain.Less
Between Britain’s imperial victory in the Second World War and its introduction of race-based immigration restriction ‘at home,’ London’s relationship with its burgeoning West Indian settler community was a cauldron of apprehension, optimism, ignorance, and curiosity. The West Indian Generation revisits this not-quite-postcolonial moment through the careers of a unique generation of West Indian (British Caribbean) artists that included actors Earl Cameron, Edric Connor, Pearl Connor, Cy Grant, Ronald Moody, Barry and Lloyd Reckord, and calypso greats Lord Beginner and Lord Kitchener. Colonial subjects turned British citizens, they tested the parameters of cultural belonging through their work.
Drawing upon familiar and neglected artefacts from London’s cultural archives, Amanda Bidnall sketches the feathery roots of this community as it was both nurtured and inhibited by metropolitan institutions and producers hoping variously to promote imperial solidarity, educate mainstream audiences, and sensationalize racial conflict. Upon a shared foundation of language, education, and middle-class values, a fascinating collaboration took place between popular West Indian artists and cultural authorities like the Royal Court Theatre, the Rank Organisation, and the BBC. By analyzing the potential—and limits—of this collaboration, Bidnall demonstrates the mainstream influence and perceptive politics of pioneering West Indian artists. Their ambivalent and complicated reception by the British government, media, and populace draws a tangled picture of postwar national belonging. The West Indian Generation is necessary reading for anyone interested in the cultural ramifications of the end of empire, New Commonwealth migration, and the production of Black Britain.
Jelani M. Favors
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781469648330
- eISBN:
- 9781469648354
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469648330.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
The epilogue of this book examines the transformations that HBCUs have undergone since the mid 70s to present day. This era coincided with a migration of talented black family and students from black ...
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The epilogue of this book examines the transformations that HBCUs have undergone since the mid 70s to present day. This era coincided with a migration of talented black family and students from black colleges to predominantly white institutions (PWI) as integration opened new doors and opportunities for black Americans. With years of underfunding and limited resources, HBCUs proved unable to match the facilities, infrastructure, and budgets of their PWI counterparts. Nevertheless, black colleges still experienced a cultural renaissance due to an embrace by American pop culture that was deeply influenced by the emerging sound and message of hip-hop. Black college life was dramatized on television and movies screens, and worn as a popular fashion brand by black entertainers and hip hop stars, which led to a fascination and often romanticization of HBCUs. The real challenge confronting black colleges was how to maintain financial solvency and repair a vast array of internal problems that resulted in public relation nightmares, while also continuing in their legacy of producing socially and politically conscious students who were prepared to serve as change agents in the black community.Less
The epilogue of this book examines the transformations that HBCUs have undergone since the mid 70s to present day. This era coincided with a migration of talented black family and students from black colleges to predominantly white institutions (PWI) as integration opened new doors and opportunities for black Americans. With years of underfunding and limited resources, HBCUs proved unable to match the facilities, infrastructure, and budgets of their PWI counterparts. Nevertheless, black colleges still experienced a cultural renaissance due to an embrace by American pop culture that was deeply influenced by the emerging sound and message of hip-hop. Black college life was dramatized on television and movies screens, and worn as a popular fashion brand by black entertainers and hip hop stars, which led to a fascination and often romanticization of HBCUs. The real challenge confronting black colleges was how to maintain financial solvency and repair a vast array of internal problems that resulted in public relation nightmares, while also continuing in their legacy of producing socially and politically conscious students who were prepared to serve as change agents in the black community.
Tiya Miles
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469626338
- eISBN:
- 9781469626352
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469626338.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This book explores the popular yet troubling phenomenon of “ghost tours,” frequently promoted and experienced at plantations, urban manor homes, and cemeteries throughout the South. As a staple of ...
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This book explores the popular yet troubling phenomenon of “ghost tours,” frequently promoted and experienced at plantations, urban manor homes, and cemeteries throughout the South. As a staple of the tours, guides entertain paying customers by relying on stories of enslaved black specters. Through an examination of popular sites and stories from select ghost tours, this book shows that haunted tales routinely appropriate and skew African American history to produce representations of slavery for commercial gain. “Dark tourism” often highlights the most sensationalist and macabre aspects of slavery, from salacious sexual ties between white masters and black women slaves to the physical abuse and torture of black bodies, to the supposedly exotic nature of African spiritual practices. The book argues that because the realities of slavery are largely absent from these scripted historical experiences, the tours continue to feed problematic “Old South” narratives and erase the hard truths of the Civil War era.Less
This book explores the popular yet troubling phenomenon of “ghost tours,” frequently promoted and experienced at plantations, urban manor homes, and cemeteries throughout the South. As a staple of the tours, guides entertain paying customers by relying on stories of enslaved black specters. Through an examination of popular sites and stories from select ghost tours, this book shows that haunted tales routinely appropriate and skew African American history to produce representations of slavery for commercial gain. “Dark tourism” often highlights the most sensationalist and macabre aspects of slavery, from salacious sexual ties between white masters and black women slaves to the physical abuse and torture of black bodies, to the supposedly exotic nature of African spiritual practices. The book argues that because the realities of slavery are largely absent from these scripted historical experiences, the tours continue to feed problematic “Old South” narratives and erase the hard truths of the Civil War era.
