African Americans and Brazil in the 1920s: The Search for Eldorado

Meade and Pirio’s article makes several suggestive and useful points in addition to revealing an aspect of African American emigrationism usually not mentioned. They begin their analysis providing some context for the long history of emigrationism and its ties with black nationalism, pointing to Liberia in the 1840s being the best example. However, white philanthropists and racists who saw blacks as incapable of being integrated into American society supported this form of emigrationism. By the late 19th  and early 20th century, however, many black nationalists espoused emigration to Africa or elsewhere without the aid of white philanthropists, including Bishop Henry McNeal Turner and Chief Alfred Sam. Unfortunately, African American settlement in Africa proved to be impossible during this period since the entire continent besides Ethiopia and Liberia were under colonial rule, and neither of the aforementioned independent nations were willing to accept black settlers due to the resistance of European colonial powers. Since the possibility of a black-ruled territory in Africa was ruled out, some fringes of the Garveyite, black nationalist movement across the US began to focus on emigration to Brazil and Latin America to escape racism and form an autonomous black nation in the Americas that could act as a beacon of anti-colonial and black nationalist ideology for Africans.

Ironically, Brazil, beginning in 1889, promoted a policy of whitening or branquismo that barred entry to blacks while offering favorable deals for agricultural land or work to white immigrants from Europe and North America. The vast majority of the 4.1 million immigrants were whites, usually from Portugal, Spain, and Italy, who were concentrated in southeastern Brazil. However, black nationalists favoring emigration to Brazil kept promoting it through different UNIA chapters, the black press, and because Brazil lacked the explicit signs of racism and discrimination seen in the US. Falling prey to the racial paradise image Brazil wanted to export, blacks saw Brazil as a land where racial discrimination was non-existent, a land where a black man could even be elected president! Other blacks who actually visited Brazil during the 1920s realized that it was only possible for blacks to prosper if they were skilled workers or professionals, but many continued to believe it was a racial democracy because miscegenation was encouraged, which obviously deviates from the US policy of strict Jim Crow. Thus, because blacks, whites, and multiracial Brazilians were more likely to mix and the absence of obvious, explicit racist organizations or policies, African Americans saw Brazil as an Eldorado where black farmers and workers could create their own independent, black-governed society.

The Brazilian government pressured the US to reject visas of African Americans from entering the country during the period. However, since the Brazilian state did not want to tarnish its image of a racially tolerant nation, they never explicitly stated that race was the factor in denying entry to blacks from North America. According to Meade and Pirio, another reason for Brazilian state opposition to black nationalist settlers was a desire to insulate the race consciousness and politicized manifestations of Afro-Brazilian resistance. Although they are reluctant to admit it due to a lack of further evidence, both Pirio and Meade present evidence that black sailors knew of and participated in the spread of black nationalism across the Black Atlantic, including coastal Brazil. Furthermore, the rise of Frente Negra Brasileira, an Afro-Brazilian civil rights organization in the 1930s, suggests that the black nationalist politics of Garveyism did indeed permeate Brazilian society. The organization sought cultivation of racial pride, organized black militias, held military-style parades through Sao Paulo and Rio, and sponsored all-black commercial and industrial businesses and schools. Clearly, black nationalism, specifically that of Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association, resonated with and influenced Afro-Brazilian resistance to white supremacy.

Since black North Americans idealized Brazilian race relations while Afro-Brazilians themselves 

were living in society dominated by the whitening ideal, this gulf underscores the importance of comprehending race as a social construct. African-Americans, seeing the lack of organized white hate groups and formal, racist policies, even took the existence of a multiracial impoverished Brazil as evidence of racial democracy. This essay also opens up several questions as to the relationship between black nationalism and black civil rights movements in Brazil and Latin America and their relationship with the contemporary movements in the United States. Brazil, a nation where black nationalism and separatism were said to take place less frequently than the US, where a strict one-drop rule operates and clear demarcated lines for segregation of the races exists, nevertheless resembles the US because of racist immigration and domestic policies. In addition, the fluid, pro-miscegenation views of race developed in Brazil, though dividing people of African descent based on how much white ancestry they have, did not hide the goals of branquismo to reinforce a hierarchy where white tops everything else, regardless of the degree of racial mixing.

The only weakness of the article is the reluctance to identify the influence of Garveyism on the Black Movement of the 1930s and the later decades of it, during the 1970s. The authors also neglect to mention the role of Haiti as a destination and seeker of black immigration during the 1820s, when an estimated 6,000 African Americans actually settled in Haiti. Although most eventually left, some of their descendants can be found today in Samaná, Dominican Republic. Though Haiti was later rejected as a suitable location for black emigration, it’s early role in African American emigrationism and black nationalism cannot go unmentioned.

Racial Demographics of Cape Town, South Africa

Each dot represents 25 people.

