Download or read book Africans Are Not Black written by Kwesi Tsri and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-20 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africans are not literally black, yet they are called black. Why? This book explores the genesis and evolution of the description of Africans as black, the consequences of this practice, and how it contributes to the denigration (blackening) and dehumanisation of Africans. It uses this analysis to advance a case for abandoning the use of the term ‘black’ to describe and categorise Africans. Mainstream discussions of the history of European racism have generally neglected the role of black and white colour symbolisms in sustaining the supposed superiority of those labelled white over those labelled black. This work redresses that neglect, by tracing the genesis of the conception of Africans as black in ancient Greece and its continued employment in early Christian writings, followed by an original, close analysis of how this use is replicated in three key representative texts: Shakespeare's Othello, the translation of the Bible into the African language Ewe, and a book by the influential Ghanaian religious leader, Mensa Otabil. It concludes by directly addressing the argument that ‘black’ can be turned into a positive concept, demonstrating the failure of this approach to deal with the real problems raised by imposing the term ‘black’ on its human referents.
Download or read book African Americans and Africa written by Nemata Amelia Ibitayo Blyden and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-28 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to the complex relationship between African Americans and the African continent What is an “African American” and how does this identity relate to the African continent? Rising immigration levels, globalization, and the United States’ first African American president have all sparked new dialogue around the question. This book provides an introduction to the relationship between African Americans and Africa from the era of slavery to the present, mapping several overlapping diasporas. The diversity of African American identities through relationships with region, ethnicity, slavery, and immigration are all examined to investigate questions fundamental to the study of African American history and culture.
Download or read book Blacks in Antiquity written by Frank M. Snowden and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1970 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Investigates the participation of black Africans, usually referred to as "Ethiopians," by the Greek and Romans, in classical civilization, concluding that they were accepted by pagans and Christians without prejudice.
Download or read book Why I m No Longer Talking to White People About Race written by Reni Eddo-Lodge and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-12 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Every voice raised against racism chips away at its power. We can't afford to stay silent. This book is an attempt to speak' The book that sparked a national conversation. Exploring everything from eradicated black history to the inextricable link between class and race, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race is the essential handbook for anyone who wants to understand race relations in Britain today. THE NO.1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS NON-FICTION NARRATIVE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018 FOYLES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR BLACKWELL'S NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER OF THE JHALAK PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR A BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS AWARD
Download or read book Critical Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2004-10-16 with total page 753 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In their later years, Americans of different racial and ethnic backgrounds are not in equally good-or equally poor-health. There is wide variation, but on average older Whites are healthier than older Blacks and tend to outlive them. But Whites tend to be in poorer health than Hispanics and Asian Americans. This volume documents the differentials and considers possible explanations. Selection processes play a role: selective migration, for instance, or selective survival to advanced ages. Health differentials originate early in life, possibly even before birth, and are affected by events and experiences throughout the life course. Differences in socioeconomic status, risk behavior, social relations, and health care all play a role. Separate chapters consider the contribution of such factors and the biopsychosocial mechanisms that link them to health. This volume provides the empirical evidence for the research agenda provided in the separate report of the Panel on Race, Ethnicity, and Health in Later Life.
Download or read book Faces of Perfect Ebony written by Catherine Molineux and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-02 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though blacks were not often seen on the streets of seventeenth-century London, they were already capturing the British imagination. For two hundred years, as Britain shipped over three million Africans to the New World, popular images of blacks as slaves and servants proliferated in London art, both highbrow and low. Catherine Molineux assembles a surprising array of sources in her exploration of this emerging black presence, from shop signs, tea trays, trading cards, board games, playing cards, and song ballads to more familiar objects such as William Hogarth's graphic satires. By idealizing black servitude and obscuring the brutalities of slavery, these images of black people became symbols of empire to a general populace that had little contact with the realities of slave life in the distant Americas and Caribbean. The earliest images advertised the opulence of the British Empire by depicting black slaves and servants as minor, exotic characters who gazed adoringly at their masters. Later images showed Britons and Africans in friendly gatherings, smoking tobacco together, for example. By 1807, when Britain abolished the slave trade and thousands of people of African descent were living in London as free men and women, depictions of black laborers in local coffee houses, taverns, or kitchens took center stage. Molineux's well-crafted account provides rich evidence for the role that human traffic played in the popular consciousness and culture of Britain during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and deepens our understanding of how Britons imagined their burgeoning empire.