André Brock
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781479820375
- eISBN:
- 9781479811908
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479820375.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This book addresses Black culture, Web 2.0, and social networks from new methodological perspectives. Using critical technocultural discourse analysis, the chapters within examine Black-designed ...
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This book addresses Black culture, Web 2.0, and social networks from new methodological perspectives. Using critical technocultural discourse analysis, the chapters within examine Black-designed digital technologies, Black-authored websites, and Black-dominated social media services such as Black Twitter. Distributed Blackness also features an innovative theoretical approach to Black digital practice. The book uses libidinal economy to examine Black discourse and Black users from a joyful/surplus perspective, eschewing deficit models (including respectability politics) to better place online Blackness as a mode of existing in the “postpresent,” or a joyous disregard for modernity and capitalism. This approach also adds nuanced analysis to the energies powering Black online activism and Black identity.Less
This book addresses Black culture, Web 2.0, and social networks from new methodological perspectives. Using critical technocultural discourse analysis, the chapters within examine Black-designed digital technologies, Black-authored websites, and Black-dominated social media services such as Black Twitter. Distributed Blackness also features an innovative theoretical approach to Black digital practice. The book uses libidinal economy to examine Black discourse and Black users from a joyful/surplus perspective, eschewing deficit models (including respectability politics) to better place online Blackness as a mode of existing in the “postpresent,” or a joyous disregard for modernity and capitalism. This approach also adds nuanced analysis to the energies powering Black online activism and Black identity.
Rafael Ocasio
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813041643
- eISBN:
- 9780813043913
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813041643.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
Costumbristas sought to engage in multiple and diverse conversations illustrative of the complex issues of Cuban slavery at the peak of the sugarcane boom, including the impact of Black customs on ...
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Costumbristas sought to engage in multiple and diverse conversations illustrative of the complex issues of Cuban slavery at the peak of the sugarcane boom, including the impact of Black customs on Cuban traditions. The handful of Costumbrista essays about Blacks demonstrate that there were multifaceted sociopolitical components that reflected not only Cuban colonial status but also reaction to laws and regulations pertaining to slavery. Costumbrista literature also attempted to illustrate the development of a hybrid national identity, a “mulattoness.”Less
Costumbristas sought to engage in multiple and diverse conversations illustrative of the complex issues of Cuban slavery at the peak of the sugarcane boom, including the impact of Black customs on Cuban traditions. The handful of Costumbrista essays about Blacks demonstrate that there were multifaceted sociopolitical components that reflected not only Cuban colonial status but also reaction to laws and regulations pertaining to slavery. Costumbrista literature also attempted to illustrate the development of a hybrid national identity, a “mulattoness.”
George Lipsitz
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816666782
- eISBN:
- 9781452946689
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816666782.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter shows how Johnny Otis became one of the most prominent personalities in popular music during the 1950s, making him Southern California’s most distinguishable representative of Black ...
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This chapter shows how Johnny Otis became one of the most prominent personalities in popular music during the 1950s, making him Southern California’s most distinguishable representative of Black music. It begins by detailing Otis’ career as a radio disc jockey. Singer Etta James thought he was a natural at disc jockeying, as could be seen through his passion for music, and fervent language inspired by the African American vernacular. Disc Jockey Tom Reed considered Otis a kindred spirit in the advancement of Black music and artistry. He also admired his political activism and overall promotion of Black culture. The chapter then narrates the events leading to Otis’ release of his biggest hit ever, “Willie and the Hand Jive,” featuring Earl Palmer on drums, Jimmy Nolen on guitars, and Johnny on vocals.Less
This chapter shows how Johnny Otis became one of the most prominent personalities in popular music during the 1950s, making him Southern California’s most distinguishable representative of Black music. It begins by detailing Otis’ career as a radio disc jockey. Singer Etta James thought he was a natural at disc jockeying, as could be seen through his passion for music, and fervent language inspired by the African American vernacular. Disc Jockey Tom Reed considered Otis a kindred spirit in the advancement of Black music and artistry. He also admired his political activism and overall promotion of Black culture. The chapter then narrates the events leading to Otis’ release of his biggest hit ever, “Willie and the Hand Jive,” featuring Earl Palmer on drums, Jimmy Nolen on guitars, and Johnny on vocals.
