The purpose of this study cogitates two fundamental questions: how does geography happen to Black people and how do Black people 'happen' to geography? I examine this spatial paradigm of the Black body through the Black house kids; a collective of Black post-civil rights babies who participated in house music and house culture in Chicago between 1976-1993. I concentrate on the sociospatial processes-redlining, restrictive covenants, suburbanization, the rise of the post-1970 Black middle class-that altered the geographies of post-war Chicago for Black Chicagoans and unearth how the Black house kids responded to these shifts. I blend a hybrid of research practices and disciplinary theories, including: Black Geographies, Ethnomusicology, and Africana Studies. To understand what occurs to the Black body as it lives in …show more content…
Black Chicagoans live in a second city-Black Chicago-as a result of the persistent maintenance of social apparatuses that are mapped into and onto the landscape of Chicago that contain Blackness. This geographic positioning of the Black body led to the Black house kids asserting their "a-where-ness" as the geographic other by acting as spatial agents; not solely in response to how geography has been used against them, but in the assemblage of contrasting places that disentangle how their alleged class, gender, ethnic, and sexual differences are spatialized (Massey). Through spatial engineering, including place-branding and re-purposing abandoned spaces, I conclude that the Black house community constructed protected spaces through house music and culture such as the dance floor - "Spaces that were made for everyone, but belong to us" (Miss Priss,
Michelle Boyd’s article “Defensive Development The Role of Racial Conflict in Gentrification” also focuses on gentrification addressing the failure to explain the relationship between racial conflict and its effect on gentrification. This article adds a new perspective to gentrification while studying the blacks as gentrifiers.
“The buildings in Harlem are brick and stone.and the streets are long and wide.but Harlem’s much more than these alone. Harlem is what’s inside.” (Hughes, 1945). Gordy realised that neighbourhoods also represented cultural cohesion where they could relate to each other.
A three generation African American family of five living in a small, substandard apartment in the city of Chicago faced many obstacles in order to thrive. Blacks often felt that they could “be somebody” when they saw the growing shopping districts, parks and lake side beaches as well as theaters, ballrooms and fancy hotels (Mays). While great strides had been taken in ...
In his collection of essays in Nobody Knows My Name, James Baldwin uses “Fifth Avenue, Uptown” to establish the focus that African Americans no matter where they are positioned would be judged just by the color of their skin. Through his effective use of descriptive word choice, writing style and tone, Baldwin helps the reader visualize his position on the subject. He argues that “Negroes want to be treated like men” (Baldwin, 67).
The award-winning book of poems, Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson, is an eye-opening story. Told in first person with memories from the author’s own life, it depicts the differences between South Carolina and New York City in the 1960s as understood by a child. The book begins in Ohio, but soon progresses to South Carolina where the author spends a considerable amount of her childhood. She and her older siblings, Hope and Odella (Dell), spend much of their pupilage with their grandparents and absorb the southern way of life before their mother (and new baby brother) whisk them away to New York, where there were more opportunities for people of color in the ‘60s. The conflict here is really more of an internal one, where Jacqueline struggles with the fact that it’s dangerous to be a part of the change, but she can’t subdue the fact that she wants to. She also wrestles with the issue of where she belongs, “The city is settling around me….(but) my eyes fill up with the missing of everything and everyone I’ve ever known” (Woodson 184). The conflict is never explicitly resolved, but the author makes it clear towards the end
As artists began to gain recognition in the artistic world, they continually represented what it meant to be black in America. Personalities and individualism were displayed through their work while simultaneously portraying the political, social, and economic conditions of being black. This idea runs parallel with Mary Louise Pratt’s (1990) definition of a contact zone. She defines it as a "term to refer...
The downgrading of African Americans to certain neighborhoods continues today. The phrase of a not interested neighborhood followed by a shift in the urban community and disturbance of the minority has made it hard for African Americans to launch themselves, have fairness, and try to break out into a housing neighborhood. If they have a reason to relocate, Caucasians who support open housing laws, but become uncomfortable and relocate if they are contact with a rise of the African American population in their own neighborhood most likely, settle the neighborhoods they have transfer. This motion creates a tremendously increase of an African American neighborhood, and then shift in the urban community begins an alternative. All of these slight prejudiced procedures leave a metropolitan African American population with few options. It forces them to remain in non-advanced neighborhoods with rising crime, gang activity, and...
