The article
which I chose from US Studies Online was “The legacy of Black Power Visual
Culture in 1990s Hip Hop”. I chose this article because, following last week’s
lecture and blog task I became more interested in the representation of the
Black Power movement through different forms of music and film.
The article I
chose focuses specifically on Hip Hop in the 1990’s which was politically
charged and reflected on the treatment of African Americans at the time. Groups
such as N.W.A were particularly controversial in this aspect, with Anti-Police
songs and because of their lyrics, a heavy police presence at their concerts in
order to stop public disorder.
The article
goes into detail about the use of imagery by Hip Hop artists in the 1990’s,
showing images from album covers and posters, depicting obvious black panther
symbolism and images alluding to the separatist movement. One such image is the
album cover of Boogie Down Productions’ (BDP) second album By All Means
Necessary. The image portrays KRS-One standing with a gun in one hand peering
out of a window, mirroring the famous picture of Malcom X from 1964. The album’s
title itself is also a play on the line from the famous Malcom X speech where
he calls for an end to the oppression of the black people by any means necessary.
This remake of the old political poster shows a permeation of the old Black
Power movement through the generations to the Hip Hop artists of the 1990’s. It
also highlights the importance of the movement as it is being distributed
nationally through the music of the popular Hip Hop artists.
I feel like
this was the most interesting article I could find personally as, having just
had a lecture on Black America and finding it very interesting I felt as though
I wanted to pursue this further. The article also links the political side of
the Black Power struggle with the more cultural side and I felt as though this
was particularly interesting.
This article by Bradley Zopf sets up to
decode what the stereotypical Muslim is in the United States, how this came to
be, and how it has changed since the 9/11 World Trade Centre attacks.
Zopf does this very well by attacking the
issue from angles of politics, philosophy, sociology and psychology. The
article is also very well researched and features strong arguments through Pew
research statistics. The article features a slant that is clearly very
pro-Islam in America and using strong statistics from a trusted source was
refreshing to see; as someone who studies politics there seems to be a trend
with pro-Islam articles often taking a more moral slant rather than one that is
more factually based. Despite the ideology that is clear in this article Zopf
takes a delicate yet concise argument making the case of decoding American
Muslim archetypes and stereotypical connotations of radical Islamic terrorism
that might coincide with these archetypes. He tries to break down the
stereotype of what a typical Muslim might look like and whether they pose as a ‘threat’
or instill fear into Americans.
To give some criticism, I feel the article
would be of improvement if the author were to extend the points made to the
greater issue that runs through this article, which is assimilation of Muslims
in the US and whether the cultures are compatible. Despite him breaking down
stereotypes of identity and how we view Muslims, to not give any basis as to
whether this fitted with American culture made the article feel lackluster at
times, given the domain in which it was posted. Additionally, I see flaw with
his description for what Islamophobia is, as it feels somewhat contradictory to
suggest Islamophobia is always a prejudice and never a postjudice. It feel here
as if he is saying that other cultures that have any conceptions about Islam
have not done research, read the Qur’an or have any prior knowledge to their
dissatisfaction. This is a complete assumption that stereotypes those who have
opposing views on Islam.
Zopf’s concluding paragraph reads, “Despite a long
history of Orientalist and Islamophobic prejudice towards Muslims, 9/11 was
indeed a turning point in the racialization of Muslims (Naber 2008). Once
racialized, Islam inscribes onto “brown” Arab, Middle Eastern, and South Asian
bodies an essentialized and homogenized visible archetype of “Muslim” that
simultaneously delegitimizes and racializes Islam. This racial construction of
Muslims and “Muslim-looking people” (Elver 2012) makes them more vulnerable to
state-based, media-based, and interpersonal violence (Chon and Artz 2005;
Cainkar 2009). As the attack on Balbir Singh Sodhi, a 49 year old Sikh from
India who was shot four days after 9/11, shows, being perceived as Muslim is
often enough to make one a target, regardless of one’s actual religious
affiliation. After September 11th, 2001, the United States “intensified its
targeting of persons perceived to be” Muslim through programs such as NSEERS
(Naber 2005:480). As a result, images of Muslims, especially in the media, have
almost exclusively focused on terrorism related to Islamic extremism (see
Shaheen 2008). Together “anti-Arab racism” (Salaita 2006) and “anti-Muslim
prejudice” (Malik 2009) have increased in the United States merging prevailing
forms of racism with Orientalism and Islamophobia that have resulted in the
racialization of Muslims (Meer and Modood 2009; Garner and Selod 2015) and the
social construction of a visible archetype of “Muslim” considered inimical to
“American” culture and religion.”