Dear Lord

You know you're spending too much time sitting around at home doing nothing when you start watching Teen Titans, a show I have not watched since high school when I was passing time. I love television, however, and the past month has been a powerful reminder of that. Old black sitcoms from the glorious 1990s and various other classics, such as The Cosby Show have been a powerful reminder of my love and adoration of television. If only I could sit around the house all day, everyday and just watch.

Bill Cosby and The Great Fall of Black America

I don't agree with Cosby, but I hear what he's saying and still have some respect for him. Listen to his infamous "Poundcake Speech" where he derides the way poor blacks speak (Ebonics and slang), attacks black parenting, black criminality, and calling for a takeover of black neighborhoods by values of personal responsibility and strong families. Watch it here and read this insightful analysis of the surprising conservatism of Dr. Bill Cosby here. I personally believe there is an elusive middle ground between embracing personal responsibility and personal uplift and structural and institutional racism, but Cosby overemphasizes personal responsibility while stereotyping and castigating the black working-class and lower classes.

Milwaukee: The Most Segregated City in the US

Miriam Makeba in The Cosby Show

Say what you will about Bill Cosby, but his groundbreaking sitcom was and forever shall be linked to positive black images as well as countering racism. His show promoted African-American and African music, art, culture, history, and struggle even if the show was weak in tackling issues of daily experiences with racism that lower-class blacks encounter. I recently re-discovered that one of my favorite singers, Miriam Makeba, from South Africa, appeared on the show in "Olivia Comes Out of the Closet." As a child, I grew up watching the show and never made the connection that the famous international music legend and anti-apartheid activist Makeba appared on The Cosby Show. She speaks eloquently on the natural beauty of the African continent, the struggles against obstacles in South Africa (presumably a subtle way of referring to the anti-apartheid movement), and the mainstream depictions of Africa in totalizing narratives of poverty and chaos. Rest in peace, Makeba, I, as a younger soul, devoured not only your words but other well-known stars and figures in the African and African diasporic communities. Watch the clip I could find on youtube here.

I also wrote about The Cosby Show in a separate post that began a few years ago with a friend asking about my thoughts on the show's relevance to race relations. That can be found here if anyone is interested.

The "Orient" in the Caribbean

Two women of Indian descent brought as "coolie labor" in the post-emancipation period. New sources of cheap labor were required once former slaves continued to resist plantation-style labor and so cheap laborers were imported from India. The origins of the Indo-Caribbean communities in Guyana, Trinidad, parts of the French Caribbean, and their subsequent migrations to New York City are a result of this 19th century movement. Today, more than half of Guyana's population is of Indian descent and Trinidad's is nearly half.

Nago/Yoruba Slaves in Saint Domingue

The above refers to the percentage of enslaved peoples on plantations in different provinces of colonial Haiti who were of "Nago" or Yoruba origins, coming from the Bight of Benin. Apparently, during the 18th century, nearly 2 out of every 10 slaves were sold to work in Saint Domingue with the majority of the rest going to Bahia, Brazil, according to this wondrous site here. As the author of the piece explains, the concept of a Yoruba identity really did not exist until the 19th century. Like other ethnonyms projected upon Africans sold into slavery in the Americas, Nago reflected a distorted European view of enslaved peoples' ethnic and cultural identities as well as something redefined by slaves on the ground as they mixed with one another in the Americas. The link above explains that Nago referred to a specific group of Yoruba-speaking peoples (who occupy what is now southwestern Nigeria and parts of Benin) and somehow spread to refer to other presumably Yoruba-speakers sold into slavery. In other parts of the Americas, Nago was also widely used to refer to people who are now called Yoruba. In Cuba, the word Lucumi was also used, perhaps referring to a sub-group that was over-represented or conflated with the entirety of the Yoruba in 19th century Cuba. Regardless, the concept of a "Yoruba" identity really dates to the 19th century and most of the "Nago" in Saint Domingue would have not understood or considered themselves Yoruba. Either way, the "Yoruba" diaspora in the Americas is clearly quite extensive and their influence lives on to this day in Nago rites of Haitian Vodou, Cuban Santeria, Brazilian Candomble, and elsewhere. 

Song of Solomon

"On Wednesday the 18th of February, 1931, I will take off from Mercy and fly away on my own wings. Please forgive me, I loved you all."

Black African Immigrants in Metropolitan Washington

African-Born Blacks, 2005	Washington, D.C. Metro Area	United States
Total number	114,101	870,744
Country of origin (%)
Ethiopia	19	12
Nigeria	12	18
Sierra Leone	12	3
Ghana	10	9
Cameroon	9	3
Liberia	4	7
Somalia	3	7
Guinea	3	1
Sudan	2	3
Eritrea	2	2
Educational attainment, ages 25+
Less than high school (%)	8	12
Bachelor’s degree or higher (%)	42	38
Limited English proficient (%)	38	38
Below poverty (%)	11	21
Median household income (2005)	$52,998	$36,691
Percent unemployed	7	9
Occupation, ages 16+ (%)
Management, professional	35	31
Service	25	27
Sales and office	23	22
Construction, extraction, maintenance	5	3
Production, transportation	11	16
Other	1	2

Source: Author's analysis of the 2005 American Community Survey. The Washington metropolitan area includes the District of Columbia, five counties in Maryland, 15 jurisdictions in Virginia, and one county in West Virginia. The population includes all those born in Africa to non-U.S. citizens who identified as black alone or black in combination with another race.