TreaAndrea M. Russworm, Samantha N. Sheppard, and Karen M. Bowdre (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781496807045
- eISBN:
- 9781496807083
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496807045.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
From Madea to Media Mogul examines multi-hyphenate media mogul Tyler Perry’s unique role in contemporary media culture. Unlike the discordant, popular, and limited range of academic responses to ...
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From Madea to Media Mogul examines multi-hyphenate media mogul Tyler Perry’s unique role in contemporary media culture. Unlike the discordant, popular, and limited range of academic responses to Perry’s work, the essays here are engaged with neither celebrating nor condemning Tyler Perry. This collection demonstrates that there is something inherently political about the intersection between understanding the pleasure as well as displeasure surrounding black popular cultural expression. This intersection is crucial not only to understanding Tyler Perry but also to how we think about race and identity in the 21st Century. The collection is organized around a core set of key concepts, because Perry’s image and productions are an invitation to interrogate and transform some of our most familiar disciplinary terms, such as affect, cinephilia, platforms, mogul, rebrand, and niche. Other concepts that Perry prompts us to reconsider, like the politics of respectability, centrality, exceptionalism, and disguise are informed by cultural studies traditions, while new perspective on terms like chitlin and gospel broaden our grasp on thematic concerns from black cultural traditions. Above all, what this collection aims for in offering this rubric for reading Perry are paradigm-shifting approaches that embrace the unexpected. This is a collection that deliberately brings these diverse approaches and disciplinary traditions together by arguing that Tyler Perry’s productions are unintelligible without them and that these critical perspectives reveal Tyler Perry as perhaps one of the most important figures in American media history.Less
From Madea to Media Mogul examines multi-hyphenate media mogul Tyler Perry’s unique role in contemporary media culture. Unlike the discordant, popular, and limited range of academic responses to Perry’s work, the essays here are engaged with neither celebrating nor condemning Tyler Perry. This collection demonstrates that there is something inherently political about the intersection between understanding the pleasure as well as displeasure surrounding black popular cultural expression. This intersection is crucial not only to understanding Tyler Perry but also to how we think about race and identity in the 21st Century. The collection is organized around a core set of key concepts, because Perry’s image and productions are an invitation to interrogate and transform some of our most familiar disciplinary terms, such as affect, cinephilia, platforms, mogul, rebrand, and niche. Other concepts that Perry prompts us to reconsider, like the politics of respectability, centrality, exceptionalism, and disguise are informed by cultural studies traditions, while new perspective on terms like chitlin and gospel broaden our grasp on thematic concerns from black cultural traditions. Above all, what this collection aims for in offering this rubric for reading Perry are paradigm-shifting approaches that embrace the unexpected. This is a collection that deliberately brings these diverse approaches and disciplinary traditions together by arguing that Tyler Perry’s productions are unintelligible without them and that these critical perspectives reveal Tyler Perry as perhaps one of the most important figures in American media history.
Patricia de Santana Pinho
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469645322
- eISBN:
- 9781469645346
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469645322.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter examines the dominant African American roots tourist gaze on Brazil. Contrasting the discourse of the tourists, as expressed in ethnographic interviews, with the representations found in ...
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This chapter examines the dominant African American roots tourist gaze on Brazil. Contrasting the discourse of the tourists, as expressed in ethnographic interviews, with the representations found in various textual and audiovisual sources, such as documentary films, books, newspaper articles, and tourism promotional materials, the chapter examines the three major intersecting tropes that inform and sustain this gaze: the trope of Bahia as a “closer Africa” and a place where African Americans can find their past; the trope of the “happy native,” or the perception that, because Afro-Brazilians supposedly inhabit the African American past, they are imagined to be essentially more culturally fulfilled than African Americans; and the trope of “black evolution,” which defines the “Africanness” of Afro-Brazilians as an earlier stage in the unidirectional path toward a modern form of blackness, one supposedly already reached by African Americans. In this view, Afro-Brazilians enjoy abundant African tradition, but have yet to achieve black modernity, and should therefore look up to African Americans for guidance.Less
This chapter examines the dominant African American roots tourist gaze on Brazil. Contrasting the discourse of the tourists, as expressed in ethnographic interviews, with the representations found in various textual and audiovisual sources, such as documentary films, books, newspaper articles, and tourism promotional materials, the chapter examines the three major intersecting tropes that inform and sustain this gaze: the trope of Bahia as a “closer Africa” and a place where African Americans can find their past; the trope of the “happy native,” or the perception that, because Afro-Brazilians supposedly inhabit the African American past, they are imagined to be essentially more culturally fulfilled than African Americans; and the trope of “black evolution,” which defines the “Africanness” of Afro-Brazilians as an earlier stage in the unidirectional path toward a modern form of blackness, one supposedly already reached by African Americans. In this view, Afro-Brazilians enjoy abundant African tradition, but have yet to achieve black modernity, and should therefore look up to African Americans for guidance.
