Black pride

Last updated

Black pride is a movement which encourages black people to celebrate their respective cultures and embrace their African heritage.

Contents

In the United States, it initially developed for African-American culture [1] and was a direct response to white racism, especially during the civil rights movement. [2] Stemming from the idea of black power, this movement emphasizes racial pride, economic empowerment, and the creation of political and cultural institutions. [3] Related movements include black power, black nationalism, [2] and Afrocentrism.

Arts and music

Brazil

The black pride movement is very popular in Brazil, especially among poorer members of the country's population, and it is found in the Brazilian funk music genre which arose in the late 1960s, as well as in funk carioca, which emerged in the late 1980s. The origin of Brazilian funk and the origin of funk carioca both reflect Brazilian black resistance. Ethnomusicologist George Yúdice states that youths who embraced a black culture which was being mediated by a U.S. culture industry were met with many arguments against their susceptibility to cultural colonization. Although it borrows some ingredients from hip hop, its style still remains unique to Brazil (mainly Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo). [4]

United States

Black pride is a major theme in some works by African American popular musicians. Civil Rights Movement era songs such as The Impressions's hit songs "We're a Winner" [5] and "Keep on Pushing" [6] and James Brown's "Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud" [6] [7] celebrated black pride. Beyoncé's half-time performance at Super Bowl 50, which included homages to Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, has been described by the media as a display of black pride. [8] [9]

Dating back to the 1960's, there was a push for people of color to be heard. Artists, like James Brown, won over the respect of the United States through their art and music. Creating movements like "Black is Beautiful," a movement where the features of black women were highlighted in picture form, allowed black people to emphasize their beauty and further emphasize the idea of Black Pride. [10]

Beauty and fashion

Jamaica

Black pride has been a central theme of the originally Jamaican Rastafari movement since the second half of the 20th century. It has been described as "a rock in the face of expressions of white superiority," [11] being promoted by national figures like Marcus Garvey as self-empowering. [12] Dreadlocks became prominent and, according to Jesuit priest Joseph Owens, represented "refusal to depart from the ancient, natural way". However, American author and activist Alice Walker claims conservatives saw the movement's style as "not just disgusting, but down-right frightening". [13]

United States

Beauty standards are a major theme of black pride. Black pride was represented in slogans such as "black is beautiful" [14] [15] which challenged white beauty standards. [16] Prior to the black pride movement, the majority of black people straightened their hair or wore wigs. [15] The return to natural hair styles such as the afro, cornrows, and dreadlocks were seen as expressions of black pride. [15] [16] [17] [18]

In the 1960s to 1970s, kente cloth and the Black Panthers uniform were worn in the U.S. as expressions of black pride. [15] Headscarves were sometimes worn by Nation of Islam and other Black Muslim Movement members as an expression of black pride and a symbol of faith. [17] Other women used scarves with African prints to cover their hair. [15]

Maxine Leeds Craig argues that all-black beauty pageants such as Miss Black America were institutionalized forms of black pride created in response to exclusion from white beauty pageants. [17]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rastafari</span> Religion originating in 1930s Jamaica

Rastafari, sometimes called Rastafarianism, is an Abrahamic religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by scholars of religion. There is no central authority in control of the movement and much diversity exists among practitioners, who are known as Rastafari, Rastafarians, or Rastas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dreadlocks</span> Rope-like braiding hairstyle

Dreadlocks, also known as dreads or locs, are a hairstyle made of rope-like strands of hair. This is done by not combing the hair and allowing the hair to mat naturally or by twisting it manually. Over time the hair will form tight braids or ringlets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Afrocentrism</span> African ethnocentrism

Afrocentrism is a worldview that is centered on the history of people of African descent or a biased view that favors it over non-African civilizations. It is in some respects a response to Eurocentric attitudes about African people and their historical contributions. It seeks to counter what it sees as mistakes and ideas perpetuated by the racist philosophical underpinnings of Western academic disciplines as they developed during and since Europe's Early Renaissance as justifying rationales for the enslavement of other peoples, in order to enable more accurate accounts of not only African but all people's contributions to world history. Afrocentricity deals primarily with self-determination and African agency and is a pan-African point of view for the study of culture, philosophy, and history.

