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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Ethnic studies > Black studies
This collection explores the productive potential of uncertainty
for people living in Africa as well as for scholars of Africa.
Eight ethnographic case studies from across the continent examine
how uncertainty is used to negotiate insecurity, create and conduct
relationships, and act as a source for imagining the future.
When noted rapper Eminem commanded his audience's attention in his
2000 megahit release "The Real Slim Shady" and queried in the
lyrics, "Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?," the authors
took the question seriously and began to search for the "real slim
shady" among the fabric of contemporary capitalism. The result of
this research is this book, which explores how a dominant culture
incorporates some dimensions of a subculture--in this case hip
hop--and uses it to perpetuate dimensions of social stratification
within a society. Essentially, this book critically examines how
the values of a dominant culture and the controlling images it
reproduces, impact issues of racial diversity, class distinctions,
and gender stereotypes. Authors Dave Ramsaran and Simona Hill are
two sociologists who have sought to understand the contradictory
nature of contemporary social phenomenon. Hip hop that is brought
into the mainstream by contemporary media serves several purposes.
First, it greatly enhances corporate profits. Second, it repackages
old dimensions of inequality, including racial stereotyping and the
sexist contempt for women. Third, the glorification of violence,
the idealization of excessive consumption, and the promotion of
hypersexual black masculinity serve to reinforce the privilege of
dominant groups. Hip hop that challenges these stereotypes and
cultural notions is pushed into the underground. The intent of the
book is to uncover this process of moving from cultural questioning
to cultural appropriation and reinforcement of structural
inequality. Despite the existence of other works on hip hop in
fields such as ethnomusicology, anthropology, political science,
communications studies and Black Studies, there is a dearth in the
contributions from a sociological perspective. Studies have been
done which look at the emergence of hip hop from its roots in the
African-American community, as well as on the contributions of some
of the major artists in the field. However, little work has been
done on trying to locate the emergence of hip hop and hip hop
culture within the context of capitalist development in the United
States. The book shows how racial, gender, and ethnic stereotypes
are reformulated through different media. The book critically
analyzes two prominent archetypal images of the gangsta male and
the wanksta feminist who can be either male or female. The analysis
shows that hip hop outside of mainstream media has remained true to
its radical traditions. Moreover, as hip hop has gone beyond the
confines of the United States, that same radical tradition remains
a key component in the hip hop diaspora and in hip hop's
cross-cultural expressions. Hip Hop and Inequality: Searching for
the "Real" Slim Shady is an important book for understanding how
systems of inequality work and how they are perpetuated. It will be
of immense value to professors and students in sociology,
anthropology, political science, women's studies, popular culture,
and media studies. Written in an accessible language, it will also
appeal to an audience outside academia and will certainly speak to
those who may or may not realize that hip hop has a profound impact
on modern society.
This book celebrates the scholarly achievements of Prof. David A.
Watkins, who has pioneered research on the psychology of Asian
learners, and helps readers grasp the cognitive, motivational,
developmental, and socio-cultural aspects of Asian learners
learning experiences. A wide range of empirical and review papers,
which examine the characteristics of these experiences as they are
shaped by both the particularities of diverse educational
systems/cultural milieus and universal principles of human learning
and development, are showcased. The individual chapters, which
explore learners from fourteen Asian countries, autonomous regions,
and/or economies, build on research themes and approaches from
Prof. Watkins' research work, and are proof of the broad importance
and enduring relevance of his seminal psychological research on
learners and the learning process.
Black English dialect has long been rooted in the socio-historical
experience of many African Americans. When discussing the most
appropriate means of promoting the success of those who speak Black
English, educators essentially focus on African American learners
because the dialect is most commonly associated with this ethnic
group. While some may emphasize the importance of recognizing and
respecting dialect differences, others place emphasis on the stigma
often associated with Black English usage in mainstream society.
Regardless of how one characterizes Black English, it is a dialect
on which many African American students rely during their daily
interactions with mainstream speakers in society. Overcoming
Language Barriers lays the foundation for readers who are genuinely
concerned about understanding fundamental Black English concepts
and promoting the success of those who speak the dialect. In this
practical resource book, Dr. Jones "thinks outside the box" by
including pertinent topics such as brain-based learning in addition
to focusing on dialect differences. She shares insightful data from
her English language arts research study as well as practical
strategies to be utilized in mainstream classrooms. The study
highlights examples of Black English features and feedback from
English language arts teachers across the United States regarding
their perceptions of Black English usage in their classrooms. This
publication is ideal for both beginning and veteran educators and
researchers seeking to effect meaningful change for linguistically
different students.