Christine Bold
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199731794
- eISBN:
- 9780199332441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199731794.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History, American History: 19th Century
Chapter Four explores the processes by which Black Westerners were displaced by, and even on occasion transformed into, white heroes in frontier clubmen’s writings. The first case concerns Wister’s ...
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Chapter Four explores the processes by which Black Westerners were displaced by, and even on occasion transformed into, white heroes in frontier clubmen’s writings. The first case concerns Wister’s private encounter with a Black cook and ranch-hand, named Homer, who, the chapter argues, is the model for his fictional character Scipio. The second concerns Roosevelt’s much more public suppression of African American military contributions to the Spanish-American War, especially through the propagation of the white Rough Rider. The third focuses on Remington’s attention to Black soldiers, which produced a particularly conflicted representation of the Cuban campaign. The chapter also documents African American resistance to this erasure, through the creation of a distinctively Black popular culture and forms of cultural memory-making. Publications by Black servicemen, F. Grant Gilmore, Sutton E. Griggs, James Ephraim McGirt, and the Colored Co-operative Publishing Company all foregrounded Black rough riders as figures of racial pride.Less
Chapter Four explores the processes by which Black Westerners were displaced by, and even on occasion transformed into, white heroes in frontier clubmen’s writings. The first case concerns Wister’s private encounter with a Black cook and ranch-hand, named Homer, who, the chapter argues, is the model for his fictional character Scipio. The second concerns Roosevelt’s much more public suppression of African American military contributions to the Spanish-American War, especially through the propagation of the white Rough Rider. The third focuses on Remington’s attention to Black soldiers, which produced a particularly conflicted representation of the Cuban campaign. The chapter also documents African American resistance to this erasure, through the creation of a distinctively Black popular culture and forms of cultural memory-making. Publications by Black servicemen, F. Grant Gilmore, Sutton E. Griggs, James Ephraim McGirt, and the Colored Co-operative Publishing Company all foregrounded Black rough riders as figures of racial pride.
Patricia de Santana Pinho
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469645322
- eISBN:
- 9781469645346
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469645322.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter contextualizes African American roots tourism in Brazil both time-wise and space-wise. First, it locates the brief history of African American roots tourism within the longer trajectory ...
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This chapter contextualizes African American roots tourism in Brazil both time-wise and space-wise. First, it locates the brief history of African American roots tourism within the longer trajectory of the meanings of Brazil for African Americans, spanning from the late nineteenth century—when, inspired by fantastical imaginings of Brazil as a “racial paradise,” groups of African Americans attempted to migrate there—to the present-day, when the country has become an important roots tourism destination. Second, the chapter compares representations of Brazil with those of other countries frequently visited by African American roots tourists, placing them within a wider system of meanings that the author defines as the “map of Africanness,” a map that is both spatial and temporal.Less
This chapter contextualizes African American roots tourism in Brazil both time-wise and space-wise. First, it locates the brief history of African American roots tourism within the longer trajectory of the meanings of Brazil for African Americans, spanning from the late nineteenth century—when, inspired by fantastical imaginings of Brazil as a “racial paradise,” groups of African Americans attempted to migrate there—to the present-day, when the country has become an important roots tourism destination. Second, the chapter compares representations of Brazil with those of other countries frequently visited by African American roots tourists, placing them within a wider system of meanings that the author defines as the “map of Africanness,” a map that is both spatial and temporal.
Robin Bunce
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526106438
- eISBN:
- 9781526120939
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526106438.003.0010
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
The Race Today Collective occupied a unique position on the British left during the 1980s. Inspired by the example of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the thought of radicals such as ...