Today there are many controversial subjects discussed throughout the media. One of the most discussed is race and the Black Lives Matter movement. Recently, I came across an article titled “The Truth of ‘Black Lives Matter’”, written by The Editorial Board. The article was published on September 3, 2015, to the New York Times. In the article, The Editorial Board writes about what they believe African Americans are facing as challenges in society today, including the all-too-common police killings of unarmed African-Americans across the country. The Editorial Board is right that some African Americans have been treated unfairly, but all ethnicities have been. Life is a precious thing that comprises all ethnicities. This brings us to ask; why
The book asks two questions; first, why the changes that have taken place on the sidewalk over the past 40 years have occurred? Focusing on the concentration of poverty in some areas, people movement from one place to the other and how the people working/or living on Sixth Avenue come from such neighborhoods. Second, How the sidewalk life works today? By looking at the mainly poor black men, who work as book and magazine vendors, and/or live on the sidewalk of an upper-middle-class neighborhood. The book follows the lives of several men who work as book and magazine vendors in Greenwich Village during the 1990s, where mos...
In today’s society, it is acknowledgeable to assert that the concepts of race and ethnicity have changed enormously across different countries, cultures, eras, and customs. Even more, they have become less connected and tied with ancestral and familial ties but rather more concerned with superficial physical characteristics. Moreover, a great deal can be discussed the relationship between ethnicity and race. Both race and ethnicity are useful and counterproductive in their ways. To begin, the concept of race is, and its ideas are vital to society because it allows those contemporary nationalist movements which include, racist actions; to become more familiar to members of society. Secondly, it has helped to shape and redefine the meaning of
In recent years the new house Negro is the middle-class black family and the field Negro is the lower-class Black family. The middle-class black family has done everything in his power to flee the stereotypes of the lower-class black. In "Faking the Funk: The Middle Class Black folks of Prince George`s County," by Nathan McCall, some middle-class blacks from an area called Prince George's county petitioned for a different zip code, because their current one too closely related them with Landover, a lower-class black community (275). The middle-class black family has fallen victim to classism whether he is willing to acknowledge it or not. The mentality of the middle-class black resembles "the white racist stereotype of Blacks" (Steele 266). For example the middle-class black sees the lower-class black as a lazy irresponsible person with no work ethic. The more negative images the middle-class black relates to the lower-class black the more the middle-class black tries to disembody himself from that image.
In this narrative essay, Brent Staples provides a personal account of his experiences as a black man in modern society. “Black Men and Public Space” acts as a journey for the readers to follow as Staples discovers the many societal biases against him, simply because of his skin color. The essay begins when Staples was twenty-two years old, walking the streets of Chicago late in the evening, and a woman responds to his presence with fear. Being a larger black man, he learned that he would be stereotyped by others around him as a “mugger, rapist, or worse” (135).
Immigrants have always been an important part of United States’ population. Each year, there are hundreds of thousands of immigrants, from all around the world, including legal and illegal, come into the United States for job opportunities, new life, or the American Dream. “Immigrants have contributed significantly to the development of the United States. During the Lincoln administration, immigrants were actually encouraged to come to America, as they were considered valuable to the development of the country.” (Soylu & Buchanan, 2013). They believe that the US will give them more freedom, protection, and opportunities, which sometimes it becomes the major issues for immigrants. That’s why “the U.S. population is becoming more racially and
There are many problems in today’s world, one of which is the existence of racism. Obviously it has improved dramatically over time, however racism is still out there in our every day lives. The movement Black Lives Matter has spread nationwide attracting the attention of many different parties. Black Lives Matter has had a large impact on the whole country with many people taking different stances on it.
Race and ethnicity are two terms that are constantly used in today’s society. Understanding these terms can help people to recognize that color of skin or color of hair does not define a person. These terms connect with history, social interaction, and the overall make up of a person. However America is constantly obsessed with labeling people by the way that they look or the way that they act. America seems to encourage the terms race and ethnicity and continue to divide people into categories. It is interesting to comprehend these terms because they are not going to disappear any time soon. Race and ethnicity are apart of America’s history and will be a part of the future.