Representation Of Black People Research Articles

The ambivalence of Blackness in early twentieth-century Argentinian comics: “Página del Dólar”

ABSTRACT This article explores a dual dynamic of simultaneous subordination and limited inclusion of Blackness in Latin America, using the example of a 1920s’ Argentinian comic strip, “Página del Dólar”. The comic's representations of Black people are racist, but also ambivalent and complex. Going beyond common characterisations of the exclusion/inclusion dynamic as a mask of inclusion hiding the reality of exclusion, I argue that the simultaneity and interpenetration of exclusion-plus-inclusion are important for understanding Latin American racial formations. The dynamic works in multiple ways are not fully appreciated in the literature, which emphasises the reproduction of racial hierarchy: as well, it lends specificity to images of the nation; and it provides a moral benchmark for middle classes, especially in relational and ambiguous class and racial locations. The domain of humour is apt for conveying ambivalent meanings, because it provides distance for the reader (“it's just a joke”), while also transmitting important affective charge.

Racismo estrutural e cotas nas carreiras jurídicas: a perspectiva decolonial

Abstract This study investigates the effects of the implementation of racial quotas on the representation of black people in the legal sector, based on structural racism as a slave-holding practice of racial discrimination. A qualitative methodology was adopted, with semi-structured interviews and documental analysis of public notices and results of public tenders, with a prediction of racial quotas for legal careers in the state of Rio de Janeiro in the last ten years. Eleven holders of leadership positions in legal careers were selected - prosecutor, judge, attorney, and defender - self-declared black. Based on the interviewees’ perception’, an analysis was made of applying the quota policy in public tenders for legal careers. The results point to evidence of failures in the implementation of this policy, both based on legal provisions and document analysis, and on the respondents’ perceptions. It is concluded that the simple prediction of vacancies was not enough to increase bureaucratic racial diversity and structural racism is one of the impediments to the success of the quota policy.

‘Stop calling me Murzyn’ – how Black Lives Matter in Poland

ABSTRACT The scholarship on race and racism has tended to focus mostly on countries in Western Europe. It has thereby overlooked racial dynamics taking place in other regions – including Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). This article examines the reverberations of the recent global antiracist mobilisation triggered by the killing of George Floyd in the United States in this underexplored context. Specifically, it considers the significance of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ (BLM) movement for Black people in Poland. Championed by the BLM movement, there have been demands for further reflection on racial inequalities in European societies, where many citizens in Europe’s West are beginning to engage with the impact of colonialism. The effect of George Floyd’s death has also reached unexpected places such as Poland, where Black communities have renewed their calls to reshape their representation in public discourse. We trace these mobilisations via our analysis of an online video discussion that unfolded under the hashtag #DontCallMeMurzyn. This article makes a case for the significance of concepts such as race and racism to our understanding of social relations in Poland; it shows, furthermore, how the BLM mobilisation has revived conversations about everyday racism and the representation of Black people in the public sphere.

Respite. Quiet. A House of Dreams.

Respite. Quiet. A House of Dreams.

‘We haven’t got here just on our own. It’s a conversation’: An interview with Carol Tulloch

Carol Tulloch is an author, curator, maker and academic, and Professor of Dress, Diaspora and Transnationalism at the University of the Arts in London. She grew up in Doncaster in the North of England and studied BA Fashion and Textile Design at Ravensbourne College Design and Communication, and MA History of Design at the Royal College of Art and Victoria and Albert Museum. She is known for her innovative work on heritage, personal archives, style narratives and auto/biography, and her books include Black Style (2004) and The Birth of Cool: Style Narratives of the African Diaspora (2016). She has curated and co-curated a wide range of exhibitions, including Grow Up! Advice and the Teenage Girl (The Women’s Library, 2002); The March of the Women: Suffragettes and the State (National Archives, 2003); Picture This: Representations of Black People in Product Promotion (Archives and Museum of Black Heritage, 2002); Black British Style (V&A, 2004 ); and Rock Against Racism (Autograph, 2015). In this interview, conducted online in summer 2021, she talks to Jo Littler about her work and the contexts and cultures it emerged out of.

