Black History

From hip-hop moguls and political candidates to talk radio and critically acclaimed films, society communicates that Black girls don't matter and their girlhood is not safe. Alarming statistics on physical and sexual abuse, for instance, reveal the harm Black girls face, yet Black girls' representation in media still heavily relies on our seeing their abuse as an important factor in others' development. In this provocative new book, Aria S. Halliday asserts that the growth of diverse representation in media since 2008 has coincided with an increase in the hatred of Black girls. Halliday uses her astute expertise as a scholar of popular culture, feminist theory, and Black girlhood to expose how we have been complicit in the depiction of Black girls as unwanted and disposable while letting Black girls fend for themselves. She indicts the way media mistreats celebrity Black girls like Malia and Sasha Obama as well as fictional Black girls in popular shows and films like A Wrinkle in Time. Our society's inability to see or understand Black girls as girls makes us culpable in their abuse. In Black Girls and How We Fail Them, a revelatory book for political analysts, hip-hop lovers, pop culture junkies, and parents, Halliday provides the critical perspective we need to create a world that supports, affirms, and loves Black girls. Our future depends on it.

With the emergence of popular culture phenomena such as reality television, blogging, and social networking sites, it is important to examine the representation of Black women and the potential implications of those images, messages, and roles. Black Women and Popular Culture: The Conversation Continues provides such a comprehensive analysis. Using an array of theoretical frameworks and methodologies, this collection features cutting edge research from scholars interested in the relationship among media, society, perceptions, and Black women. The uniqueness of this book is that it serves as a compilation of "hot topics" including ABC's Scandal, Beyonc 's Visual Album, and Oprah's Instagram page. Other themes have roots in reality television, film, and hip hop, as well as issues of gender politics, domestic violence, and colorism. The discussion also extends to the presentation and inclusion of Black women in advertising, print, and digital media.

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"Our Black Sons Matter is a powerful collection of original essays, letters, and poems that addresses both the deep joys and the very real challenges of raising black boys today. From Trayvon Martin to Tamir Rice, the list of young black men who have suffered racial violence continues to grow. Young black people also deal with profound stereotypes and structural barriers. And yet, young black men are often paradoxically revered as icons of cultural cool. Our Black Sons Matter features contributions from women across the racial spectrum who are raising or have raised black sons--whether biologically their sons or not. The book courageously addresses painful trauma, challenges assumptions, and offers insights and hope through the deep bonds between mothers and their children. Both a collective testimony and a collective love letter, Our Black Sons Matter sends the message that black lives matter and speaks with the universal love of all mothers who fear for the lives of their children."--Provided by publisher.

"This book explains how faith, politics, and fear contribute to the homophobic mindset within the Black Church and the African American community."--Provided by publisher.

"Showcasing the work of literary giants like Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker and writers whom readers may be surprised to learn were "in the life," Black Like Us is the most comprehensive collection of fiction by African American lesbian, gay and bisexual writers ever published. From the Harlem Renaissance to the Great Migration of the Depression era, from the postwar civil rights, feminist and gay liberation movements to the unabashedly complex sexual explorations that followed, Black Like Us accomplishes a sweeping survey of twentieth century American literature."--Back cover.

As Karyn R. Lacy's innovative work in the suburbs of Washington, DC, reveals, there is a continuum of middle-classness among blacks, ranging from lower-middle class to middle-middle class to upper-middle class. Focusing on the latter two, Lacy explores an increasingly important social and demographic group: middle-class blacks who live in middle-class suburbs where poor blacks are not present. These "blue-chip black" suburbanites earn well over fifty thousand dollars annually and work in predominantly white professional environments. Lacy examines the complicated sense of identity that individuals in these groups craft to manage their interactions with lower-class blacks, middle-class whites, and other middle-class blacks as they seek to reap the benefits of their middle-class status.

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In Black on the Block , Mary Pattillo--a Newsweek Woman of the 21st Century--uses the historic rise, alarming fall, and equally dramatic renewal of Chicago's North Kenwood-Oakland neighborhood to explore the politics of race and class in contemporary urban America.

In this deeply researched and powerfully written exposé, Mike Steve Collins pulls back the curtain on the networks of power and influence that are pulling the strings to undo progress toward a more just and equitable society. The efforts of this anti-civil rights movement, as Collins calls it, most recently came to a head on June 23, 2023, when the US Supreme Court effectively ended affirmative action in higher education and opened the door to even more regressive policies, laws, and bans. The ruling was the fulfillment of a decades-long battle by right-wing activists and their networks to divide the country. As Collins sees it, American society is trapped in a style of thinking and decision-making that makes bad choices seem rational. Called a prisoner's dilemma by game theorists and a hermeneutic trap by Collins, this way of thinking has led to policy choices that make everyone worse off, in part by creating hostility between communities that could productively work together and form powerful coalitions. The work of the anti-civil rights movement, led by figures such as Edward Blum and Christopher Rufo, has repeatedly found ways to undermine the shared interests of the American people by splitting coalitions and pitting marginalized groups against each other even while claiming and perhaps feeling the highest of motives. From racial segregation in the 1960s to the modern boogeyman of critical race theory, conservative elites have wielded cultural and political wedges to expand their power to set the political, educational, and legal agenda. Affirmative action has long been a weapon of choice in conservatives' arsenal against social progress, and few have leveraged it as successfully--and detrimentally--as Edward Blum. In 2014, the year after he helped gut the affirmative action aspect of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder, Blum created Students for Fair Admissions and brought a suit against Harvard University for discriminating against Asian Americans. A decade later, this latest effort in a long string of traps and dilemmas became the Supreme Court case that upended affirmative action. Collins's groundbreaking work is a field guide to the personalities, funding, and dilemmas that characterize the ongoing war between the civil rights movement and the anti-civil rights movement--between the forces represented by figures such as Thurgood Marshall, a hero of the civil rights movement, and his replacement on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, a hero of the anti-civil rights movement. This book will help readers better understand the battles that have been fought in the past, where the next fight might take place, and what will be necessary in order to win.

About 337,000 people of French Antillean Origin live in metropolitan France today. Unlike immigrants from North Africa, Turkey or sub-Saharan Africa, Antilleans are French citizens with deep roots in French history. Indeed, the Caribbean Islands they come from have been a part of France for over three centuries. Antilleans were for many years an invisible population, dispersed throughout the Paris region, with few community organizations and little political activism. Beginning in the early 1980s, however, activists in the Antillean community began to recognize that their status as citizens would not protect them from the growth of racism in France. From neighborhood groups interested in promoting traditional Martinican and Guadeloupan dance and music to politically charged associations, these new cultural militants denounced French colonialism, challenged racism, and demanded political representation. Black Skins, French Voices is situated at the intersection of changing French ideas and policies regarding ethnic diversity and Antillean demands for recognition. It shows the creative and exciting struggles of Antilleans to remake French culture on their own terms.

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It's hard to imagine an issue or image more riveting than Black Germans during the Third Reich. Yet accounts of their lives are virtually nonexistent, despite the fact that they lived through a regime dedicated to racial purity.
Tina Campt's Other Germans tells the story of this largely forgotten group of individuals, with important distinctions from other accounts. Most strikingly, Campt centers her arguments on race, rather than anti-semitism. She also provides oral history as background for her study, interviewing two Black Germans for the book.

This title explores the political significance of ethnicity for new immigrant and native-born blacks. Utilizing an original survey of a New York City labour population and multiple national data sources, it concludes that racial and ethnic identities affect the ways in which black ethnic groups conceptualize their possibilities for advancement and placement within the American polity.