Author: Lindon Barrett
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521621038
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 286
Book Description
Blackness and Value investigates the principles by which 'value' operates, and asks if it is useful to imagine that the concepts of racial blackness and whiteness in the United States operate in terms of these principles. Testing these concepts by exploring various theoretical approaches and their shortcomings, Lindon Barrett finds that the gulf between 'the street' (where race is acknowledged as a powerful enigma) and the literary academy (where until recently it has not been) can be understood as a symptom of racial violence. The book traces several interrelations between value and race, such as literate/illiterate, the signing/singing voice, time/space, civic/criminal, and academy/street, and offers relevant and fresh readings of two novels by Ann Petry. While approaches to race and value are commonly examined historically or sociologically, this intriguing study provides a new critical approach that speaks to theorists of race as well as gender and queer studies.
Blackness and Value
Author: Lindon Barrett
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521621038
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 286
Book Description
Blackness and Value investigates the principles by which 'value' operates, and asks if it is useful to imagine that the concepts of racial blackness and whiteness in the United States operate in terms of these principles. Testing these concepts by exploring various theoretical approaches and their shortcomings, Lindon Barrett finds that the gulf between 'the street' (where race is acknowledged as a powerful enigma) and the literary academy (where until recently it has not been) can be understood as a symptom of racial violence. The book traces several interrelations between value and race, such as literate/illiterate, the signing/singing voice, time/space, civic/criminal, and academy/street, and offers relevant and fresh readings of two novels by Ann Petry. While approaches to race and value are commonly examined historically or sociologically, this intriguing study provides a new critical approach that speaks to theorists of race as well as gender and queer studies.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521621038
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 286
Book Description
Blackness and Value investigates the principles by which 'value' operates, and asks if it is useful to imagine that the concepts of racial blackness and whiteness in the United States operate in terms of these principles. Testing these concepts by exploring various theoretical approaches and their shortcomings, Lindon Barrett finds that the gulf between 'the street' (where race is acknowledged as a powerful enigma) and the literary academy (where until recently it has not been) can be understood as a symptom of racial violence. The book traces several interrelations between value and race, such as literate/illiterate, the signing/singing voice, time/space, civic/criminal, and academy/street, and offers relevant and fresh readings of two novels by Ann Petry. While approaches to race and value are commonly examined historically or sociologically, this intriguing study provides a new critical approach that speaks to theorists of race as well as gender and queer studies.
Know Your Price
Author: Andre M. Perry
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815737289
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271
Book Description
The deliberate devaluation of Blacks and their communities has had very real, far-reaching, and negative economic and social effects. An enduring white supremacist myth claims brutal conditions in Black communities are mainly the result of Black people's collective choices and moral failings. “That's just how they are” or “there's really no excuse”: we've all heard those not so subtle digs. But there is nothing wrong with Black people that ending racism can't solve. We haven't known how much the country will gain by properly valuing homes and businesses, family structures, voters, and school districts in Black neighborhoods. And we need to know. Noted educator, journalist, and scholar Andre Perry takes readers on a tour of six Black-majority cities whose assets and strengths are undervalued. Perry begins in his hometown of Wilkinsburg, a small city east of Pittsburgh that, unlike its much larger neighbor, is struggling and failing to attract new jobs and industry. Bringing his own personal story of growing up in Black-majority Wilkinsburg, Perry also spotlights five others where he has deep connections: Detroit, Birmingham, New Orleans, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. He provides an intimate look at the assets that should be of greater value to residents—and that can be if they demand it. Perry provides a new means of determining the value of Black communities. Rejecting policies shaped by flawed perspectives of the past and present, it gives fresh insights on the historical effects of racism and provides a new value paradigm to limit them in the future. Know Your Price demonstrates the worth of Black people's intrinsic personal strengths, real property, and traditional institutions. These assets are a means of empowerment and, as Perry argues in this provocative and very personal book, are what we need to know and understand to build Black prosperity.
