Black Political and Philosophical Thinkers
This thinker pronounced "Race is real. Racism is not."
Who is Richard Perry?
race seeks to discipline, manage, contain
race is a social construct NOT a biological truth
unequal relationship b/w aggregates, characterized by dominant and subordinate forms of social interactions and reinforced by public discourses of power, ownership, privilege within economical, social and political institutions of society.
Race becomes real as a social force when individuals or groups behave towards each other in ways that either reflect or perpetuates the hegemonic ideology of subordination and the patterns of inequality in daily life.
"Mythical norm" was coined by this Black feminist
Who is Audre Lorde
White, male, christian, financially secure, heterosexual, thin
creates trappings of power
Huey Newton and Bobby Seal Co- Founded this resistance group
What is The Black Panther Party (1966-1982)
Politicized hunger + nutrition= breakfast program
Created unlikely coalitions across races + focused on community building (ie. free health clinics + consciousness raising- drew the line between their conditions and their broader contexts of soc. inequalities)
Viewed in the popular media as militant to criminalize/discredit and vilify their political work
new gender narratives- militant women. Black feminism + activism was celebrated
Developed the 10 point plan
This form of cultural production is closely tied to political civil rights movements
What is Anthems
political performances- Those involved in the performance were actively engaging in a quest for alternatives to their political present and were assist[ing] in imagining and enacting that change by the songs on their lips and in their ears: the anthems” (Redmond 8)
Music is a method. Beyond its many pleasures, music allows us to do and imagine things that may otherwise be unimaginable or seem impossible. It is more than sound; it is a complex system of mean(ing)s and ends that mediate our relationship to one another, to space, to our histories and historical moment
Bride and formal leadership is most strongly represented in this novel.
What is The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
grassroots, local activities that provide the local communities day-to day lessons on self empowerment
public positions and roles primarily accessible to men. Typically top-down
This thinker created the U.N.I.A.
Who is Marcus Garvey
prompted philosophy of Black pride + self worth + self reliance.
fought for the decolonization of Africa- "Africa for Africans"
encouraged global operations among Africans
Black Nationalist
critique= viewed race as a permanent social category + racial purity. The logistics of returning to Africa= not possible/ mythical Africa
This stereotype is a throwback to the the Antebellum South and presented Black women as the ultimate nurturer and faithful servant
What is The Mammy
Justification for "the pathological nature of the Black family" (instability) and for Black women putting others' lives + health and happiness above their own.
Delia Douglas argues that _____ is “concurrently a site of of subjugation, creativity, and resistance” (333) for Black peoples.
What is Sport
Black ppl’s bodies outside the realm of human + racial otherness
Antiblack racism/ misogynoir/ homophobia= sports are political. They do not operate in a vacuum.
Double Bind- Ben Carrington
The exceptionality of black athleticism thus moves through a double bind. It is on the one hand at once typical; an ideal type that attempts to define the boundaries of blackness itself and therefore, by extension, the identities of all black people, or rather, to be very specific, those racialized into the category of blackness. And yet, this very typicality serves to render black people, as bodies, outside the category of the truly human as exceptional
This film produced an "oppositional gaze" on Black masculinity
What is Moonlight
The limits and shortcomings of multiculturalism is challenged most explicitly in this novel.
What is Brother
multicultural discourse does not respond to police brutality + the precarious living conditions of immigrants + the educational system
Talented Tenth was coined by this philosopher.
Who is W.E. Du Bois
values voting, political representation, higher education= manhood
intellectual community should help to free the rest.
critique--> does not account for class stratification among Blacks. Elitist.
Hooks redefined this term
What are Stereotypes
that are not true/ stand in for what is real- they are fantasies/ projections
they invite pretence
they are fictions narrated to make sense of difference
they abound when there is distance
Walter Rodney participated in this movement within a Caribbean context
What is the Black Power Movement
studied this in the context of the Carribbean
break with imperialism + critique of race + class oppression
assumption of power by the Black masses
cultural reconstruction= challenged white referents and valorized blackness.
critical of educational system
unable to address the issues specific to other non-White identities. (weaknesses- indentured Indians were left out of the conversation)
Bell hooks stated we must critique Rap as operating within this.
What is "White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy"
sexist, misogynist, patriarchal values/ways of thinking are glorified in gangsta rap are a reflection of the patriarchal values of society.
helps us call attention to the dominate white mass media and their responsibility for reproducing these images.
“When young black males labor in the plantations of misogyny and sexism to produce gangsta rap, their right to speak this violence and be materially rewarded is extended to them by white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” (1994)
identity, gender expectations, displacement, belonging/being are themes in this Black Diasporic short story.
What is Light?
How does the Diaspora impact parenting, impact intergenerational relationships, impact one's relationship to the land and their identity.