Ukupupuka: Transcendence, Flight and Inculturation in Zambian Devotional Artwork

This paper seeks to interrogate the tensions and overlaps in various representations of transcendence that have shaped my spirituality by interrogating how these have featured in Eurocentric Christian iconography and Zambian cultural practices, particularly cultural artefacts used for spiritual flight, housed in Zambian museums. Transcendence is understood by some as a change in a person’s physiological or psychological state that allows them to go beyond their experience of time, place or being. I understand transcendence to be the moment that one’s spirit is elevated beyond the limitations of their physical body. The use of Biblical text relating to flight will also be discussed as a comparative study to explore how transcendence through flight operates within Christianity and a Zambian cultural context. This paper also explores how the work of an artist in Zambia is grappling with concepts of representation of black people in Christian iconography.

Colour-blind Casting in Twenty-First Century British Theatre: Colourism, Racism, and the Representation of Black People on Stage

In preparation for my drama school auditions in 2016, I contacted a retired director of one of the world’s most prestigious drama schools, who now privately trains students for auditions. Over the ...

Cinema negro português.

In this paper, we are interested in thinking about the way in which Afro-descendent portuguese filmmakers emerge in the field of Portuguese cinema, proposing new dynamics of production and circulation of images, as well as themes related to the anticolonial issue, transposing the place of representation to self-presentation. The question of the representation of black people in Portuguese cinema takes on two central aspects of this debate in the 21st century: the need for effective participation in the field of cinematographic work, that is, producing films and occupying technical positions; and, above all, redefining the subjectivities, memories and affectivities of the black people in Portuguese society from the perspective of black people. We will analyze, in this article, the film O canto de Ossobo (2017) by Silas Tiny.

Image and racism: Racial anthropophagy and the limits of anti-racist and decolonial cultural production in Brazil

In this article, we intend to talk about the representation of black people in Brazilian cinema, pointing out how hegemonic images of Brazilian cinema corroborate the structural racism of our society, analyzing films (and visual narratives) from the 2000s, a period considered the Resumption of Brazilian Cinema. Cinema produced by black directors emerges as counter-narratives, deepening the way in which Brazilian cinema represents the racial issue in Brazil in a stereotyped way. To think about this structural racism in the field of cinema we will deepen the concept of racial anthropophagy (Amparo, 2018; Paixao, 2015) a kind of aesthetic of the flesh, in which the image of the other (the black or black) is appropriate and devoured in the name of art. We will also seek to dialogue with black feminism in Brazil, emphasizing the specificity of this field and discussing image production around black women in Brazil.

LEOPOLDO DE FREITAS E AS REPRESENTAÇÕES DO NEGRO NA REVISTA O PIRRALHO

This article aims to identify the representations of black people in the pages of the magazine O Pirralho, with critical observations on the caricatures and texts published by the journal. For this purpose, editions issued in 1912 are used as primary sources. In addition to the general analysis of such representations, special emphasis is given to the event of discrimination perpetrated by the magazine against Leopoldo de Freitas, writer and public figure. The main argument is that the journal, although recognized for its irreverence, typical to the environment of aesthetic modernism, reproduced stereotypes that contributed to the maintenance of the social places of black people in the post-abolition context.

Musical Aspects for Empowering the Black Characters in the Movie Get Out (2017)

In this 21st century, the representation of Black people in many U.S. movies is still problematic, for the movies do not omit the stereotypical representations of Black people, which are often depicted being disrespectful and unintelligent compared to other races. Many movies have been trying to change them into another perspective, yet they are still unable to completely get rid of those stereotypes. By looking through the cinematic aspects, the dialogues, and the symbols along with the sounds and music used, this paper examines the stereotypes of Black characters the movie Get Out (2017) by Jordan Peele using discourse analysis. The paper observes that the representation of the movie still distinguishes Black from White in the aspects of body over mind in Black masculinity, incivility, and distinctive racial labor. As a result, Black characters are seen inferior compared to White characters despite the movie’s effort to empower them. The use of music also emphasizes the power relation difference between the two races. Overall finding of the paper reveals that the existence of Black stereotypical depiction is still found in a movie empowering Black people showing that race representation should be monitored thoroughly.

