The article argues that there is still need of black theology. Although apartheid is believed to have died and blacks have political power, the socio-economic and cultural realities and conditions that necessitated black theology are still prevalent. For as long as the black experiences involve pain and suffering there will be need to reflect theologically on what it means to be black in the South African context. This time around, as black theology is resuscitated, it should not merely be an academic- intellectual enterprise of the elites but it should seriously be in such a way that it has an organic relationship with the poor and oppressed. For black theology to be sustainable it has to be done in the context of theological reflection not from the Ivory towers such as academia but together with and alongside the poor and the oppressed, as well as their ecclesiastical and social movements
Felice D. Blake's Black Love, Black Hate: Intimate Antagonisms in African American Literature highlights the pervasive representations of intraracial deceptions, cruelties, and contempt in Black literature. Literary criticism has tended to focus on Black solidarity and the ways that a racially linked fate has compelled Black people to counter notions of Black inferiority with unified notions of community driven by political commitments to creative rehumanization and collective affirmation. Blake shows how fictional depictions of intraracial conflict perform necessary work within the Black community, raising questions about why racial unity is so often established from the top down and how loyalty to Blackness can be manipulated to reinforce deleterious forms of subordination to oppressive gender, sexual, and class norms.
This article discusses the fraught relationship between legal citizenship and Black belonging as depicted in the works of two Black Italian women writers. The protagonists in the short story "Salsicce" ("Sausages") by Igiaba Scego and the novella Kkeywa: Storia di una bimba meticcia by Carla Macoggi resist multiple forms of dispossession and struggle to hold on to the autonomy of their self-identification and cultural attachments. Both Scego and Macoggi affirm the necessity to reclaim the power of self-definition, self-representation, and political agency when reckoning with the citizenship project and its inherent exclusions. Thus, these writings showcase the importance of studying the dynamic body of Black literature in Italian and offer us insight into some of the racialized, gendered, and religious negotiations of Italian sociopolitics for Black people navigating life throughout Italy and the Mediterranean.
Tema del mes ; La música, como todas las artes, se encuentra impregnada de los contextos políticos y culturales que la generaron. Esto se encuentra dado mediante una relación bidireccional, en la cual dos elementos absorben una cosa del otro: el sujeto de la comunidad y la comunidad del sujeto. Ya que la música nació en África, necesariamente habla de la cultura negra, así que cualquier subgénero nos muestra un poco de ella y más aún de todo lo que ha sufrido su gente, entre ello, de la esclavitud ; Music, as the other fine arts, in impregnated with the political and cultural contexts that generated it. This is given by a bidirectional relationship, in which two elements absorb one thing from the other: the subject from the community and the community from the subject. Since music was born in Africa, it necessarily speaks about black culture. Thereafter, any musical subgender can show us a part of this continent, as well as the suffering that its people have been trough
Tema del mes ; La música, como todas las artes, se encuentra impregnada de los contextos políticos y culturales que la generaron. Esto se encuentra dado mediante una relación bidireccional, en la cual dos elementos absorben una cosa del otro: el sujeto de la comunidad y la comunidad del sujeto. Ya que la música nació en África, necesariamente habla de la cultura negra, así que cualquier subgénero nos muestra un poco de ella y más aún de todo lo que ha sufrido su gente, entre ello, de la esclavitud ; Music, as the other fine arts, in impregnated with the political and cultural contexts that generated it. This is given by a bidirectional relationship, in which two elements absorb one thing from the other: the subject from the community and the community from the subject. Since music was born in Africa, it necessarily speaks about black culture. Thereafter, any musical subgender can show us a part of this continent, as well as the suffering that its people have been trough
Jean Genet's writing has generated controversies over the years, particularly his advocacy for demoting whiteness and its means of domination. He is primarily regarded as an angry homosexual white French male who portrays grotesque shadows of humanity in his work. In his 1959 Play The Blacks, Genet describes the way Blacks are categorized in France through the mediation of abjecting politics of disgust, which cast black bodies as repulsive and outside the pole. At the same time, The Blacks considers the strategies of resistance and critique that are available to these bodies and those working alongside with them. Characters in The Blacks conform to the roles that they are given, therefore creating a visual mask over their identity. For Genet acting becomes a (positively) perverse and subversive mean for gaining power over oppression by taking an art from something that is traditionally based in strict role playing and turning it into a form of individual and collective expression necessary to "negatively" creating what can then be conceived as an assertively "positive" socio-political identity.