Zopf’s conclusion is good here as he collectively brings his
arguments together in a format that is concise and clear. This article is
particularly important to American Studies as it is a strong leftist argument
for a growing topic of controversy and debate in the US and the rise in
population of people of Islamic faith, which he notes is set to become America’s
second largest religion by 2050. It interesting to lend focus on the mindset
and misconceptions of Islamic identity within the US population and to make an
argument as to why these may be correct or incorrect.This is likely to be a growing political ‘hot
potato’ in future debates of American culture.
Within this article by Glen Whitcroft, he explores the song lyrics originally sung by Syl Johnson in 1969:
'Looking back over my false dreams that I once knew,
Wondering why my dreams never came true,
Somebody tell me, what can I do?
Something is holding me back,
Is it because I'm Black?'
And how his daughter Syleena Johnson sang the song four decades later. Whitcroft identifies the undertone references such as racism, struggles of becoming successful within society and the prejudice surrounding the ideas that being Black potentially hinders someone within society due to these undertones.
Whitcroft gives a background on both singers, how successful they were with other audiences such as those in poverty within the states of the South and not just the mainstream audience of Black African-Americans.
The similarities of Syl and Syleena providing music with deep metaphorical meanings and provocative meanings are crucial to understanding the impact they had within society. Syl's music was stereotypically surrounding problems within the 60s and 70s such as racism, poor living standards and the ideals of the American Dream associated with individuals within society.
However, Syleena's music undertones surround racism, domestic violence and materialism and their impacts on people within society.
By Whitcroft providing evidence that both father and daughter were impacted by society's expectations upon them (music industries pursuing them to be silent due to provocative language within their music and Syleena being portrayed as unsuitable due to her body and size not being the 'stereotypical idea of beauty". Syleena states in an interview in June, 2016, "I finally looked how they wanted me to look... and they didn't even capitalise on that" further suggests that even when conforming to society expectations of her, she is still not idolised after conforming to the 'stereotypical small sized body beauty'. When recognising that her talent of singing and music writing outweighed those, she was still criticised for being who she was, an all-natural female not fazed by her own body shape and size with a powerful voice that could influence the people who listened to her music.
This article is important as it continues to show that although society changes throughout the decades, music still remains a powerful influence on society when addressing issues such as the racism encounter by African-Americans and asking people 'Is it because I'm black?'. It gives us insight to the platform that African-Americans use to their advantage to speak out about these issues within our society.
This article
gathers together the lecturing information of Frederick Douglass, a “lecturing
genius” on antislavery who was previously enslaved. The writer of the article,
Hannah Rose-Murray, used an interactive map on a website called ZeeMaps to plot
the information she had gathered from resources such as local newspapers. By
doing this she has created a platform on which we can look at a glance and see
patterns of how Douglass travelled the country. It is a visual embodiment of
the lengths he put in to ensure the abolition movement was successful.
This is relevant
knowledge as we can determine how Douglass used the growing industrialism in
Britain to make his travelling easier. It demonstrates that industrialism was
key to the growing abolition movement and network, ensuring the word of
antislavery spread as efficiently as possible at the time.
Murray notes that,
on the map, “each [pin] has a variety of detail ranging from who spoke, where,
the time, ticket price and whether the meeting in question was on behalf of a
specific society.” This gives us an indication as to how extensive the
abolition network was, with many people giving lectures all over the country,
as shown on the map. It also demonstrates the key role that these abolitionists
played in getting to word out to people in quieter areas. Murray alludes to
this when she states that Williams Wells Brown gave a lecture on the Isle of
Wight, in “a tiny town where few people would have ever seen a person of
African descent before.” By including these people in their antislavery
audience, they recruit more supporters, whether they have seen a black person
before or not, but they are still invaluable to the movement through word of
mouth.
By using reports
in newspapers as a resource for this project, Murray gains more than just dates
and times. For example, a lecture that Douglass gave created a “scene of tumult
and uproar”, this is indicative of how delving into the events, and looking
past the basic facts, can paint an image of what it was like to be in the room
and give a sense of the atmosphere. This then leads to a more vivid
understanding of the times and the attitude towards antislavery.