Download or read book Black in White Space written by Elijah Anderson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2023-04-05 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the vital voice of Elijah Anderson, Black in White Space sheds fresh light on the dire persistence of racial discrimination in our country. A birder strolling in Central Park. A college student lounging on a university quad. Two men sitting in a coffee shop. Perfectly ordinary actions in ordinary settings—and yet, they sparked jarring and inflammatory responses that involved the police and attracted national media coverage. Why? In essence, Elijah Anderson would argue, because these were Black people existing in white spaces. In Black in White Space, Anderson brings his immense knowledge and ethnography to bear in this timely study of the racial barriers that are still firmly entrenched in our society at every class level. He focuses in on symbolic racism, a new form of racism in America caused by the stubbornly powerful stereotype of the ghetto embedded in the white imagination, which subconsciously connects all Black people with crime and poverty regardless of their social or economic position. White people typically avoid Black space, but Black people are required to navigate the “white space” as a condition of their existence. From Philadelphia street-corner conversations to Anderson’s own morning jogs through a Cape Cod vacation town, he probes a wealth of experiences to shed new light on how symbolic racism makes all Black people uniquely vulnerable to implicit bias in police stops and racial discrimination in our country. An unwavering truthteller in our national conversation on race, Anderson has shared intimate and sharp insights into Black life for decades. Vital and eye-opening, Black in White Space will be a must-read for anyone hoping to understand the lived realities of Black people and the structural underpinnings of racism in America.
Download or read book The South African Gandhi written by Ashwin Desai and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2015-10-07 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography detailing Gandhi’s twenty-year stay in South Africa and his attitudes and behavior in the nation’s political context. In the pantheon of freedom fighters, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has pride of place. His fame and influence extend far beyond India and are nowhere more significant than in South Africa. “India gave us a Mohandas, we gave them a Mahatma,” goes a popular South African refrain. Contemporary South African leaders, including Mandela, have consistently lauded him as being part of the epic battle to defeat the racist white regime. The South African Gandhi focuses on Gandhi’s first leadership experiences and the complicated man they reveal—a man who actually supported the British Empire. Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed unveil a man who, throughout his stay on African soil, stayed true to Empire while showing a disdain for Africans. For Gandhi, whites and Indians were bonded by an Aryan bloodline that had no place for the African. Gandhi’s racism was matched by his class prejudice towards the Indian indentured. He persistently claimed that they were ignorant and needed his leadership, and he wrote their resistances and compromises in surviving a brutal labor regime out of history. The South African Gandhi writes the indentured and working class back into history. The authors show that Gandhi never missed an opportunity to show his loyalty to Empire, with a particular penchant for war as a means to do so. He served as an Empire stretcher-bearer in the Boer War while the British occupied South Africa, he demanded guns in the aftermath of the Bhambatha Rebellion, and he toured the villages of India during the First World War as recruiter for the Imperial army. This meticulously researched book punctures the dominant narrative of Gandhi and uncovers an ambiguous figure whose time on African soil was marked by a desire to seek the integration of Indians, minus many basic rights, into the white body politic while simultaneously excluding Africans from his moral compass and political ideals. Praise for The South African Gandhi “In this impressively researched study, two South African scholars of Indian background bravely challenge political myth-making on both sides of the Indian Ocean that has sought to canonize Gandhi as a founding father of the struggle for equality there. They show that the Mahatma-to-be carefully refrained from calling on his followers to throw in their lot with the black majority. The mass struggle he finally led remained an Indian struggle.” —Joseph Lelyveld, author of Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India “This is a wonderful demonstration of meticulously researched, evocative, clear-eyed and fearless history writing. It uncovers a story, some might even call it a scandal, that has remained hidden in plain sight for far too long. The South African Gandhi is a big book. It is a serious challenge to the way we have been taught to think about Gandhi.” —Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things
Download or read book How to Write About Africa written by Binyavanga Wainaina and published by One World. This book was released on 2023-06-06 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of Africa’s most influential and eloquent essayists, a posthumous collection that highlights his biting satire and subversive wisdom on topics from travel to cultural identity to sexuality “A fierce literary talent . . . [Wainaina] shines a light on his continent without cliché.”—The Guardian “Africa is the only continent you can love—take advantage of this. . . . Africa is to be pitied, worshipped, or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.” Binyavanga Wainaina was a pioneering voice in African literature, an award-winning memoirist and essayist remembered as one of the greatest chroniclers of contemporary African life. This groundbreaking collection brings together, for the first time, Wainaina’s pioneering writing on the African continent, including many of his most critically acclaimed pieces, such as the viral satirical sensation “How to Write About Africa.” Working fearlessly across a range of topics—from politics to international aid, cultural heritage, and redefined sexuality—he describes the modern world with sensual, emotional, and psychological detail, giving us a full-color view of his home country and continent. These works present the portrait of a giant in African literature who left a tremendous legacy.