Afro-Cuban religiosity is likely to bring to mind beliefs and
practices with a visibly 'African' flavour - music, dance, spirit
possession, sacrifices and ritual language that have undergone a
transformation, on Cuban soil, under a strong Spanish and Catholic
influence. Much anthropological work has analysed Afro-Cuban
religion's 'syncretic' character in the light of these European
influences, taking as a given that each tradition is relatively
independent, and focusing on well-documented origins in specific
socio-historical environments. In this context, understandings of
religious innovation based on charismatic leaders have resulted in
a top down approach. However, this volume argues that there are
alternatives to cult-centred accounts, by looking at the
relationships between Afro-Cuban traditions, and indeed going
beyond 'traditions' to place the focus on creativity as an embedded
logic in everyday religious practice. From this forward-looking
perspective, ritual engagement is no longer a means of recreating
pre-existing universes but rather of generating, as well as
participating in, an ever-emerging cosmos. Traditions are not
perceived as given doctrines or mental constructs but as perceptual
habits and potencies beyond questions of spirit or matter, mind or
body. Offering a fresh, improvisatory ethnographic vision, this
book recasts the Afro-Cuban religious complex in the terms of the
experts and adepts who creatively sustain it and responds to the
significant fact, often overlooked or ignored, that many Cubans
engage with more than one tradition without any sense of conflict.
Amidst the cacophony of calls to 'creativity' and 'innovation' as
cultural commodities, here's a remarkable collection about the
power of creation as a condition of human existence, rather than
just its outcome. If you want to see what the world might be like
without the very distinction between creator and creation - or, for
that matter, between human beings and the worlds they inhabit -
then look at Afro-Cuban religious traditions, the editors tell us.
The sheer vivacity of the material is astounding, and suggests
altogether new ways to think about not just the classic concerns of
Caribbean anthropology with syncretism and cultural borrowings, but
also basic categories of anthropological thinking such as ritual,
technology, myth and cosmology. Martin Holbraad, Professor of
Social Anthropology, University College London Beyond Tradition,
Beyond Invention shows how far scholarship has transcended the
verificationist searches for origins, reification of traditions as
bounded entities, and sterile quests for typological coherence
that, for too long, dominated the anthropology of Afro-Caribbean
ritual praxis. The contributions not only vividly exemplify how
mechanistic conceptions of tradition and cultural change, or
pseudo-problems such as syncretism, can be overcome by ethnographic
means. They also point towards novel theories of the ever emergent,
hence thoroughly historical, nature of worlds shared by humans,
deities, and spirits. This book ought to inspire all
anthropologists working on complex and 'inventive' ritual
traditions. Stephan Palmie, Professor of Anthropology, The
University of Chicago"
Six decades before Rosa Parks boarded her fateful bus, another
traveller in the Deep South tried to strike a blow against racial
discrimination-but ultimately fell short of that goal, leading to
the Supreme Court's landmark 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.
Now Williamjames Hull Hoffer vividly details the origins,
litigation, opinions, and aftermath of this notorious case. In
response to the passage of the Louisiana Separate Car Act of 1890,
which prescribed "equal but separate accommodations" on public
transportation, a group called the Committee of Citizens decided to
challenge its constitutionality. At a preselected time and place,
Homer Plessy, on behalf of the committee, boarded a train car set
aside for whites, announced his non-white racial identity, and was
immediately arrested. The legal deliberations that followed
eventually led to the Court's 7-1 decision in Plessy, which upheld
both the Louisiana statute and the state's police powers. It also
helped create a Jim Crow system that would last deep into the
twentieth century, until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and
other cases helped overturn it. Hoffer's readable study synthesises
past work on this landmark case, while also shedding new light on
its proceedings and often-neglected historical contexts. From the
streets of New Orleans' Faubourg Treme district to the justices'
chambers at the Supreme Court, he breathes new life into the
opposing forces, dissecting their arguments to clarify one of the
most important, controversial, and socially revealing cases in
American law. He particularly focuses on Justice Henry Billings
Brown's ruling that the statute's "equal, but separate" condition
was a sufficient constitutional standard for equality, and on
Justice John Marshall Harlan's classic dissent, in which he stated,
"Our Constitution is colour-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates
classes among its citizens." Hoffer's compelling reconstruction
illuminates the controversies and impact of Plessy v. Ferguson for
a new generation of students and other interested readers. It also
pays tribute to a group of little known heroes from the Deep South
who failed to hold back the tide of racial segregation but
nevertheless laid the groundwork for a less divided America. This
book is part of the Landmark Law Cases and American Society series.
In 1964, sociologist William McCord, long interested in movements
for social change in the United States, began a study of
Mississippi's Freedom Summer. Stanford University, where McCord
taught, had been the site of recruiting efforts for student
volunteers for the Freedom Summer project by such activists as
Robert Moses and Allard Lowenstein. Described by his wife as ""an
old-fashioned liberal,"" McCord believed that he should both
examine and participate in events in Mississippi. He accompanied
student workers and black Mississippians to courthouses and Freedom
Houses, and he attracted police attention as he studied the
mechanisms of white supremacy and the black nonviolent campaign
against racial segregation. Published in 1965 by W. W. Norton, his
book, Mississippi: The Long, Hot Summer, is one of the first
examinations of the events of 1964 by a scholar. It provides a
compelling, detailed account of Mississippi people and places,
including the thousands of student workers who found in the state
both opportunities and severe challenges. McCord's work sought to
communicate to a broad audience the depth of repression in
Mississippi. Here was evidence of the need for federal action to
address what he recognized as both national and southern failures
to secure civil rights for black Americans. His field work and
activism in Mississippi offered a perspective that few other
academics or other white Americans had shared. Historian Francoise
N. Hamlin provides a substantial introduction that sets McCord's
work within the context of other narratives of Freedom Summer and
explores McCord's broader career that combined distinguished
scholarship with social activism.