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815737289
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271
Book Description
The deliberate devaluation of Blacks and their communities has had very real, far-reaching, and negative economic and social effects. An enduring white supremacist myth claims brutal conditions in Black communities are mainly the result of Black people's collective choices and moral failings. “That's just how they are” or “there's really no excuse”: we've all heard those not so subtle digs. But there is nothing wrong with Black people that ending racism can't solve. We haven't known how much the country will gain by properly valuing homes and businesses, family structures, voters, and school districts in Black neighborhoods. And we need to know. Noted educator, journalist, and scholar Andre Perry takes readers on a tour of six Black-majority cities whose assets and strengths are undervalued. Perry begins in his hometown of Wilkinsburg, a small city east of Pittsburgh that, unlike its much larger neighbor, is struggling and failing to attract new jobs and industry. Bringing his own personal story of growing up in Black-majority Wilkinsburg, Perry also spotlights five others where he has deep connections: Detroit, Birmingham, New Orleans, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. He provides an intimate look at the assets that should be of greater value to residents—and that can be if they demand it. Perry provides a new means of determining the value of Black communities. Rejecting policies shaped by flawed perspectives of the past and present, it gives fresh insights on the historical effects of racism and provides a new value paradigm to limit them in the future. Know Your Price demonstrates the worth of Black people's intrinsic personal strengths, real property, and traditional institutions. These assets are a means of empowerment and, as Perry argues in this provocative and very personal book, are what we need to know and understand to build Black prosperity.
Decolonial Aesthetics of Blackness in Contemporary Art
Author: Nkosinkulu, Zingisa
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1668487179
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
Decolonial aesthetics of Blackness in contemporary art challenge and redefine traditional narratives, offering a profound critique of historical and ongoing injustices. This approach emphasizes the reclamation and celebration of Black cultural identities through innovative artistic expressions that resist colonialist frameworks and oppressive stereotypes. By emphasizing the experiences and perspectives of Black artists, decolonial aesthetics challenge the power structures presented in art history and highlight the significance of autonomy, representation, and authenticity. To advance this dialogue, it is crucial to support and engage with Black artists and their work, ensuring that their voices are amplified, and their contributions are recognized within art discourse. Decolonial Aesthetics of Blackness in Contemporary Art focuses on the generative audio and visual inscription of blackness as an offering of life and beauty in contemporary art. It discusses the concept of blackness related to modernity, decolonial aesthetics, and ontology of black life and beauty. This book covers topics such as decolonization, visual art, and sociology, and is a useful resource for art historians, visual artists, sociologists, academicians, scientists, and researchers.
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1668487179
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
Decolonial aesthetics of Blackness in contemporary art challenge and redefine traditional narratives, offering a profound critique of historical and ongoing injustices. This approach emphasizes the reclamation and celebration of Black cultural identities through innovative artistic expressions that resist colonialist frameworks and oppressive stereotypes. By emphasizing the experiences and perspectives of Black artists, decolonial aesthetics challenge the power structures presented in art history and highlight the significance of autonomy, representation, and authenticity. To advance this dialogue, it is crucial to support and engage with Black artists and their work, ensuring that their voices are amplified, and their contributions are recognized within art discourse. Decolonial Aesthetics of Blackness in Contemporary Art focuses on the generative audio and visual inscription of blackness as an offering of life and beauty in contemporary art. It discusses the concept of blackness related to modernity, decolonial aesthetics, and ontology of black life and beauty. This book covers topics such as decolonization, visual art, and sociology, and is a useful resource for art historians, visual artists, sociologists, academicians, scientists, and researchers.
Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness?
