Black Presence Research Articles

Reviews and Short Notices: The Americas

Reviews and Short Notices: The Americas

Writing the African Diaspora in the Eighteenth Century

The abolitionist debate, which peaked in Britain in the 1780s and ‘90s, elicited a number of works by black authors. These texts exhibit features which suggest that their authors were developing a diasporan consciousness, a sense of a community defining itself in contradistinction to a larger hegemony. Black voices obviously had been heard before in English writing; one thinks of more than just Othello or Oroonoko (see, for instance, Walvin, The Black Presence, Shyllon, and Dabydeen). From the appearance of the very first Portuguese, Dutch, and English chronicles of visits to the African west coast, from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries onwards, sporadic attempts were made to record the thoughts and sayings of blacks. Their voices, however, are usually no more than asides in the colonial narrative. Such passages are invariably of the “they say” variety and, though one may sometimes detect what sounds like a genuine cadence or whisper of a non-Western point of view, these cannot demonstrably be proven to be other than fictitious. By the late eighteenth century such mediated accounts, either totally or partially fictitious, had become a major feature of abolitionist literature, as Wylie Sypher and many others since have shown.

Paradox in Paradise: The Black Image in Revolutionary America

(1991). Paradox in Paradise: The Black Image in Revolutionary America. The Black Scholar: Vol. 21, Black Cultural History 1991, pp. 2-9.

The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution.

This carefully researched history details the military, political, economic, and cultural experience of black people during the era of the American Revolution. Beginning with Crispus Attucks, the first man killed in the Revolutionary action, the authors recount a series of fascinating personal histories. The text is highlighted by excerpts form letters, journals, newspaper articles, and other documents, as well as by poems, broadsides, and passages from magazines of the day. The book is a revised and expanded edition of the authors' classic catalog that accompanied a pioneering exhibition mounted in 1973 by the National Portrait Gallery.

Setting Our Own Agenda: Exploring the Meaning of Gender Disparities Among Blacks in Higher Education

Since 1972-the year affirmative action was initiated at U.S. colleges and universities-Blacks have experienced sporadic increases, then consistent declines, in opportunities to participate in American higher education. In the paths from high school to undergraduate school or from graduate school to a position as faculty member or administrator, the Black presence has eroded and continues to erode at a steady pace. Indeed, Black men and women are severely underrepresented in U.S. institutions of higher education. Representing about 13% of the nation's population and about 14% of its college-aged youth, Blacks are about 9.5% of undergraduate students, 4.8% of graduate students, and 4% of faculty members. In terms of the integration of Blacks into the mainstream of American higher education, these figures are even less encouraging because they include the numbers of Black students and faculty at historically Black colleges and universities. Moreover, Blacks are the only minority group in recent years to actually experience declines in the number of degrees awarded at nearly all levels (Sudarkasa, 1987; Blackwell, 1987). Looking closely at the data, however, it is clear that Black participation in higher education is characterized by persistent gender disparities. Black females have higher participation rates in high school graduation, college enrollment, college matriculation, graduate school enrollment, and degree attainment. Further, between 1976 and 1986, Black males sustained greater losses in higher education participation rates than any other racial or gender group in critical areas such as enrollments, number of degrees earned, and number of faculty positions held (American Council on Education [ACE], 1988). When looking at gender disparities, however, one should be mindful of several relevant facts. First, the growing disparity between Black males and females is less a consequence of significant increases for Black women than of a decline for Black men. Black women have not improved their status over the past ten years but have held relatively stable. Second, broader social variables rather than individual or group deviances must be investigated in any meaningful interpretation of educational attainment. Already the literature has begun to focus on causes

The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution

The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution

The Use of Blacks in Magazine and Television Advertising: 1946 to 1986

Secondary analysis of several major content analysis studies, combined with original data from five magazines in 1986 (including Time, Ladies' Home Journal, and Life), reveal an increase in the black presence in advertising. Data from 1967–1986 television commercials indicate that the black presence, in as many as 16% of commercials in one 1986 study, sometimes approaches the percentage of blacks in the population. This trend, while increasing over the 1946–1986 period, is less dramatic for magazines.