The article is
important as it raises awareness of how integral speaking to large audiences
via lectures was, and how key it was to ensuring enough people condemned
slavery, to cause a change, and to promote antislavery across the country. It
gives us an understanding of the effort the black abolitionists put into this
movement to end the suffering.
A trip to the cinema recently took me to
see Hidden Figures, a film telling the story and triumph of three black female
astrophysicists, Katherine
G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, working
for NASA in during the 1960s.
The film is centered around the Cold War
space race between America and the USSR where America attempt to send the first
American, John Glenn, into space. The three ladies break down the barriers of
race and gender in this film as it shows their rise in the ranks of NASA.
The film opens and sets the scene by
showing the ladies in their youth depicting the segregation of black and white
schools in West Virginia at the time. There are many visual references towards
segregation during the beginning of the film that help colorize the scenario
African-Americans were in at that point in time, such as separate water
fountains and bathrooms for whites and ‘coloured’ people. Additionally, one of
the scenes that follows the introduction to the film shows the trio driving to
NASA and their car breaking down; A racist police officer stops and asks for identification. When they
explain that they work at NASA, he changes his tune; he's surprised they hire
black women, but he's impressed. He seems very well-versed in NASA and asserts
that the Americans have to beat the Russians in the Space Race. He asks if
they've met the astronauts; Mary answers that they have but it's clear from the
others' expressions that they're kept separate from them. Dorothy manages to
get the car up and running and the police officer provides them an escort --
lights and sirens blazing -- to the NASA Langley Research Center, which they
find ironic since it's not usually a group of black people speeding to follow a
police car.
We clearly see when they arrive at NASA and
start work that they are currently working, doing math with many other black
women in a job that is way under their mathematic potential, working in a
segregated wing to whites.Vivian Mitchell (Kirsten Dunst),
Dorothy's boss, comes in to talk to Dorothy. She tells her the Space Task Group
needs a new computer who can do analytic geometry. Dorothy assigns Katherine
because she knows analytic geometry and she's the all-around best at numbers.
She is then put in a room to work with only white men. Katherine Gobel is sent and she has to
deal with segregation and racial bias. But she not only does a good job, she
also solves several problems. One of her co-workers in particular sets to make
life difficult for her by making her proof read masses of his work with some
sections crossed out as he says it’s ‘classified’ information, meaning
Katherine must work out masses more work in the same time as everybody else.
And her co-worker, Mary Jackson, an engineer, is asked to help with the space
capsule. And when she figures out what is wrong with it, the head engineer
wants her to apply to the engineering program. But she is told that she still
needs a few more credits to qualify. And the only schools where she can take
the courses don't allow "colored" to attend. So she sets out to break
the barrier and successfully does so. Of course, this is reminiscent of many
triumph of desegregating schools and universities during that era, and the film
provides a detailed insight to one important example.
Their
unofficial supervisor, Dorothy Vaughan upon learning that new computers, an IBM
system, will be installed that can do the work her people usually does, which
means her whole department will be phased out and everyone laid off. So she
tries to learn how to handle the computer against the permission of her
co-workers and boss Vivian. After weeks of trial and error by white workers to
learn how to work this early computer system it is Dorothy that is the one that
learns to understand the system, leading her to receiving the eventual
promotion as official supervisor of her department.
One
significant scene in this movie that challenge social prejudice and
assimilation is the bathroom sequence. The bathroom sequence follows Katherine
as she must walk a fair distance, to a different building, just to use the
bathroom for coloured people. Of course, going this distance in all weather
conditions multiple times a day has an affect on her work, leading Katherine to
eventually pour her heart out at the difficulty of the scenario when questioned
by her manager Al Harrison (Kevin Costner). Harrison’s reaction to this is to
break the coloured sign down from the bathroom in front of black and white
workers, which stand at opposing sides of the room. He then goes on to say that
there shall be no more separate bathrooms- a small yet significant victory for
African American workers at NASA. There are many scenes throughout the movie
similar to this such as removal of segregated coffee machines etc. that all add
to the racial progress within the institution alongside the main narrative of
social mobility in the workplace for these African American women. Hidden
Figures is a true story of breaking down barriers of prejudice and assimilation
of African Americans into American culture and acceptance.
Black separatism is an idea which seeks to create separate institutions
for those of African descent in societies dominated by whites.