Author: Touré
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439177554
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
How do we make sense of what it means to be Black in a world with room for both Michelle Obama and Precious? Tour , an iconic commentator and journalist, defines and demystifies modern Blackness with wit, authority, and irreverent humor. In the age of Obama, racial attitudes have become more complicated and nuanced than ever before. Americans are searching for new ways of understanding Blackness, partly inspired by a President who is unlike any Black man ever seen on our national stage. This book aims to destroy the notion that there is a correct or even definable way of being Black. It’s a discussion mixing the personal and the intellectual. It gives us intimate and painful stories of how race and racial expectations have shaped Tour ’s life as well as a look at how the concept of Post-Blackness functions in politics, psychology, the Black visual arts world, Chappelle’s Show, and more. For research Tour has turned to some of the most important luminaries of our time for frank and thought-provoking opinions, including Rev. Jesse Jackson, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Malcolm Gladwell, Harold Ford, Jr., Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley, Chuck D, and many others. Their comments and disagreements with one another may come as a surprise to many readers. Of special interest is a personal racial memoir by the author in which he depicts defining moments in his life when he confronts the question of race head-on. In another chapter—sure to be controversial—he explains why he no longer uses the word “nigga.” Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? is a complex conversation on modern America that aims to change how we perceive race in ways that are as nuanced and spirited as the nation itself.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439177554
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
How do we make sense of what it means to be Black in a world with room for both Michelle Obama and Precious? Tour , an iconic commentator and journalist, defines and demystifies modern Blackness with wit, authority, and irreverent humor. In the age of Obama, racial attitudes have become more complicated and nuanced than ever before. Americans are searching for new ways of understanding Blackness, partly inspired by a President who is unlike any Black man ever seen on our national stage. This book aims to destroy the notion that there is a correct or even definable way of being Black. It’s a discussion mixing the personal and the intellectual. It gives us intimate and painful stories of how race and racial expectations have shaped Tour ’s life as well as a look at how the concept of Post-Blackness functions in politics, psychology, the Black visual arts world, Chappelle’s Show, and more. For research Tour has turned to some of the most important luminaries of our time for frank and thought-provoking opinions, including Rev. Jesse Jackson, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Malcolm Gladwell, Harold Ford, Jr., Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley, Chuck D, and many others. Their comments and disagreements with one another may come as a surprise to many readers. Of special interest is a personal racial memoir by the author in which he depicts defining moments in his life when he confronts the question of race head-on. In another chapter—sure to be controversial—he explains why he no longer uses the word “nigga.” Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? is a complex conversation on modern America that aims to change how we perceive race in ways that are as nuanced and spirited as the nation itself.
Medicalizing Blackness
Author: Rana A. Hogarth
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469632888
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
In 1748, as yellow fever raged in Charleston, South Carolina, doctor John Lining remarked, "There is something very singular in the constitution of the Negroes, which renders them not liable to this fever." Lining's comments presaged ideas about blackness that would endure in medical discourses and beyond. In this fascinating medical history, Rana A. Hogarth examines the creation and circulation of medical ideas about blackness in the Atlantic World during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. She shows how white physicians deployed blackness as a medically significant marker of difference and used medical knowledge to improve plantation labor efficiency, safeguard colonial and civic interests, and enhance control over black bodies during the era of slavery. Hogarth refigures Atlantic slave societies as medical frontiers of knowledge production on the topic of racial difference. Rather than looking to their counterparts in Europe who collected and dissected bodies to gain knowledge about race, white physicians in Atlantic slaveholding regions created and tested ideas about race based on the contexts in which they lived and practiced. What emerges in sharp relief is the ways in which blackness was reified in medical discourses and used to perpetuate notions of white supremacy.
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469632888
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
In 1748, as yellow fever raged in Charleston, South Carolina, doctor John Lining remarked, "There is something very singular in the constitution of the Negroes, which renders them not liable to this fever." Lining's comments presaged ideas about blackness that would endure in medical discourses and beyond. In this fascinating medical history, Rana A. Hogarth examines the creation and circulation of medical ideas about blackness in the Atlantic World during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. She shows how white physicians deployed blackness as a medically significant marker of difference and used medical knowledge to improve plantation labor efficiency, safeguard colonial and civic interests, and enhance control over black bodies during the era of slavery. Hogarth refigures Atlantic slave societies as medical frontiers of knowledge production on the topic of racial difference. Rather than looking to their counterparts in Europe who collected and dissected bodies to gain knowledge about race, white physicians in Atlantic slaveholding regions created and tested ideas about race based on the contexts in which they lived and practiced. What emerges in sharp relief is the ways in which blackness was reified in medical discourses and used to perpetuate notions of white supremacy.