The New Black is a documentary that tells the story of how the African American community is grappling with the gay rights issue in light of the recent gay marriage movement and the fight over Civil Rights. The film documents activities, families and clergy on both sides of the campaign to legalize gay marriage and examines homophobia in the Black community's institutional pillar, the Black church, and reveals the Christian right wing's strategy of exploiting this phenomenon in order to pursue an anti-gay political agenda. Following the film, we will hear from one of the main characters, Sharon Lettman-Hicks. Sharon is the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the National Black Justice Coalition, a Civil Rights organization dedicated to empowering Black lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. ; Queer People of Color @ VT and Multicultural Programs and Services ; Division of Student Affairs ; Virginia Tech. University Libraries
In 1969 James Cone, AME minister and professor of theology, published Black Theology and Black Power with the aim of theologically redefining the place of the Christian church in terms of black oppression. My paper aims to show how Black Theology proponents answered the black community's need for more radical empowerment after the Civil Rights Movement by articulating the necessity of spirituality to achieve liberation. I show the "dilemma" of being African American and Christian by contrasting the progress of the religiously fueled Civil Rights Movement with the emergence of militant Black Power movements in the context of continued racial violence and socio-economic injustice. In addition, I would like to raise discussion about problems and successes of Cone's published theology in terms of African-American history. I have conducted my research through the close examination of a variety of both secondary and primary historical texts, including peer-reviewed journals, contemporary and historical interviews and articles from major African-American periodicals from the 1960s. My goal with this research is to reveal the complexity of the African-American struggle for Civil Rights and highlight the historical importance of Black Theology to religion, politics, and society in the United States. I believe my access to diverse sources spanning the past fifty years, and careful observation of Black Theology and its origins, provide a more intricate perspective both to the study of United States history and to the African-American experience.
This project focuses on Nikki Giovanni's history as a revolutionary female activist in The Black Arts Movement (BAM). The BAM was dedicated to advancing the livelihood of African-Americans through the arts. Nikki Giovanni recognized the tensions between being a revolutionary black woman and fitting society's conventional standard of women. This paper highlights the life of an activist and poet engaged in a social revolution while trying to sustain a private life. Through the discussion of various poems in Black Feeling Black Talk/ Black Judgement (1970), this study explores the conflict between gender issues, race relations, and politics. As Giovanni positions herself as a revolutionary poet, she addresses the challenges black women faced to define their own voice under oppressive forces.
ABSTRACT Humanity in the Black explores the theoretical framework of Counter-Racist Logic created by Neely Fuller Jr. as a defense mechanism for humans politically classified as black. The purpose of this presentation is to display how Counter-Racist Logic can eliminate the cancerous confusion caused by the social construct of race. Humans who have been assigned to the racial category of black will be able to courageously acknowledge the social construct of race, acknowledge the effects of identifying with a description of a race, and how to use logic to counter the religious white superiority belief system (Fuller, 2016). The method used to facilitate this exploration is a combination of Comedy and Hip Hop. They both activate what Fuller (1984) describes as process of thought, speech, and action. Counter-Racist Logic will represent the immune system, created for resisting the cancerous dehumanization of the social construct of race. Major contributions of my dissertation include an application of the counter-racist code system concept, a critique of the intentional and continuous use of dehumanizing racial categories towards specific human populations, and my perspective on how to apply Counter-Racist Logic using human modes of artistic resistance against the false religion of white superiority. Comedy and Hip Hop will serve as methodological immune responses to the illogical religion of race, producing curriculums of healing for humans who are socially, legally, politically described, and assigned as black, or persons of color (Fuller, 1984; Watkins, 2001; Welsing, 1991; Woodson, 2007).
Neste artigo, exploro como o teatro do Black Arts Movement constituiu um importante fórum público no decurso do movimento em defesa dos direitos civis nos EUA. A representação dramática das identidades branca e negra professada pelos dramaturgos do Black Power desafiou a validade da ideologia dominante que rodeava a identidade nacional, sobretudo por subverter os dogmas da religião civil norte-americana. Demonstrou, assim, que os mitos que rodeiam a identidade nacional unem alguns americanos e causam fraturas violentas entre outros. Contudo, histórias dissidentes da vida e identidade norte-americanas que caraterizaram o drama do Black Arts Movement no final dos anos sessenta e início dos anos setenta ofereceram mais do que meras respostas à corrente dominante. Antes, as peças que emergiram no contexto do ativismo e da filosofia do Black Power proporcionaram às audiências novas e alternativas conceções da identidade americana, com as quais os afro-americanos, historicamente excluídos das narrativas do eu nacional, se identificaram e puderam emular. ; This essay explores how theater of the Black Arts Movement served as an important public forum in the American Civil Rights Movement. The dramatic representations of black and white identities proffered by Black Power dramatists challenged the validity of dominant ideology surrounding national identity primarily by subverting the tenets of American civil religion, and thereby demonstrating how myths surrounding national identity bind some together while causing violent ruptures between other kinds of Americans. However, dissenting stories of American national life and identity that characterized drama of the Black Arts movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s offered more than mere responses to the mainstream. Rather, plays that emerged out of the context of Black Power activism and philosophy provided audiences with new, alternative conceptions of American identity, with which black Americans, historically excluded from narratives of the national self, could ...