Download or read book Why I m No Longer Talking to Nigerians about Race written by Panashe Chigumadzi and published by . This book was released on 2020-05-17 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book African Europeans written by Olivette Otele and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dazzling history of Africans in Europe, revealing their unacknowledged role in shaping the continent One of the Best History Books of 2021 — Smithsonian Conventional wisdom holds that Africans are only a recent presence in Europe. But in African Europeans, renowned historian Olivette Otele debunks this and uncovers a long history of Europeans of African descent. From the third century, when the Egyptian Saint Maurice became the leader of a Roman legion, all the way up to the present, Otele explores encounters between those defined as "Africans" and those called "Europeans." She gives equal attention to the most prominent figures—like Alessandro de Medici, the first duke of Florence thought to have been born to a free African woman in a Roman village—and the untold stories—like the lives of dual-heritage families in Europe's coastal trading towns. African Europeans is a landmark celebration of this integral, vibrantly complex slice of European history, and will redefine the field for years to come.
Download or read book Black Jews in Africa and the Americas written by Tudor Parfitt and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-04 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Black Jews in Africa and the Americas tells the fascinating story of how the Ashanti, Tutsi, Igbo, Zulu, Beta Israel, Maasai, and many other African peoples came to think of themselves as descendants of the ancient tribes of Israel. Pursuing medieval and modern European race narratives over a millennium in which not only were Jews cast as black but black Africans were cast as Jews, Tudor Parfitt reveals a complex history of the interaction between religious and racial labels and their political uses. For centuries, colonialists, travelers, and missionaries, in an attempt to explain and understand the strange people they encountered on the colonial frontier, labeled an astonishing array of African tribes, languages, and cultures as Hebrew, Jewish, or Israelite. Africans themselves came to adopt these identities as their own, invoking their shared histories of oppression, imagined blood-lines, and common traditional practices as proof of a racial relationship to Jews. Beginning in the post-slavery era, contacts between black Jews in America and their counterparts in Africa created powerful and ever-growing networks of black Jews who struggled against racism and colonialism. A community whose claims are denied by many, black Jews have developed a strong sense of who they are as a unique people. In Parfitt’s telling, forces of prejudice and the desire for new racial, redemptive identities converge, illuminating Jewish and black history alike in novel and unexplored ways.
Download or read book Black Fatigue written by Mary-Frances Winters and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book to define and explore Black fatigue, the intergenerational impact of systemic racism on the physical and psychological health of Black people—and explain why and how society needs to collectively do more to combat its pernicious effects. Black people, young and old, are fatigued, says award-winning diversity and inclusion leader Mary-Frances Winters. It is physically, mentally, and emotionally draining to continue to experience inequities and even atrocities, day after day, when justice is a God-given and legislated right. And it is exhausting to have to constantly explain this to white people, even—and especially—well-meaning white people, who fall prey to white fragility and too often are unwittingly complicit in upholding the very systems they say they want dismantled. This book, designed to illuminate the myriad dire consequences of “living while Black,” came at the urging of Winters's Black friends and colleagues. Winters describes how in every aspect of life—from economics to education, work, criminal justice, and, very importantly, health outcomes—for the most part, the trajectory for Black people is not improving. It is paradoxical that, with all the attention focused over the last fifty years on social justice and diversity and inclusion, little progress has been made in actualizing the vision of an equitable society. Black people are quite literally sickand tired of being sick and tired. Winters writes that “my hope for this book is that it will provide a comprehensive summary of the consequences of Black fatigue, and awaken activism in those who care about equity and justice—those who care that intergenerational fatigue is tearing at the very core of a whole race of people who are simply asking for what they deserve.”
Download or read book Blacks and Blackness in Central America written by Lowell Gudmundson and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-18 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many of the earliest Africans to arrive in the Americas came to Central America with Spanish colonists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and people of African descent constituted the majority of nonindigenous populations in the region long thereafter. Yet in the development of national identities and historical consciousness, Central American nations have often countenanced widespread practices of social, political, and regional exclusion of blacks. The postcolonial development of mestizo or mixed-race ideologies of national identity have systematically downplayed African ancestry and social and political involvement in favor of Spanish and Indian heritage and contributions. In addition, a powerful sense of place and belonging has led many peoples of African descent in Central America to identify themselves as something other than African American, reinforcing the tendency of local and foreign scholars to see Central America as peripheral to the African diaspora in the Americas. The essays in this collection begin to recover the forgotten and downplayed histories of blacks in Central America, demonstrating the centrality of African Americans to the region’s history from the earliest colonial times to the present. They reveal how modern nationalist attempts to define mixed-race majorities as “Indo-Hispanic,” or as anything but African American, clash with the historical record of the first region of the Americas in which African Americans not only gained the right to vote but repeatedly held high office, including the presidency, following independence from Spain in 1821. Contributors. Rina Cáceres Gómez, Lowell Gudmundson, Ronald Harpelle, Juliet Hooker, Catherine Komisaruk, Russell Lohse, Paul Lokken, Mauricio Meléndez Obando, Karl H. Offen, Lara Putnam, Justin Wolfe
Download or read book America s Original Sin written by Jim Wallis and published by Brazos Press. This book was released on 2016-01-12 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's problem with race has deep roots, with the country's foundation tied to the near extermination of one race of people and the enslavement of another. Racism is truly our nation's original sin. "It's time we right this unacceptable wrong," says bestselling author and leading Christian activist Jim Wallis. Fifty years ago, Wallis was driven away from his faith by a white church that considered dealing with racism to be taboo. His participation in the civil rights movement brought him back when he discovered a faith that commands racial justice. Yet as recent tragedies confirm, we continue to suffer from the legacy of racism. The old patterns of white privilege are colliding with the changing demographics of a diverse nation. The church has been slow to respond, and Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour of the week. In America's Original Sin, Wallis offers a prophetic and deeply personal call to action in overcoming the racism so ingrained in American society. He speaks candidly to Christians--particularly white Christians--urging them to cross a new bridge toward racial justice and healing. Whenever divided cultures and gridlocked power structures fail to end systemic sin, faith communities can help lead the way to grassroots change. Probing yet positive, biblically rooted yet highly practical, this book shows people of faith how they can work together to overcome the embedded racism in America, galvanizing a movement to cross the bridge to a multiracial church and a new America.