How to Be Black
Author: Baratunde Thurston
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062098047
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 279
Book Description
The comedian chronicles his coming of age while analyzing politics & culture in this New York Times–bestselling memoir and satirical guide. If You Don't Buy This Book, You’re a Racist. Have you ever been called “too black” or “not black enough?” Have you ever befriended or worked with a black person? Have you ever heard of black people? If you answered yes to any of these questions, this book is for you. Raised by a pro-black, Pan-Afrikan single mother during the crack years of 1980s Washington, DC, and educated at Sidwell Friends School and Harvard University, Baratunde Thurston has over thirty years’ experience being black. Now, through stories of his politically inspired Nigerian name, the heroics of his hippie mother, the murder of his drug-abusing father, and other revelatory black details, he shares with readers of all colors his wisdom and expertise in how to be black. Beyond memoir, this guidebook offers practical advice on everything from “How to Be The Black Friend” to “How to Be The (Next) Black President” to “How to Celebrate Black History Month.” To provide additional perspective, Baratunde assembled an award-winning Black Panel—three black women, three black men, and one white man (Christian Lander of Stuff White People Like)—and asked them such revealing questions as “When Did You First Realize You Were Black?” and “How Black Are You?” as well as “Can You Swim?” The result is a humorous, intelligent, and audacious guide that challenges and satirizes the so-called experts, purists, and racists who purport to speak for all black people. With honest storytelling and biting wit, Baratunde plots a path not just to blackness, but one open to anyone interested in simply “how to be.” Praise for How to Be Black “Part autobiography, part stand-up routine, part contemporary political analysis, and astute all over. . . . Reading this book made me both laugh and weep with poignant recognition. . . . A hysterical, irreverent exploration of one of America’s most painful and enduring issues.” —Melissa Harris-Perry “Struggling to figure out how to be black in the 21st century? Baratunde Thurston has the perfect guide for you.” —The Root
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062098047
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 279
Book Description
The comedian chronicles his coming of age while analyzing politics & culture in this New York Times–bestselling memoir and satirical guide. If You Don't Buy This Book, You’re a Racist. Have you ever been called “too black” or “not black enough?” Have you ever befriended or worked with a black person? Have you ever heard of black people? If you answered yes to any of these questions, this book is for you. Raised by a pro-black, Pan-Afrikan single mother during the crack years of 1980s Washington, DC, and educated at Sidwell Friends School and Harvard University, Baratunde Thurston has over thirty years’ experience being black. Now, through stories of his politically inspired Nigerian name, the heroics of his hippie mother, the murder of his drug-abusing father, and other revelatory black details, he shares with readers of all colors his wisdom and expertise in how to be black. Beyond memoir, this guidebook offers practical advice on everything from “How to Be The Black Friend” to “How to Be The (Next) Black President” to “How to Celebrate Black History Month.” To provide additional perspective, Baratunde assembled an award-winning Black Panel—three black women, three black men, and one white man (Christian Lander of Stuff White People Like)—and asked them such revealing questions as “When Did You First Realize You Were Black?” and “How Black Are You?” as well as “Can You Swim?” The result is a humorous, intelligent, and audacious guide that challenges and satirizes the so-called experts, purists, and racists who purport to speak for all black people. With honest storytelling and biting wit, Baratunde plots a path not just to blackness, but one open to anyone interested in simply “how to be.” Praise for How to Be Black “Part autobiography, part stand-up routine, part contemporary political analysis, and astute all over. . . . Reading this book made me both laugh and weep with poignant recognition. . . . A hysterical, irreverent exploration of one of America’s most painful and enduring issues.” —Melissa Harris-Perry “Struggling to figure out how to be black in the 21st century? Baratunde Thurston has the perfect guide for you.” —The Root
Troubling Vision
Author: Nicole R. Fleetwood
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226253031
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
Nicole R. Fleetwood explores how blackness is seen as a troubling presence in the field of vision and the black body is persistently seen as a problem. She examines a wide range of materials from visual and media art, documentary photography theatre, performance and more.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226253031
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
Nicole R. Fleetwood explores how blackness is seen as a troubling presence in the field of vision and the black body is persistently seen as a problem. She examines a wide range of materials from visual and media art, documentary photography theatre, performance and more.