Riley Wuz Here

As a long-time fan of The Boondocks since it's inception in the comics, I've always wondered why Huey and Riley live with their grandfather. The first episode of season one of the television show explains how their grandfather purchased a house in the lily-white suburb of Woodcrest with the inheritance money of Huey and Riley, implying their parents are dead. One of my favorite episodes of the first season, "Riley Wuz Here," features Riley using a picture dear to the heart of his grandfather to prove that he was indeed the skilled artist responsible for the wondrous graffiti on properties in the neighborhood. I have heard different interpretations for who is actually depicted in this picture. Some, for instance, believe it to be Granddad and his wife whereas others see it as a depiction of Huey and Riley's parents. The young man does not really resemble the earlier depictions of youthful Granddad so I am leaning more toward the parents of Huey and Riley now. Either way, Granddad breaks into tears and photographs the piece as a memento to the dearly beloved. Besides this rare moment of family history for the Freeman clan, the use of Tom Scott's "Today" was unquestionably one of the best music selections for the series.

Anti-Abraham Lincoln Propaganda

Caribbean Migration to the US

Walter Sisulu burning apartheid-era pass

French Colonial Portraiture of a Slave Woman

Beautiful piece with a woman wearing the typical tignon associated with slave women in the Caribbean and Louisiana. One site on Haitian culture uses the painting as an example of portraiture of a "Haitian" or Saint-Dominguan woman in the 18th century. Some refer to the piece as Portrait of a Haitian Woman or Portrait d'une femme haïtienne by François Malépart de Beaucourt in 1786. Regardless of her exact origins in France's vast 18th century colonial empire, images like these of enslaved people are fascinating from a personal and historical perspective.

"New" Immigrants and Ethnic Communities in New York, 1990

According to this, Afro-Caribbeans "do better" than Dominicans yet trail behind Asian Indian and somewhat behind Cubans when living in suburbs of New York, according to data from 1990. Although by and large the Afro-Caribbean group is far more likely to speak English only and therefore presumably have better chances of upward social mobility, they're behind Asian Indian immigrants. With the opening of immigration laws after 1965, Asians, Africans, Latin Americans, and Afro-Caribbean immigrants have been able to establish ethnic enclaves, neigborhoods, and even their own suburban communities in metropolitan New York. The Dominicans, as a group of African descent and lacking proficiency in English, are likely on the receiving ends of anti-black prejudice and anti-Latino attitudes and may find more difficulty securing upward social mobility compared to Afro-Caribbeans, who, though also of African descent, include mostly Anglophone peoples. However, the Afro-Caribbean group includes groups like Haitians, who, like Dominicans, are not English-speakers and are less likely to come to the US with a college degree or skills like other Caribbean immigrants from Trinidad, Jamaica, or Guyana. The Cuban group, like Dominicans, are Spanish-speakers, but because the majority of Cubans in the New York metro area are likely "white" or of European descent, their access to racial privilege and ability to assimilate faster into white New York and its environs gives them an advantage of darker-skinned Dominicans. As for Asian Indians, the "most successful" group in terms of poverty rates and high occupation status, their status likely reflects a greater proportion of the population coming from South Asia with specialized degrees and gaining high status jobs. However, in terms of suburbanized Afro-Caribbeans, Cubans, and Asian Indians living in neighborhoods not dominated by their own race (likely mostly white suburban areas), Asian Indians are only doing better than Cubans and Afro-Caribbean groups by around 6000 and 9000 dollars more in median household income. In order to gain a better idea of differences in income and class between the groups, one must uncover the working status of two-parent households and then do intergenerational studies of the 2nd and 3rd generations of each group.

Las Cantigas de Santa Maria: The Depiction of Interracial Illicit Sex in a Christian Spanish Text

Sun Ra's Lanquidity

Sun Ra's Lanquidity is jazz-funk, and good stuff! It's nice to hear the Arkestra get down to this space-age funk.

Latino Attitudes Toward Blacks, Asians, and Whites

Though oudated data (from 1990), there is nothing surprising about the attitudes of three different Latino groups toward other racial groups. Cuban-Americans largely self-identify as "white" and therefore their higher numbers for Asians over Blacks and whites over Asians is no surprise. Puerto Ricans in the US include more people of African descent and live in or work with African-Americans more often than Mexicans and Cubans, thus their preference of Blacks over Asians is not too surprising. Perhaps because many Puerto Ricans in this 1990 survey included "white Puerto Ricans," and broader normative whiteness in the US, whites are still on the receiving end of more favorable attitudes from Puerto Ricans than both Blacks and Asians. Mexicans prefer whites almost as much as Cubans but still reported more favorable attitudes of Blacks over Asians.