BLACK HERITAGE, BLACK STUDIES

Picture from http://www.blackstudies.ucsb.edu/

Black Heritage Network seeks "to inform and entertain all Americans with the inspirational people, singular stories, and soaring sagas of our nation’s Black Heritage while presenting the people and events of today as they lay the groundwork for tomorrow’s Black Heritage."


Black Heritage is basically what Black people have accomplished that is worthy of note and admiration. Black Studies is a critical study of that heritage. Black Heritage and Black Studies go hand in hand. "Heritage" implies what of value can be mined from history. What can we learn from the past and the present; therefore, one cannot merely relate stories of Black accomplishment without thoroughly understanding it. In this blog, I will make an attempt to be not only informative, but critical (in a positive sense) of Black Heritage. This means trying to explicate the meaning Black Heritage.  

From Introduction to Black Studies by Maulana Karenga: http://www.maulanakarenga.org/

As a discipline, a specialized branch of study and knowledge, Black Studies is a critical and systematic study of the thought and practice of African people in their current and historical unfolding....

Black Studies ... began as both a political and academic demand with grounding in both the general student movement and social struggles of the 60's out of which the Student Movement evolved. The 60's was a time for upheaval and confrontations, and students--Africans, Native Americans, Latinos, Asians, and Whites-- were at the center of the struggle which produced this process. Beginning first off campus in the struggle against the racist structure and functioning of society, students began to see the university as a key institution in the larger system of  coercive institutions created by the established order to maintain its power." 

Stereotype Threat

Stereotype threat is the experience of anxiety or concern in a situation where a person has the potential to confirm a negative stereotype about their social group. Check out the lecture by Claude Steele below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOjiAivuPfI&feature=em-uploademail

Aspects of Black Heritage

There are many aspects the Black Diaspora. As I continue this blog, these are some of the broad areas I will attempt to address.

Aspects of Black Heritage

1. Homo Sapiens – First humans in Africa
2. Agriculture
3. Early Civilizations: Egypt, Nubia, Kush, Napata, Meroe, Axum, Carthage
4. Egyptian influence on Greece
5. They came before Columbus – Black in America
6. Moors civilize Europe
7. Blacks with European explorers
8. Freedom and slavery in America
9. Civil Rights
10. Black arts – Worldwide
11. Black academia – Worldwide
12. Blacks in sports – Worldwide
13. Blacks in politics – Worldwide
14. Black churches – Worldwide
15. Black business – Worldwide
16. Black technology – Worldwide
17. Black relationships and family structures
18. Black Religion and Theology 

Gay Black Heritage

There is a powerful heritage of people who are both Black and gay. Check out this website.

http://newsone.com/653265/the-top-10-black-gay-and-lesbian-figures-of-all-time/

How to Be Black

Funny, but real. This brother is from D.C., and ended up going to Sidwell Friends and Harvard. This is an interview about his experiences and about his book How to be Black.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNqrIvwDBgw&feature=youtu.be

Being Black

According to K. Anthony Appiah in "Racial Identity and Racial Identification," The large collective identities that call for recognition come with notions of how a proper person of that kind behaves; it is not that the is one way that blacks should behave, but that there are proper black modes of behavior. These notions provide loose norms or models, which play a role in shaping the life plans of those who make collective identities central to their individual identities; of the classifications that fly under these banners. Collective identities, in short, provide what we might call scripts: narratives that people can use in shaping their life plans and telling their life stories. ...[S]o it seems to me, those who see potential for conflict between individual freedom and the politics of identity are right.

There is some truth to what Dr. Appiah says, but I think the constraints of identity politics, when in comes to Black folks, gives them a structured place from where they can grow and express their creativity. Much like jazz improvisation, where there is the structure of the song, the beat, the rhythm, and the other players, the clarinet player can blow his own tune--do his own thing. Blackness does provide "loose norms and models" to be used as starting place or a historical reference, but should not be see a constraint. Black heritage is the framework for evolving Blackness.  

  

Black Heritage?

So what's so special about Black Heritage? Black Heritage is in a sense greater than the sum of its parts. Black Heritage is special, not only because it has been unappreciated, but also because it has been misrepresented--even by Black folks themselves. Typically, Black Heritage with a capital H is limited to music, sports, and a kind of homespun, native wisdom. What I am going to argue for is our revolutionary heritage, the heritage of intellectual and creative greatness. The heritage influences every achievement by the human species, from science and art to religion and philosophy. In the book Invisible Man there was a character who worked in a paint factory. The biggest selling paint was this extremely pure and bright white paint. The character who was the only one who could make this paint, ironically, was this old Black man. There are many symbolic meanings behind this, but from my perspective, this passage means that there is an ancient Black intellectual spirit that runs deep in the DNA of all creative pursuits that comes directly out of Africa. This is Black Heritage to me. In the posts that follow, the constant theme will be the resilience and greatness of that ancient Black intellectual spirit that exists today in our best and brightest creators.