Race, ethnicity, and respectability: examining Afro-Caribbean identity politics through the Obama presidency

ABSTRACT Public opinion research finds that a shared racial or ethnic identity can shape constituent support for political candidates and elected officials. While several studies find strong evidence of this relationship among Black Americans, many of these studies presume that Black Americans are an ethnically homogeneous group with a shared perspective on the relationship between race, ethnicity, and politics in the United States. This presumption proves problematic, as a growing body of research finds that Black immigrants maintain ethnic identities, experiences, and political attitudes that are distinct from those of the native Black population (i.e. African Americans). Using the presidency of Barack Obama as a case study, this article investigates the impact of identity on Black immigrant evaluation of racially descriptive representation. Analysis of 71 in-depth interviews with first- through second-generation Afro-Caribbeans suggests strong support for the Obama presidency. Despite migration from predominantly Black nations that have diverse experiences with Black leadership at the national level, study participants express support for Obama emphasizing the importance of respectability in the representation of Black people nationally and internationally. The research adds to the literature on identity and representation by highlighting the salience of racial identity in shaping immigrant political attitudes.

“Why Did the White Woman Cross the Street?”: Cultural Countermeasures against Affective Forms of Racism

This article outlines the distinct logics that govern embodied, affective forms of anti-Black racism in order to theorize cultural countermeasures that disrupt them. I argue that attempting to dismantle affective forms of racism by creating “positive” representations of Black people is an ineffective strategy in the long term. This approach tends to amplify investments in racial exceptionalism, fetishism, and restrictive conditions of acceptability, ultimately leaving Eurocentric epistemological and ontological frameworks intact. Instead, I consider cultural methodologies and epistemological frames that allow the complexities of Black ontology to thrive and proliferate. I examine Kendrick Lamar’s album To Pimp a Butterfly for the ways it uses Black epistemological frames and methods that hold the potential to diminish affective forms of racism.

El cuerpo negro y femenino en la publicidad brasileña

El presente trabajo contiene un estudio respecto a la representación de las personas negras en la publicidad brasileña, y toma como corpus de análisis 41 carteles fotografiados en las principales avenidas de la ciudad de Itabuna, ubicada en el estado de Bahía (noroeste del país). Los resultados del estudio se exponen a partir de un análisis cuantitativo y cualitativo y demuestran que la situación privilegiada de las personas blancas se traspone para la publicidad, donde el uso de la imagen no solamente construye un rasgo de la sociedad contemporánea, sino que la existencia de la publicidad de la imagen es también parte de las relaciones sociales en el universo del imaginario y de la cultura.

Cultural Violence represented in Indonesia and American Literatures

This article is aimed at describing the lives of dominated people of both Indonesia and America. Among the dominated people in Indonesian community are Indonesian Chinese people, and those in American community are African American people. The discussion on some Indonesia novels of post tragedy of 1998 shows that personally Chinese faced a hard life; and socially they were dominated. Therefore, it can be concluded that: (1) the personal behaviour of Indonesian Chinese is represented through the hard life, (2) social behaviour of Indonesian Chinese is represented through the dominated social life, and (3) cultural behavior is represented through the religious life with many problems.This is say that the cultural behaviour of Indonesian Chinese in Indonesia novels is represented through cultural violence. The similar result of discussion on some American novels of post slavery shows that (1) the black man as the representation of Black people (African-Americans) was always in a dilemmatic condition leaving him without any options. Whatever he chose, will have negative consequences, (2) the struggle for ‘equality’ through ‘violence’ will result in a ‘tragic fate’, and (3) the novel reflected the black people who yearned for freedom from white domination and expected to have good education, good employment, and equality in political opportunity, law enforcement/law protection, and in other sociocultural life.