This activist started his teachings in the NOI.
Who is Malcom X
Earlier in his career
Nation of Islam (NOI)
Combines the Black Messianic and Afrocentric doctrine of Garvey
Rereading(s) of the Qur'an and Bible
Teaches that God is a Black man, Black civilization is the source of science + wisdom, and that Black people should separate from the whites.
Relies on essentialist notions of race
Reclaims and Recenters the Black Body
Promotes a strong, economic network for Black people
Later in his career:
desired/demanded radical restructuring of wealth/capitalist system + power
rejected rigid Black separatism (moves away from essentialist notions of race--> moves towards greater collaborations
sought to balance religion and politics
greek verb--> to disperse , sow/ scatter.
What is Diaspora
migration of a community in large #s over a sustained period of time, and the settlement or resettlement into a new community.
efforts to maintain, revive, invent a sense of home or the last homeland or cultural identity in the new geographic location.
metaphor + symbol= displaced people live in relationship to the past/present and future.
1) exile
2) promise of return- deferred/delayed belonging with the belief that one day day they will be restored/redeemed.
constant displacement + seeking renewal/ restoration
political and cultural unease that fames one's being in the diaspora.
The diaspora experience as I intend it here is defined, not by essence or purity, but by the recognition of a necessary heterogeneity and diversity; by a difference; by hybridity. Diaspora identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and difference (Hall 235)
Maroon communities represented this type of resistance.
What is Overt Resistance
enslaved people escaped and formed independent autonomous black communities that were socially and politically independent of plantation slavery
i.e. protests, escapes, talking back, etc.
A form of cultural production that creates alternative knowledge systems.
What is Music (RAP)
revolutionary demand of happiness
the root of black resistance practices
mediates our relationship to one another/ space/ histories.
creatives alternatives to political presents
Hip hop manages the painful contradictions of social alienation and prophetic imagination
This short story grapples with the pressures of Black immigrants and refugees living in the Americas.
What is Little Copper Bullets
Grief:losing family, neighbours, their homelands in multiple ways (through violence, through departure, some senses of betrayal, a return that is never fully a return)
Displacement: how Aisha and Adam negotiate space/ being in Canada/ their differences/ etc. (i.e. Adam trying to master the English language- which makes him move further away from his roots)
This thinker coined Prison Industrial Complex.
Who is Angela Davis
Black people were used as raw material for the rapid expansion of the US penal system
racism is deeply tied to global capitalism
slave owners and patrons of the convict lease system- disregard the humanity of Black people
the judicial system and the penal system become key weapons in the state's fight to preserve the existing conditions of class domination/ racism/ poverty and war
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associations between blackness + criminality
we must redefine what we categorize as criminal
transform laws and society into an order harmonious with the material and spiritual needs and interests of the vast majority of its members.
America was considered this after Obama was elected.
What is Post-racial
loses a language to discuss racism
diffuses the terrorization of whiteness
allows assimilation and forgetfulness
whiteness is neutral
leads to color blind politics-->
racial arrangements are hidden
people are accused of over sensitivity
Robin D.G. Kelley proposed these two things as "powerful political forces"
What is love and imagination
social movements- produce a knowledge that stems from an imagination inspired by the possibility of a new order, a new world, freedom (57)
To put it another way, the most radical art is not protest art, but work s that take us to another place allowing us to envision a different way of seeing, perhaps a different way of feeling (59)
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•The idea of Political Education
•Idea of Knowledge Work/ Knowledge Workers: Academics/ Intellectuals, Activists/ On the Ground Folk and Cultural Producers.
•Importance of Transformative Thinking
•Function of the Imagination + Love
The antonym of "respectability politics."
What is Disrespectability Politics
Disrespectability Politics- Places where black women live—between disses and respect – Where Black women are challenging heteronormativity, sexual repression , and elitist social structure while negotiating their role as consumers, purveyors, and adaptors of respectability. (Brown and Young 2016)
Also useful for a "Black ratchet imagination lens"= Black queer youth use this lens in hiphop to create their own resistance + reclaim their autonomy + heal from the violence = form their own knowledge systems + agency
This text proposes "viable patterns of life and thought" for Black communities living in the Americas.
What is Black Life: Post BLM and the Struggle for Freedom
The Black Test simply suggests that any policy that does not meet the requirement of ameliorating the dire conditions of Black people’s lives is not a policy worth having (91)
This proposal is a challenge to rethink the very grounds of a desired national and global transformative change—where it begins and where it ends. The black test is the proposal and a provocation to those committed to modernity’s ideals to notice and to urgently act on how encounters with BlackLife always seem to reveal the limits of their policy imaginations. The Black Test requires us to think another and different world now (92)