Download or read book The Ethnic Project written by Vilna Bashi Treitler and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-14 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the racial-ethnic history of the United States and the perpetuation of racial hierarchy. Race is a known fiction—there is no genetic marker that indicates someone’s race—yet the social stigma of race endures. In the United States, ethnicity is often positioned as a counterweight to race, and we celebrate our various hyphenated-American identities. But Vilna Bashi Treitler argues that we do so at a high cost: ethnic thinking simply perpetuates an underlying racism. In The Ethnic Project, Bashi Treitler considers the ethnic history of the United States from the arrival of the English in North America through to the present day. Tracing the histories of immigrant and indigenous groups—Irish, Chinese, Italians, Jews, Native Americans, Mexicans, Afro-Caribbeans, and African Americans—she shows how each negotiates America’s racial hierarchy, aiming to distance themselves from the bottom and align with the groups already at the top. But in pursuing these “ethnic projects” these groups implicitly accept and perpetuate a racial hierarchy, shoring up rather than dismantling race and racism. Ultimately, The Ethnic Project shows how dangerous ethnic thinking can be in a society that has not let go of racial thinking. Praise for The Ethnic Project “An outstanding work that makes an important contribution to our understanding of the past and present racial history of the United States. The book is very well written (Bashi Treitler’s prose is a delight to read) and meticulously researched . . . . The Ethnic Project should definitely be part of the conversation as we press forward with the task of understanding race in the United States.” —Ashley “Woody” Doane, American Journal of Sociology “Treitler offers a succinct history and diagnosis of racial grouping in the U.S., from the nation’s origin to the contemporary moment . . . . The text has solid promise as an introductory ethnic studies course reading . . . . Highly recommended.” —N. B. Barnd, CHOICE “With her ingenious concept of ‘ethnic projects,’ Vilna Bashi Treitler brings a new optic to the study of race . . . . [and] provides an authoritative answer to those who ask the tired question, ‘We made it, why haven’t they?’” —Stephen Steinberg, author of Race Relations: A Critique “Treitler masterfully weaves race and ethnicity into a single historical narrative that reveals the ugly reality of exploitation and stratification that has always undergirded American society.” —Douglas S. Massey, Princeton University
Download or read book Black Africans in the British Imagination written by Cassander L. Smith and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2016-12-14 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Spain and England vied for dominance of the Atlantic world during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, mounting political and religious tensions between the two empires raised a troubling specter for contemporary British writers attempting to justify early English imperial efforts. Specifically, these writers focused on encounters with black Africans throughout the Atlantic world, attempting to use these points of contact to articulate and defend England’s global ambitions. In Black Africans in the British Imagination, Cassander L. Smith investigates how the physical presence of black Africans both enabled and disrupted English literary responses to Spanish imperialism. By examining the extent to which this population helped to shape early English narratives, from political pamphlets to travelogues, Smith offers new perspectives on the literary, social, and political impact of black Africans in the early Atlantic world. With detailed analysis of the earliest English-language accounts from the Atlantic world, including writings by Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Ralegh, and Richard Ligon, Smith approaches contact narratives from the perspective of black Africans, recovering figures often relegated to the margins. This interdisciplinary study explores understandings of race and cross-cultural interaction and revises notions of whiteness, blackness, and indigeneity. Smith reveals the extent to which contact with black Africans impeded English efforts to stigmatize the Spanish empire as villainous and to malign Spain’s administration of its colonies. In addition, her study illustrates how black presences influenced the narrative choices of European (and later Euro-American) writers, providing a more nuanced understanding of black Africans’ role in contemporary literary productions of the region.
