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This chapter outlines the relationship between race, ethnicity, and substantive representation via an in-depth discussion of how racial and ethnic group consciousness operates among black and Latino representatives in Congress. While all members of Congress face the pressure of making the right decisions to increase their chances at reelection, black and Latino legislators, unlike most white legislators, face an additional pressure: they are motivated by a group norm that requires them to engage in collective group action on issues of concern to other blacks and Latinos. White legislators are mainly responsible for being responsive to the constituents in their districts, whereas black and Latino legislators are also expected to represent the interests of all blacks and Latinos nationally. The strategy they pursue of “strategic group uplift” falls at the intersection of their electoral goals and their commitment to advance group interests.

This chapter focuses on racial group consciousness of African Americans. Gabriel Sanchez asserts that “group consciousness is a resource that generates political activity through an individual's attachment to a group.” On that note, the race-based treatment of African Americans as a group has led them to act in solidarity in the political realm. For instance, they use the well-being of their racial group as a proxy for their own well-being when making political decisions. Thus, African Americans have not only developed a set of schemas around racial issues, but more importantly, they have developed a racial belief system that makes them fairly liberal on issues such as social welfare, government spending, and affirmative action.

This chapter traces the evolution of American racial attitudes and the violence it engendered among civilians and soldiers during World War II. Even though the majority of all Americans supported the role of the United States, the gap in attitudes between blacks and whites remained virtually unaffected throughout the war. Many things undoubtedly account for the different perceptions of the war. In addition to segregation and rampant discrimination, military leadership replicated discrimination and stereotyping in civilian life affecting black perceptions. Whites, convinced of the innate inferiority of blacks, did not want to work or fight with them. Ultimately, the racial frustration of blacks and whites erupted in violence that punctuated periods of apparent calm.

This chapter discusses the modernist literary convention of racial passing, which is appropriated at the end of the twentieth century, to access the genealogical turn that resulted in a neutral politics of personhood. It then explores the manner in which the racial discourses of the 1990s—the enforcement of color-blind public policy and the emergent concern of politically correct speech, both with their accompanying cultural politics of racial neutrality—are curiously evoked through the decidedly more anachronistic phenomenon of racial passing. James McBride’s memoir The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother and Philip Roth’s novel The Human Stain (2000) together demonstrate the ambivalent outcomes of a multiracialism that only ostensibly leads to the transcendence of racial consciousness.

This part of the book includes poems characterized by forms of racial consciousness and Afro-American mysticism. Between September 1921 and December 1922, Toomer wrote the poems in Cane which are evocative of an empathetic union between the spirit of the artist and the spirit of Afro-American mysticism.

Salvador da Bahia is a major port and it has been the center of colonialism for the past two hundred years. It was the place for slave importation and the center of the sugar industry, and these two aspects tied the blacks to slavery. In the years that have passed, Salvador was subjected to change as industry, economy, and trade moved to the south of Brazil. Although Salvador has undergone changes, its interior remains an agricultural region where the patron–client relationship still remains. Presently, Salvador has a central black community and is a center of African-derived religions. It is known as the Rome of the Afro-Brazilian religion and the center of Afro-Brazilian cultural traditions and racial consciousness. This chapter explores how ethnic consciousness is constructed and how anti-racist activism is enacted within the context of different religious, political and cultural backgrounds, and groups in Salvador. This chapter focuses on the different discourses on African-Brazilian identity among several Catholic, Evangelical Catholic, and Candomblé groups. The chapter also looks at the struggles of the African-derived religion in relation to the Christian religion as well as the role of this religion in constructing the Afro-Brazilian identity and in shaping a stand against racism. The chapter also looks beyond the religious arena of where Afro-Brazilian cultural affirmations and political activism are fully relevant and distinguishable.

This chapter conveys how poets Escobar and Hernández promoted nationality over race. In the few poems that evince racial consciousness, the writers primarily subordinate their blackness to either spirituality or whiteness. Hernández expresses disdain for West Indians who refuse to learn and/or speak Spanish. He also criticizes them for trying to be North American instead of Panamanian because of their ties to the Canal. Hernández distinguishes West Indians from Afro-Hispanics based on linguistic and cultural differences illustrating that tensions heightened between the two groups grounded on perceived distinctions of nationality. Escobar is most intriguing because, while a majority of his poetry manifests a patriotic discourse, in a few poems he sharply criticizes his fellow Panamanians for the inferior status held by blacks and exhibits a racial pride uncharacteristic of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Panamanian verse.

This chapter attempts to analyze the ways in which the Duvalierist state used an inherited color ideology and how racial politics become central to the exercise of power and to the creation of consent in Haiti. It argues that under the regime of Francois Duvalier, the categories of color/race and class took different meanings. The chapter suggests that under the Duvalierist state, racial consciousness became the only form of consent and that the black middle class was the only natural representation of the majority and of the masses.

This book focuses on Brazilians of African descent. Focus is particularly directed on their Catholicism and their influences from African-derived religions in constructing their racial identities. This book examines the Recôncavo region of Brazil which is home to Afro-Brazilian cultural traditions and to racial consciousness in the country. It examines how the religions of Evangelical Protestantism, Candomblé, and Catholicism have shaped and influenced the discursive struggles on racism and Afro-Brazilian identity. By revealing the multiplicity and sometimes contradictory features of the Afro-Brazilian religious practices and racial identity, the book aims to bring equilibrium to an otherwise polarized and opposing stand on Brazilian racial politics.

This chapter examines different aspects of the satire “Black No More” by George Schuyler, who challenged racial perspectives in his own time and also struck hard at many perennial themes of American racial consciousness. “Black No More” adds biting ridicule concerning a subject that most Americans allow themselves to perceive only in the mode of high moral seriousness or within the narrow confines of ideologically unthreatening humor, melodrama, myths of progress, or fantasies of racial hierarchy. It pursues a strategy of multiplication and dissemination rather than protest and erasure, and, hostile to fast-frozen conceptions of race, depicts a chaotic world of black and white strivers in the only terms appropriate for their unprincipled struggles.

This chapter discusses how Will Cook satisfied his musical interest by seriously studying the violin from 1883 to 1887 at Oberlin Conservatory. It discusses how Will outgrew Professor Doolittle’s violin instruction and how he studied and enjoyed his stay at Berlin’s Hochschule für Musik under the Austro-Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim. It then narrates Cook’s return to Washington after a year’s study in Germany as a musical phenomenon performing some of the masterpieces upon his violin with one hand, probably because he had depleted his funds and became ill. It discusses how Will made a dramatic name change by abandoning the middle name Mercer, in favor of Marion, in honor of his mother. It explains that Will changed his name for he heard Langston boasting about how he got his best features from his white ancestors. It shows that Cook’s racial consciousness and pride were dramatically sensitive aspects of his personality.