Postmodern Blackness

Postmodern Blackness bell hooks Postmodernist discourses are often exclusionary even when, having been accused of lacking concrete relevance, they call attention to and appropriate the experience of “difference” and “otherness” in order to provide themselves with oppositional political meaning, legitimacy, and immediacy. Very few African-American intellectuals have talked or written about postmodernism. Recently at a dinner party, I talked about trying to grapple with the significance of postmodernism for contemporary black experience. It was one of those social gatherings where only one other black person was present. The setting quickly became a field of contestation. I was told by the other black person that I was wasting my time, that “this stuff does not relate in any way to what’s happening with black people.” Speaking in the presence of a group of white onlookers, staring at us as though this encounter was staged for their benefit, we engaged in a passionate discussion about black experience. Apparently, no one sympathized with my insistence that racism is perpetuated when blackness is associated solely with concrete gut level experience conceived either as opposing or having no connection to abstract thinking and the production of critical theory. The idea that there is no meaningful connection between black experience and critical thinking about aesthetics or culture must be continually interrogated. My defense of postmodernism and its relevance to black folks sounded good but I worried that I lacked conviction, largely because I approach the subject cautiously and with suspicion. Disturbed not so much by the “sense” of postmodernism but by the conventional language used when it is written or talked about and by those who speak it, I find myself on the outside of the discourse looking in. As a discursive practice it is dominated primarily by the voices of white male intellectuals and/or academic elites who speak to and about one another with coded familiarity. Reading and studying their writing to understand postmodernism in its multiple manifestations, I appreciate it but feel little inclination to ally myself with the academic hierarchy and exclusivity pervasive in the movement today. Critical of most writing on postmodernism, I perhaps am more conscious of the way in which the focus on “otherness and difference” that is often alluded to in these works seems to have little concrete impact as an analysis or standpoint that might change the nature and direction of postmodernist theory. Since much of this theory has been constructed in reaction to and against high modernism, there is seldom any mention of black experience or writings by black people in this work, specifically black women (though in more recent work one may see reference to Cornel West, the black male scholar who has most engaged postmodernist discourse). Even if an aspect of black culture is the subject of postmodern critical writing the works cited will usually be those of black men. A work that comes immediately to mind is Andrew Ross’ chapter “Hip, and the Long Front of Color” in No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture; though an interesting reading, it constructs black culture as though black women have had no role in black cultural production. At the end of Meaghan Morris’ discussion of postmodernism included in her collection of essays The Pirate’s Fiance: Feminism and Postmodernism, she provides a bibliography of works by women, identifying them as important contributions to a discourse on postmodernism that offers new insight as well as challenging male theoretical hegemony. Even though many of the works do not directly address postmodernism, they address similar concerns. There are no references to work by black women. The failure to recognize a critical black presence in the culture and in most scholarship and writing on postmodernism compels a black reader, particularly a black female reader, to interrogate her interest in a subject where those who discuss and write about it seem not to know black women exist or to even consider the possibility that we might be somewhere writing or saying something that should be listened to, or producing art that should be seen, heard, approached with intellectual seriousness. This is especially the case with works that go on and on about the way in which postmodernist discourse has...

The spatial heterogeneity of chemical properties in acid forest soils and its importance for tree nutrition

For two sites in the Black Forest, presence, extent and ecological significance of structure-dependent chemical. heterogeneity in the rhizosphere of acid forest soils is discussed. The heterogeneity is demonstrated by two independent methods. First, by comparison of soil solution composition in (quasi-) equilibrium with undisturbed soil cores and sieved soil samples. Water soluble K, Ca and Mg show a selective depletion on aggregate surfaces. Second, by comparison of cumulated amounts of exchangeable ions obtained from percolated homogenized soil samples and undisturbed soil cores. The release of exchangeable K, Ca and Mg is less, if soil structure is not destroyed. The finding that aggregate surfaces are more depleted of exchangeable and water-soluble K, Ca and Mg is common in aggregated acid forest soils. As aggregate surfaces bind soil water with low suction, that is where the roots preferentially grow. Consequently, a considerable underestimation of chemical stress in the rhizosphere is possible, if soil structure is destroyed for analysis.

The Black Presence in English Literature

The Black Presence in English Literature

The black presence through criminal records, 1780–1830

Over the past two decades historians have displayed an increasing interest in the history of black people in Britain. As a result of important recent work much is now known of a group of exceptional black literary figures (Equiano, Sancho, and Cugoano), the ‘leaders’ of the black community, whilst the vast majority of eighteenth and nineteenth century black people remain in anonymity. This anonymity is attributable in part to the paucity of primary source material relating to rank‐and‐file blacks. In order to gain insights into the black community, this article analyses criminal records — a class of records whose value for our purposes is that it focuses essentially on the eighteenth and nineteenth century poor, both black and white.