Published in 1944, What the Negro Wants was a direct and emphatic
call for the end of segregation and racial discrimination that set
the agenda for the civil rights movement to come. With essays by
fourteen prominent African American intellectuals, including
Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, Mary McLeod Bethune, A. Philip
Randolph, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Roy Wilkins, What the Negro Wants
explores the policies and practices that could be employed to
achieve equal rights and opportunities for Black Americans,
rejecting calls to reform the old system of segregation and instead
arguing for the construction of a new system of equality. Stirring
intense controversy at the time of publication, the book serves as
a unique window into the history of the civil rights movement and
offers startling comparisons to today's continuing fight against
racism and inequality. Originally gathered together by
distinguished Howard University historian Rayford W. Logan in 1944,
our 2001 edition of the book includes Rayford Logan's introduction
to the 1969 reprint, a new introduction by Kenneth Janken, and an
updated bibliography.
Asian Popular Culture: New, Hybrid, and Alternate Media, edited by
John A. Lent and Lorna Fitzsimmons, is an interdisciplinary study
of popular culture practices in Asia, including regional and
national studies of Japan, China, South Korea, and Australia. The
contributors explore the evolution and intersection of popular
forms (gaming, manga, anime, film, music, fiction, YouTube videos)
and explicate the changing cultural meanings of these media in
historical and contemporary contexts. At this study's core are the
roles popular culture plays in the construction of national and
regional identity. Common themes in this text include the impact of
new information technology, whether it be on gaming in East Asia,
music in 1960s' Japan, or candlelight vigils in South Korea;
hybridity, of old and new versions of the Chinese game Weiqi, of
online and hand-held gaming in South Korea and Japan that developed
localized expressions, or of United States culture transplanted to
Japan in post-World War II, leading to the current otaku (fan boy)
culture; and the roles that nationalism and grassroots and
alternative media of expression play in contemporary Asian popular
culture. This is an essential study in understanding the role of
popular culture in Asia's national and regional identity.
The sole purpose of writing this book is to shake Americans out of
their stupor and into the greatness they keep swearing this country
is all about. Americans are 100% responsible for where we are now
and where we will be in the future. The power is in our hands but
not as long as we allow ourselves to stay divided. President Obama
is not the sole reason for our division but because of racism, he
is a major factor. This is a book explaining the manipulation of
the public. The American public keeps allowing the wealthy minority
to divide them making them co-conspirators in their own demise. The
election of this black President makes Americans easy pickings.
Hopefully, at the end of this book, America will finally be
motivated to recognize and get past their subconscious racism,
which makes us especially vulnerable to any type of divisive
manipulation. Hopefully, we can stop dividing and unify for our own
good.
Black Radical reclaims William Monroe Trotter (1872-1934) as a
seminal figure whose prophetic yet ultimately tragic-and all too
often forgotten-life offers a link from Frederick Douglass to Black
Lives Matter. Kerri K. Greenidge renders the drama of
turn-of-the-century America, showing how Trotter, a Harvard
graduate, a newspaperman and an activist, galvanized black
working-class citizens to wield their political power despite the
virulent racism of post-Reconstruction America. Situating his story
in the broader history of liberal New England to "satisfying"
(Casey Cep, The New Yorker) effect, this magnificent biography will
endure as the definitive account of Trotter's life, without which
we cannot begin to understand the trajectory of black radicalism in
America.
With the appearance of the urban, modern, diverse "New Negro" in
the Harlem Renaissance, writers and critics began a vibrant debate
on the nature of African-American identity, community, and history.
Nadell offers an illuminating new perspective on the period and the
decades immediately following it in a fascinating exploration of
the neglected role played by visual images of race in that debate.
The voices of second-generation Korean Americans echo throughout
the pages of this book, which is a sensitive exploration of their
struggles with minority, marginality, cultural ambiguity, and
negative perceptions. Born in the United States, they are still
viewed as foreigners because of their Korean appearance. Raised in
American society, they are still tied to the cultural expectations
of their Korean immigrant parents. While straddling two cultures,
these individuals search for understanding and attempt to rewrite
their identity in a new way. Through autobiographical
reconstruction and identity transformation, they form a unique
identity of their own-a Korean American identity. This book follows
a group of second-generation Korean American Christians in the
English-speaking ministry of a large suburban Korean church. It
examines their conflicts with the conservative Korean-speaking
ministry ruling the church and their quest to achieve independence
and ultimately become a multicultural church.
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