The Bobo Ashanti, also known as the Ethiopian African Black International Congress (EABIC), is a religious group originating in Bull Bay near Kingston, Jamaica. The title of Bobo Ashanti essentially means "Black warrior".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Afro</span> Hair style

The afro is a hair style created by combing out natural growth of afro-textured hair, or specifically styled with chemical curling products by individuals with naturally curly or straight hair. The hairstyle can be created by combing the hair away from the scalp, dispersing a distinctive curl pattern, and forming the hair into a rounded shape, much like a cloud or puff ball.

African-American culture, also known as Black American culture or Black culture in American English, refers to the cultural expressions of African Americans, either as part of or distinct from mainstream American culture. African-American culture has been influential on American and global worldwide culture as a whole.

Iyaric, also called Dread Talk, is a language consciously created by members of the Rastafari movement. When Africans were taken into captivity as a part of the slave trade, English was imposed as a colonial language and their traditional African languages were lost. In defiance, the Rastafari movement created a modified English vocabulary and dialect, with the aim of liberating their language from its history as a tool of colonial oppression. This is accomplished by avoiding sounds and words with negative connotations, such as "back", and changing them to positive ones. Iyaric sometimes also plays a liturgical role among Rastas, in addition to Amharic and Ge'ez.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Afrocentricity</span> Research method that centers Africans and the African diaspora

Afrocentricity is an academic theory and approach to scholarship that seeks to center the experiences and peoples of Africa and the African diaspora within their own historical, cultural, and sociological contexts. First developed as a systematized methodology by Molefi Kete Asante in 1980, he drew inspiration from a number of African and African diaspora intellectuals including Cheikh Anta Diop, George James, Harold Cruse, Ida B. Wells, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, and W. E. B. Du Bois. The Temple Circle, also known as the Temple School of Thought, Temple Circle of Afrocentricity, or Temple School of Afrocentricity, was an early group of Africologists during the late 1980s and early 1990s that helped to further develop Afrocentricity, which is based on concepts of agency, centeredness, location, and orientation.

Black is beautiful is a cultural movement that was started in the United States in the 1960s by African Americans. It later spread beyond the United States, most prominently in the writings of the Black Consciousness Movement of Steve Biko in South Africa. Black is beautiful got its roots from the Négritude movement of the 1930s. Negritude argued for the importance of a Pan-African racial identity among people of African descent worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kinky hair</span> Human hair texture indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa, Melanesia, and Australia

Kinky hair, also known as afro-textured hair, is a human hair texture prevalent in the indigenous populations of many regions with hot climates, mainly sub-Saharan Africa, and some areas of Melanesia, and Australia. Each strand of this hair type grows in a repeating pattern of small contiguous kinks. These numerous kinks make kinky hair appear denser than straight, wavy, and curly hair types.

From Black Power to Hip-Hop: Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism is a 2006 book by Patricia Hill Collins. Published by Temple University Press, the book is centered around Patricia Hill and her experiences with racism in America. The book also includes experiences from other Black men and women and their responses to it. In the end she offers her take on Black youth and how its changing along with how Black nationalism works today.

Afrocentric education refers to a pedagogical approach to education designed to empower people of the African diaspora with educational modes in contact and in line with the cultural assumptions common in their communities. A central premise behind it is that many Africans have been subjugated by having their awareness of themselves limited and by being indoctrinated with ideas that work against them and their cultures.

Black power is a political slogan and a name which is given to various associated ideologies which aim to achieve self-determination for black people. It is primarily, but not exclusively, used by black activists and other proponents of what the slogan entails in the United States. The black power movement was prominent in the late 1960s and early 1970s, emphasizing racial pride and the creation of black political and cultural institutions to nurture, promote and advance what was seen by proponents of the movement as being the collective interests and values of black Americans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African-American hair</span> Afro-textured hair types

African-American hair or Black hair refers to hair types, textures, and styles that are linked to African-American culture, often drawing inspiration from African hair culture. It plays a major role in the identity and politics of Black culture in the United States and across the diaspora. African-American hair often has a kinky hairy texture, appearing tightly coiled and packed. Black hair has a complex history, culture, and cultural impact, including its relationship with racism.

Black nationalism is a nationalist movement which claims to seek liberation, equality, representation and/or self-determination for black people as a distinct national identity, especially in racialized, colonial and postcolonial societies. Its earliest proponents saw it as a way to advocate for democratic representation in culturally plural societies or to establish self-governing independent nation-states for black people. Modern black nationalism often aims for the social, political, and economic empowerment of black communities within white majority societies, either as an alternative to assimilation or as a way to ensure greater representation and equality within predominantly Eurocentric or white cultures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hairstyles in the 1980s</span>

Hairstyles in the 1980s included the mullet, tall mohawk hairstyles, jheri curls, flattops, and hi-top fades, which became popular styles. Amongst women, large hair-dos, puffed-up styles, permanent waves, and softer cuts typified the decade. Big hair that was "often permed to achieve the desired volume" is especially associated with women of the mid 1980s as well as male rockstars of that era, especially of the glam metal genre. Television shows such as Dynasty helped popularize the high volume bouffant and glamorous image associated with it.