Market Structure and the Pattern of Black-Owned Firms

This article discusses the relationship between industrial concentration and the presence of black-owned firms. Strong evidence is found that more monopolistic industries have a smaller black presence. This demonstrates that the monopolistic industries in which black workers are known to face the worst discrimination are also the industries in which blacks face the highest structural entry barriers as entrepreneurs. Indeed, entry barriers may cause the monopolistic conditions which allow discrimination while simultaneously frustrating the entry of black entrepreneurs.

The Poetics of the Quotidian in the Works of Nancy Morejon

contemplation of everyday experiences rarely occurs through a reader's own volition, primarily because one takes those experiences for granted. Many writers, particularly poets, often present a fresh vision of ordinary life, forcing the reader to contemplate anew what has become so familiar. A constant in the poetry of Nancy Morej6n is precisely defamiliarization of the everyday. In fact, the young Cuban poet elevates the quotidian to the highly poetic, and understatement is the primary figure of speech through which her view is communicated. While much of her work exemplifies this treatment of the quotidian, three poems in particular will be the focus of this study: The Supper, Richard Brought His Flute, and Black Woman.' These three works reveal in part why this writer of the post-revolution era is the poetic voice most approximating the depth and sincerity of Nicolas Guillen's verse on revolutionary struggle or black people. At the same time, however, Morej6n's gift for poetry establishes her as a singular talent with a definitive poetic style of her own. Generally speaking, Morej6n's poetry is highly lyrical, expressing intimately her own poetic world. On the whole, those verses that poeticize common, everyday realities know no thematic boundaries, ranging from traditional reflections on love both fulfilled and unrequited, both erotic and spiritual to a less conventional thematic stance related to the Cuban revolution. Moreover, it is not uncommon for one poem to contain several of the thematic projections comprising the whole of her trajectory.2 Despite the division of her work into various subtheses, two overarching emphases stand out in the poetryblackness and revolution. Blackness, moreover, is expressed on various levels of interaction, constituting synecdochic expressions of ethnicity from the individual particular to the black Universal. latter of these expressions, black universality, is the most extended meaning possible of a black family, and appears implicitly in her poetry as a recognition of a global black presence which speaks to the shared experiences of people of African descent. More specific is the reference to the community of black Cubans who comprise a significant portion of her cultural milieu. family unit offers a further microcosmic reduction of the world contained within the poem. Finally, at the core of the entire representation is the speaker herself, who projects from her central position as a black female the various levels here alluded to.

Market Structure and Minority Presence: Black-Owned Firms in Manufacturing

This study uses a market structure framework to analyze the presence of black-owned businesses in manufacturing sectors of the U.S. economy in 1972. Tobit analysis reveals that black-owned firms tend to be concentrated in those industries with a relatively large small-business presence. High advertising expenditures are a significant barrier to black presence in a given industry. The amount of government purchases from an industry is found to have no significant relationship to black presence.