14 pages ; This article examines the shooting of Philando Castile, and his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds', decision to film his death at the hands of the police, in order to explore the potential of live-streaming applications as a form of "sousveillance" that can expose white supremacy from below. In highlighting the political economy constraints that limit the dissemination of such images, we argue that the geographic and historical context of these videos as well as their integration into social justice movements, are critical for deploying them as effective tools that challenge racial inequality and make black life matter, not just black death.
This is an inquiry into Southern cultures, Black traditions, and Black women with a focus on the life of one Black woman educator. Drawing upon the works of Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning African American woman, novelist, and master storyteller, Toni Morrison (1970, 1973, 1976, 1987, 1988, 1993, 2003, & 2008); activist and Black feminist protest thinker and writer, bell hooks (1981, 1984, 1995, & 2000); the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, activist, and womanist, Alice Walker (1983); the Black feminist thinker and writer, Patricia Hills Collins (1998, 2000), and the critical race theorist and the first tenured African-American professor of Law at Harvard University, Derrick Bell (1992, 1995); I create a composite (He, 2003) main character, Marie Sincerely Lucky, an ordinary farm girl from a rural Southern community. I utilize Marie as a persona to tell key life events and experiences using fiction (which is not widely accepted in academia as a methodology) and the seasonal metaphor (literal and Biblical) which becomes the titles of chapters and sections throughout my dissertation. The novellas section begins with an introduction and background of the main character. Each novella begins with a prelude that introduces time, place, and setting and ends with an interlude that summarizes and theorizes the novella. This study is intended to serve as an account of one woman's journey through oppression (racial, sexual, class, 2 and cultural) to womanhood. Marie's life is broken down into specific seasons: early childhood (with stepdad and after stepdad), the teen years, and adulthood (relationships, teaching career, military, and doctoral candidate). Because teachers are farmers who plant kernels of knowledge in hopes that they grow into some greater understanding, it is my intention to challenge some stereotypes about Southern Blacks, reveal beliefs and culture, history, and experiences that many Black females encounter on a daily basis to provide these teachers with an understanding of who they may be teaching. Although my inquiry is regional (Black rural Southern community), the issues addressed are universal. I hope to also assist all stakeholders in understanding some deep-seated issues and to shed light on Southern traditions, Black cultures, Black women, and Black children.
This book, co-authored with Ian Baucom and edited by David A Bailey, is the outcome of a lengthy period of research into the last twenty years of Black Art in Britain. It focuses particularly on the Thatcher period and the explosion of the Black Arts Movement in the wake of civil unrest and rioting in a number of British cities. The book is extensively illustrated bringing together a dialogue between leading artists, curators, art historians, and critics including Stanley Abe Jawad, Adelaide Bannerman, Allan deSouza, Kobena Mercer, Yong Soon Min and Judith Wilson. Combining cultural theory with anecdote and experience, it examines how the black British artists of the 1980s should be viewed historically and explores the political, cultural, and artistic developments that sparked the movement. It reviews practice in the context of public funding, and the trans-national art market and its legacy for today's artists and activists. The volume includes a unique catalogue of images, a comprehensive bibliography, and a series of descriptive timelines situating the movement in relation to relevant artworks, films, exhibitions, cultural criticism, and political events from 1960 to 2000. The book has become an established point of reference for the study of Black Art and cultural developments of Braitain during the period. In March 2007 it was awarded the INIVA Historians of British Art Book Prize.
This study examined the connection between Black youth moral behavior and the aesthetic value of Black art. Today's Black youth are impressed with elements in the media, their schools, and other social surroundings that have been a little less than upstanding. This exploration of moral relevance of self evaluation is important in order to empower the Black youth of today. With this self-empowerment, Black youth can have the ability to access and exhibit behaviors of moral integrity. This study examined interpretative narratives regarding Black art through group discussions, one on one interaction, a questionnaire, and participant observations by Black youth in the community in Jonesboro, Georgia. The interpretive stories were collected from a group of five eighth grade Black youth. This selected group represented less than 1% of the population of 30 % of under age 18 year old Black youth in a community of 51.6% Black. Participants were encouraged to relate the visual experience to their own childhood. In addition to this, stories from my own childhood experiences were incorporated as an important aspect of this research. The goal is to share my research and strategies with educators, parents, and community leaders who can ii direct this process of increasing self awareness regarding morals among Black youth through specific exercises in schools and community venues. Critical race theory provides the theoretical framework for this study with an emphasis on aesthetics. This framework contains information gathered from historical narratives of Black works of art as well as written and verbal texts of Black students and theorists of Black studies. I have included a number of poems which are reflective of the Black experience. This research drew upon developments of democracy, relating to Black culture, education of Blacks in the South, and the relationship of moral principles among Blacks relating to art, schools, and social events in America. These theoretical insights span from the beginning of the educational history of Blacks in the United States until the present. A visual narrative methodology was used to interpret the semiotics for Black culture which creates an aesthetic pedagogy necessary for introducing change to curricula in schools and programs in the community. Through these controlled discussions and written responses the implications of moral understanding resulted in evidence for understanding oneself as Black youth.