Representations of black people in the Slovenian translations of Karl May’s novels

Abstract The article discusses how black people were portrayed in the Slovenian translations of the novels Winnetou, Old Surehand and Der Schatz im Silbersee, which have all been translated into Slovenian several times; the analysis thus reveals how translation strategies have changed over the decades. The comparison shows that the strategies in translations published in the 1930s were somewhat different from those in the post-World War II period, when the Slovenian territory was part of socialist Yugoslavia; because of the unacceptability of racist views during the socialist period, some racist passages of the original texts were censored in the translations. A substantial amount of neutralization of pejorative racial terminology occurred in both pre- and post-War translations, and translators in both eras also used similar strategies for translating black people’s sociolect. The interventions in the translations have somewhat affected how the translated works can be interpreted.

Windeck: todos os tons de Angola no Brasil

O presente trabalho se propõe a realizar uma reflexão teórico-metodológica a respeito de alguns dos aspectos que envolvem a veiculação na TV Brasil da produção angolana Windeck, primeira novela africana exibida no país e com um elenco formado majoritariamente por atores negros. O pano de fundo para as reflexões são as discussões sobre a implementação de políticas públicas de ação afirmativa no Brasil direcionadas ao setor midiático, o papel da TV pública neste processo e a importância da diversidade de representações na mídia. Apesar de ser uma iniciativa relevante, visto que insere no ambiente midiático variadas representações do negro, percebe-se algumas lacunas como a audiência relativamente baixa do canal, e, de modo mais amplo, a escassez de projetos mais efetivos que promovam o combate ao racismo e a valorização étnica na mídia.

Experiences of African-Americans as Reflected in Richard Wright's <i>Native Son 1940</i>

The historical fact shows African-Americans lived under white domination. In the past time, they were enslaved by White Americans. When the slavery was abolished after the Civil War, the black people were regarded as inferior citizens; they have still been treated unfairly by the white people The spirit of independence has been marred by Americans enslaving the black people in the era of slavery and dominating them in the following eras. This paper will discuss reflection of African-American experiences in literature. The intended experiences are those happened in the Independence Era reflected in Native Son 1940 by Richard Wright. This paper tries to answer the question: How were the black people socio-culturally dominated in Native Son?. The discussion shows that (1) the black man (Bigger Thomas) as the representation of Black people (African-Americans) was always in a dilemmatic condition leaving him without any options. Whatever he chose, will have negative consequences, (2) the struggle for ‘equality’ through ‘violence’ will result in a ‘tragic fate’, and (3) the novel reflected the black people who yearned for freedom from white domination and expected to have good education, good employment, and equality in political opportunity, law enforcement/law protection, and in other sociocultural life.

Charles White’sJ’Accuseand the Limits of Universal Blackness

African American artist Charles White grounded his aesthetic practice in radical left politics and the belief that the representation of black people communicated a universal mandate of freedom. This essay explores how White’s faith in a cosmopolitan politicized aesthetic was formed, deployed, and ultimately challenged leading up to his 1966 exhibition at the Heritage Gallery in Los Angeles.

O Folhetim e a Canção: A Representação do Negro e das Identidades Periféricas na Televisão Brasileira

Este artigo se propõe a oferecer uma discussão acerca da forma pela qual as trilhas musicais das novelas expressam, nem sempre em absoluta consonância com as narrativas a que estão vinculadas, a questão da representação do negro na televisão brasileira. Com esse objetivo, buscamos realizar uma análise da relação entre as telenovelas produzidas pela Rede Globo de Televisão a partir década de 1960 com as trilhas musicais que as acompanharam, formadas inicialmente por canções compostas especialmente para essa finalidade e, posteriormente, por coletâneas musicais. Por essa via, esse texto se propõe a analisar a produção televisiva nos termos de suas transformações e de sua função identitária, apoiando-se nos estudos culturais e nas teorias do discurso, além dos campos do audiovisual em suas formas verbais, visuais e sonoras.