Simón Aguado's Entremés de los negros: Text and Context

Simon Aguado's Entremés de los negros: Text and Context Edward J, Mullen Although it is a critical commonplace to trace the florescence of interest in forms of neo-African writing back to Peninsular Spanish origins, surprisingly little scholarship has been done to study the black presence in the Iberian peninsula. Unfortunately, many older studies are posited on ill-defined notions of race and genotype. The terms 'Moor' and 'black' are used interchangeably, and references to blacks in major works of literature are often made without specific documentation.! A review of the literature would seem to indicate, however, that many of the folkloric, linguistic, and stylized features associated with the black presence in the Americas had their origins in Spain.2 Although some recent scholarship has revealed a considerable corpus of works dealing with blacks in Spanish literature from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance, many of the texts have not been the object of any detailed study.3 In her very useful "Black Heroes in the Theater of Early Spain," Annette Ivory has observed a significant shift in the way blacks were presented in the imaginative literature of Spain: "Whereas in the 16th Century, the mockery of anonymous mojigangas, La negra lectora, Mojiganga de la negra, the anonymous entremés, Los negros de Santo Tomé, and the farces of Sánchez de Badajoz dominate the theater of period; in the 17th Century, the exaggerated sincerity of the comedias provides a contrasting view of the Black on Spanish soil."4 EDWARD J. MULLEN, Professor of Romance Languages at the University of Missouri-Columbia, has published in such journals as Comparative Literature Studies, Latin American Theatre Review, Hispania, and Latin-American Literature Review; his most recent book-length publication is Critical Essays on Langston Hughes (Boston : G. K. Hall, 1986). 231 232Comparative Drama A careful reading of Simón Aguado's Entremés de los negros would seem to corroborate this formulation.5 This text, which appeared very early in the seventeenth century,6 is an important document in the history of Afro-Hispanic letters demarcating as it does a transition between earlier fragmented views of blacks in the works of Rodrigo de Reinosa, Gil Vicente, Lope de Rueda, Diego Sánchez de Badajoz, on the one hand, and the more artistically complete depictions in the obra of Lope de Vega, Andrés de Claramonte, Calderón de la Barca, and Diego Ximénez de Enciso. Although Aguado's brief entremés has long been available to scholars and has received scholarly commentary for well over a hundred years, it has consistently been treated only to piecemeal criticism. Thus Emilio Cotarelo y Mori limited his observations to the author's use of the Zarabanda , a lascivious dance of African origin which had been prohibited by authorities. The Cuban ethnologist Fernando Ortiz alluded in his Los negros esclavos (1916) to the play, which he saw as having value as an example of the mistreatment of slaves, while José Juan Arrom and Emilio Ballagas viewed it as a precursor to Afro-Cubanism.7 In an extremely valuable essay, Juan R. Castellano related Aguado's Los negros to other works of similar theme and execution and offered a summary of its contents.8 Perhaps the most convincing evaluation to date is that of Lemuel Johnson, who viewed the work as but one of the constitutive elements in a tradition which made of the black man in Spain a buffoon-Orpheus: "The same buffoonery is seen in Simón Aguado, a contemporary of Shakespeare. He describes a Negro wedding using a bembon's voice. The jitanj áfora sequence is rather interesting here as it provides an extension of the meaning of the term."9 While some of Johnson's comments can be validated by a reading of the play, he fails to take into account a number of important issues related to the nature of the genre, the originating conditions of the work's production, and the role that music and dance played in lives of blacks in seventeenthcentury Spain. I would argue that Aguado's Los negros is far more complex than has been suggested by criticism thus far. More than an...

The Historical Black Presence in the Struggle for Peace

The Historical Black Presence in the Struggle for Peace

Slow Fade to Afro: The Black Presence in Brazilian Cinema

Research Article| December 01 1982 Slow Fade to Afro: The Black Presence in Brazilian Cinema Robert Stam Robert Stam Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Film Quarterly (1982) 36 (2): 16–32. https://doi.org/10.2307/3696991 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Robert Stam; Slow Fade to Afro: The Black Presence in Brazilian Cinema. Film Quarterly 1 December 1982; 36 (2): 16–32. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/3696991 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentFilm Quarterly Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1982 Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

The Biological and Cultural Impact of Blacks on the United States

FRICANS COMING TO AMERICA from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries and their descendants are a central thread in the cultural, biological, social, political and economic development of the United States. The history of the United States is unintelligible without an understanding of their history. George Bernard Shaw wrote in 1916 that the South is really ruled by the Negro with a hideous tyranny just as the prisoners in a prison dominate everything-dictate the daily habits of the jailers, oppress and obsess their imaginations, color their consciences, force them to share their imprisonment and yet give them none of the prisoners' freedom from care and responsibility.' The entire culture of the United States has been conditioned by the presence of Africans and their descendants: foreign policy, politics, Supreme Court decisions, immigration, the labor market, education, vital statistics, the pronunciation and vocabulary of the language, literature, religious life, civic ideals, art, music, the dance, cooking and recreation all are as they are partly because of the black presence. Blacks, as frequent objects of ridicule and criticism, are a source of laughter, a source of pleasure for white people in discussions about what blacks do, say and think. Contagious feelings of superiority are engendered when conditions of blacks are observed. New vibrations from blacks are constantly affecting the American Way of Life, bending in some degree all American institutions and bringing change and reform in every aspect of America's complex domestic and world view. From the beginning, the anomaly of blacks as slaves plagued the United States, which claimed in its religion a belief in the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God, asserted in its Constitution the freedom and equality of all men, and sought to derive powers of government from the consent of the governed. Within the sight and sound of those who made this declaration existed more than a half-million black slaves, forming nearly one-fifth of the population of the new nation.2 They were 10 percent of the whole population of the nation in 1700, 22 percent in 1750, almost 19 percent in 1800.3 They were not all black and not all slaves. By 1860, at least 90 percent were born in the United States, 13 percent were visibly of white as well as black ancestry and actually more than one-fourth were probably of mixed European, Indian-Ameri-

Black Presence in Multi-Ethnic Canada

Black Presence in Multi-Ethnic Canada

The black presence in the Canadian mosaic: Discrimination in education

The black presence in the Canadian mosaic: Discrimination in education