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The Race Today Collective occupied a unique position on the British left during the 1980s. Inspired by the example of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the thought of radicals such as CLR James and Walter Rodney, and drawing activists from radical organisations such as the Black Panthers and the Black Unity and Freedom Party, the Race Today Collective became the most influential black rights group in Britain in the 1980s. Centred around a magazine, Darcus Howe and the Collective organised some of the most important grassroots campaigns of the decade, bringing black power to housing, industry, policing and the arts. This chapter considers the group’s emergence in the 1970s, the intellectual foundations on which the Collective was built, its distinctive approach to campaigning, its relationship to various ‘white left’ groups, and the different aspects of its work during the 1980s.Less
The Race Today Collective occupied a unique position on the British left during the 1980s. Inspired by the example of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the thought of radicals such as CLR James and Walter Rodney, and drawing activists from radical organisations such as the Black Panthers and the Black Unity and Freedom Party, the Race Today Collective became the most influential black rights group in Britain in the 1980s. Centred around a magazine, Darcus Howe and the Collective organised some of the most important grassroots campaigns of the decade, bringing black power to housing, industry, policing and the arts. This chapter considers the group’s emergence in the 1970s, the intellectual foundations on which the Collective was built, its distinctive approach to campaigning, its relationship to various ‘white left’ groups, and the different aspects of its work during the 1980s.
Patricia de Santana Pinho
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469645322
- eISBN:
- 9781469645346
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469645322.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Brazil, like some countries in Africa, has become a major destination for African American tourists seeking the cultural roots of the black Atlantic diaspora. Drawing on over a decade of ethnographic ...
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Brazil, like some countries in Africa, has become a major destination for African American tourists seeking the cultural roots of the black Atlantic diaspora. Drawing on over a decade of ethnographic research as well as textual, visual, and archival sources, Patricia de Santana Pinho investigates African American roots tourism, a complex, poignant kind of travel that provides profound personal and collective meaning for those searching for black identity and heritage. It also provides, as Pinho’s interviews with Brazilian tour guides, state officials, and Afro-Brazilian activists reveal, economic and political rewards that support a structured industry.
Pinho traces the origins of roots tourism to the late 1970s, when groups of black intellectuals, artists, and activists found themselves drawn especially to Bahia, the state that in previous centuries had absorbed the largest number of enslaved Africans. African Americans have become frequent travelers across what Pinho calls the "map of Africanness" that connects diasporic communities and stimulates transnational solidarities while simultaneously exposing the unevenness of the black diaspora. Roots tourism, Pinho finds, is a fertile site to examine the tensions between racial and national identities as well as the gendered dimensions of travel, particularly when women are the major roots-seekers.Less
Brazil, like some countries in Africa, has become a major destination for African American tourists seeking the cultural roots of the black Atlantic diaspora. Drawing on over a decade of ethnographic research as well as textual, visual, and archival sources, Patricia de Santana Pinho investigates African American roots tourism, a complex, poignant kind of travel that provides profound personal and collective meaning for those searching for black identity and heritage. It also provides, as Pinho’s interviews with Brazilian tour guides, state officials, and Afro-Brazilian activists reveal, economic and political rewards that support a structured industry.
Pinho traces the origins of roots tourism to the late 1970s, when groups of black intellectuals, artists, and activists found themselves drawn especially to Bahia, the state that in previous centuries had absorbed the largest number of enslaved Africans. African Americans have become frequent travelers across what Pinho calls the "map of Africanness" that connects diasporic communities and stimulates transnational solidarities while simultaneously exposing the unevenness of the black diaspora. Roots tourism, Pinho finds, is a fertile site to examine the tensions between racial and national identities as well as the gendered dimensions of travel, particularly when women are the major roots-seekers.
E. James West
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252043116
- eISBN:
- 9780252051999
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252043116.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter focuses on the publication of Ebony’s first major “Negro History” series during the early 1960s, a feature which helped to formalise its role as an outlet for popular black history and ...
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This chapter focuses on the publication of Ebony’s first major “Negro History” series during the early 1960s, a feature which helped to formalise its role as an outlet for popular black history and signalled the emergence of Lerone Bennett, Jr. as a popular historian and public intellectual. The diverse ways in which Ebony’s audience and external critics engaged with the magazine’s series reveals the importance of Ebony’s role as a ‘history book’, but also how this role was contested by other black history outlets and organisationsLess
This chapter focuses on the publication of Ebony’s first major “Negro History” series during the early 1960s, a feature which helped to formalise its role as an outlet for popular black history and signalled the emergence of Lerone Bennett, Jr. as a popular historian and public intellectual. The diverse ways in which Ebony’s audience and external critics engaged with the magazine’s series reveals the importance of Ebony’s role as a ‘history book’, but also how this role was contested by other black history outlets and organisations