In July 2016 Micah Xavier Johnson ambushed and shot at a
group of police officers in Dallas, Texas. He killed 5 of them and injured 9
others. It was reported that he claimed that the violence was in retaliation
for the killings of blacks at the hands of police. He was later linked to the
black separatist group The New Black Panther Party (NBPP).
This event, although isolated shows that the black separatist
movement is still alive and well in modern day America. The shooting also links
back to a famous speech by Malcom X where he says that African Americans should
“bring about the complete independence of people of African descent here in the
Western Hemisphere, and first here in the United States, and bring about the
freedom of these people by any means necessary.”
The New Black Panther Party is one of the largest separatist
groups in the USA and has been branded by some, including the co-founder of the
original Black Panthers as “xenophobic” and “absurd”. The NBPP’s extreme policy
points are listed on their websites including this one:
8. We want freedom for all Black Men and Black Women held in
international, military, federal, state, county, city jails and prisons.
OFFICIAL NBPP BLACK POWER MANUAL
We believe that all Black People and people of color should
be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a
fair and impartial trial. ‘Released’ means ‘released’ to the lawful authorities
of the Black Nation
This website is a perfect example of there the separatist movement
is today and shows the evolution of the movement.
The new upcoming film "Get Out" directed and scripted by Jordan Peele, challenges the contemporary African-American identity surrounding Chris (main character) and his attempts of assimilating himself with his girlfriend's family.
From the trailer we are already engaged with the doubts and fears that Chris has about being Black around her family. "Do they know that I'm black?" To which Rose replies "Does it matter?" And begins to mock him suggests that Rose is happy to assimilate herself with Chris and to have a inter-racial relationship regardless of her family's opinions.
Further on, the police officer asks for Chris' Identification even though he wasn't driving, associating the separatism within society and acts as a reality of unfair treatment towards Black African-Americans within society which could be an association with the victim-shootings of Black African-Americans such as Rodney King as early as 1991 and Trayvon Martin who was killed in 2012, sparking the Black Lives Matter campaign.
When Chris goes to fist-bump Andrew he does not return the gesture in a stereotypical way that is often portrayed as a symbol of respect used by African-Americans. Instead, he shakes his hand, often associated as business-like and a more prominent gesture seen within White society.
It is soon clear that the niche friendship group of the White people wish to perform a labotamy on Chris and replace him with white people through hypnotism while he remains within a 'sunken place'. This correlates with the new derogatory identification of 'Oreos', those who "sacrifice their heritage and instead has adopted the attitudes, values and behaviours" thought to be associated with the middle class White society however, Chris does not do this willingly.
The scene of people sitting in rows playing bingo is a reference to the enslavement of African-Americans in the 1700-1800s. Those who sit and raise their cards is associated with the bidding of a slave within society to benefit White Americans whether on the fields or within the cities. In reality they are holding a modern day slave auction and Chris is who they auction for. The references to poor treatment is continued through the film with the driver wearing a metal mask which is an association to the Ku Klux Klan and their harsh treatment towards African-Americans within society.
While Chris is restrained to the chair by leather straps, in order to prevent the hypnotism from working on him he has to forcibly pick the cotton. Again this is another reference to how African-American slaves were forced to pick cotton to evade punishment and in order to survive.
As seen within the trailer, it is clear that Chris wishes to assimilate within the White society, however, the niche society of the rich people that Rose and her family associate with, they separate themselves from him and only associating themselves with him in order for gain or the more underlining reason for "profit". This horror film is clearly associated with the problems, concerns and questions that are raised with African-Americans within society in America. The sense of "two-ness" spoken of by W.E.B. DuBois of the "negro man and the American man" is seen here throughout the trailers/film.
The tag line of the film "Just because you're invited, doesn't mean you're welcome" finalises this divide. Those who are not seen as one and the same within society are not accepted within society which correlates with the arguments outlined by Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. MLK Jr. argued that 'he had a dream' that white and black people would be equal to one another (assimilation) whereas Malcolm X argued that although the "negro man" lived within American society he should not associate himself with White people, re-enforcing the ideals of separatism.
Sources:
'Get Out' Film Trailer, 2017, Peele, J., https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DzfpyUB60YY, accessed 12th March.
'Are You An Oreo?', Dixon, R., http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2009/08/are-you-an-oreo/, accessed 12th March.
Souls of Black Folk, DuBois, W.E.B., A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago (1903).
'A Message to the Grass Roots', Malcolm X, November 10, 1963.
'I Have a Dream Speech', King Jr., Martin L., 28 August 1963.