Critique of Black Reason
Author: Achille Mbembe
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822373238
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
In Critique of Black Reason eminent critic Achille Mbembe offers a capacious genealogy of the category of Blackness—from the Atlantic slave trade to the present—to critically reevaluate history, racism, and the future of humanity. Mbembe teases out the intellectual consequences of the reality that Europe is no longer the world's center of gravity while mapping the relations among colonialism, slavery, and contemporary financial and extractive capital. Tracing the conjunction of Blackness with the biological fiction of race, he theorizes Black reason as the collection of discourses and practices that equated Blackness with the nonhuman in order to uphold forms of oppression. Mbembe powerfully argues that this equation of Blackness with the nonhuman will serve as the template for all new forms of exclusion. With Critique of Black Reason, Mbembe offers nothing less than a map of the world as it has been constituted through colonialism and racial thinking while providing the first glimpses of a more just future.
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822373238
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
In Critique of Black Reason eminent critic Achille Mbembe offers a capacious genealogy of the category of Blackness—from the Atlantic slave trade to the present—to critically reevaluate history, racism, and the future of humanity. Mbembe teases out the intellectual consequences of the reality that Europe is no longer the world's center of gravity while mapping the relations among colonialism, slavery, and contemporary financial and extractive capital. Tracing the conjunction of Blackness with the biological fiction of race, he theorizes Black reason as the collection of discourses and practices that equated Blackness with the nonhuman in order to uphold forms of oppression. Mbembe powerfully argues that this equation of Blackness with the nonhuman will serve as the template for all new forms of exclusion. With Critique of Black Reason, Mbembe offers nothing less than a map of the world as it has been constituted through colonialism and racial thinking while providing the first glimpses of a more just future.
A Man among Other Men
Author: Jordanna Matlon
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501762877
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
A Man among Other Men examines competing constructions of modern manhood in the West African metropolis of Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. Engaging the histories, representational repertoires, and performative identities of men in Abidjan and across the Black Atlantic, Jordanna Matlon shows how French colonial legacies and media tropes of Blackness act as powerful axes, rooting masculine identity and value within labor, consumerism, and commodification. Through a broad chronological and transatlantic scope that culminates in a deep ethnography of the livelihoods and lifestyles of men in Abidjan's informal economy, Matlon demonstrates how men's subjectivities are formed in dialectical tension by and through hegemonic ideologies of race and patriarchy. A Man among Other Men provides a theoretically innovative, historically grounded, and empirically rich account of Black masculinity that illuminates the sustained power of imaginaries even as capitalism affords a deficit of material opportunities. Revealed is a story of Black abjection set against the anticipation of male privilege, a story of the long crisis of Black masculinity in racial capitalism.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501762877
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
A Man among Other Men examines competing constructions of modern manhood in the West African metropolis of Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. Engaging the histories, representational repertoires, and performative identities of men in Abidjan and across the Black Atlantic, Jordanna Matlon shows how French colonial legacies and media tropes of Blackness act as powerful axes, rooting masculine identity and value within labor, consumerism, and commodification. Through a broad chronological and transatlantic scope that culminates in a deep ethnography of the livelihoods and lifestyles of men in Abidjan's informal economy, Matlon demonstrates how men's subjectivities are formed in dialectical tension by and through hegemonic ideologies of race and patriarchy. A Man among Other Men provides a theoretically innovative, historically grounded, and empirically rich account of Black masculinity that illuminates the sustained power of imaginaries even as capitalism affords a deficit of material opportunities. Revealed is a story of Black abjection set against the anticipation of male privilege, a story of the long crisis of Black masculinity in racial capitalism.
We Who Are Dark
Author: Tommie Shelby
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674043529
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
We Who Are Dark provides the first extended philosophical defense of black political solidarity. Tommie Shelby argues that we can reject a biological idea of race and agree with many criticisms of identity politics yet still view black political solidarity as a needed emancipatory tool. In developing his defense of black solidarity, he draws on the history of black political thought, focusing on the canonical figures of Martin R. Delany and W. E. B. Du Bois.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674043529
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
We Who Are Dark provides the first extended philosophical defense of black political solidarity. Tommie Shelby argues that we can reject a biological idea of race and agree with many criticisms of identity politics yet still view black political solidarity as a needed emancipatory tool. In developing his defense of black solidarity, he draws on the history of black political thought, focusing on the canonical figures of Martin R. Delany and W. E. B. Du Bois.