Discrimination based on hair texture, also known as textureism, is a form of social injustice, where afro-textured hair or coarse hair types, and their associated hair styles, are viewed negatively, often perceived as "unprofessional", "unattractive", or "unclean". This view can lead, for example, to some school students being excluded from class.

The natural hair movement is a movement which aims to encourage people of African descent to embrace their natural, afro-textured hair; especially in the workplace. It originated in the United States during the 1960s, and resurged in popularity in the 2000s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emma Dabiri</span> Irish television and radio presenter, writer and researcher (born 1979)

Emma Dabiri FRSL is an Irish author, academic, and broadcaster. Her debut book, Don't Touch My Hair, was published in 2019. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2023.

References

  1. ↑ Lois Tyson (2001). Learning for a Diverse World: Using Critical Theory to Read and Write about Literature. Psychology Press. pp. 208–209. ISBN   978-0-8153-3774-4. Because the dominant white culture in America treated African Americans as subalterns rather than full American citizens and full human beings, the black pride movement encouraged black Americans to look to Africa for their cultural origins.
  2. 1 2 Wayne C. Glasker (1 June 2009). Black Students in the Ivory Tower: African American Student Activism at the University of Pennsylvania, 1967-1990. Univ of Massachusetts Press. p. 28. ISBN   978-1-55849-756-6. In 1966 the Black Power-black nationalist-black pride movements emerged as equal and opposite reactions to white racism as a reaction of the biracial civil rights movement.
  3. ↑ "Black Power". National Archives. 2016-08-25. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
  4. ↑ Yúdice 1994
  5. ↑ Pruter, Robert (1991). Chicago Soul. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. ISBN   0-252-06259-0.
  6. 1 2 Koskoff, Ellen (2005). Music Cultures in the United States: An Introduction. New York: Routledge. ISBN   0-415-96589-6.
  7. ↑ Jones, Melvyn "Deacon" (2008). The Blues Man: 40 Years with the Blues Legends. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse. ISBN   978-1-4343-7571-1.
  8. ↑ Ex, Kris (10 February 2016). "Why Are People Suddenly Afraid of Beyonce's Black Pride?". Billboard. Retrieved 11 February 2016.
  9. ↑ Gass, Henry (8 February 2016). "Beyoncé's black pride moment at the Super Bowl". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 11 February 2016.
  10. ↑ "21st Century Black Pride | Youth Collaboratory". www.youthcollaboratory.org. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
  11. ↑ "Rastafari and slavery". BBC. 2009.
  12. ↑ Williams, Lesroy W. (6 June 2008). "RASTAFARIANISM: ONE LOVE, ONE HEART, ONE PEOPLE". The St. Kitts-Nevis Observer . Basseterre.
  13. ↑ Johnson, Dianne (2004). ""She's Grown Dreadlocks": The Fiction of Angela Johnson". World Literature Today . 78 (3/4). University of Oklahoma: 76. doi:10.2307/40158506. ISSN   0196-3570. JSTOR   40158506. OCLC   60619315.
  14. ↑ Meeta Jha (16 September 2015). The Global Beauty Industry: Colorism, Racism, and the National Body. Taylor & Francis. p. 46. ISBN   978-1-317-55795-1.
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 José Blanco F.; Mary Doering; Patricia Kay Hunt-Hurst; Heather Vaughan Lee, eds. (2016). Clothing and Fashion: American Fashion from Head to Toe. ABC-CLIO. p. 52. ISBN   978-1-61069-310-3.
  16. 1 2 Noliwe M. Rooks (1996). Hair Raising: Beauty, Culture, and African American Women. Rutgers University Press. ISBN   978-0-8135-2312-5.
  17. 1 2 3 Maxine Leeds Craig (24 May 2002). Ain't I a Beauty Queen? : Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race: Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-803255-7.
  18. ↑ Victoria Sherrow (January 2006). Encyclopedia of Hair: A Cultural History. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN   978-0-313-33145-9.

Further reading


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.