African American Studies Commons^™

The Mask Strikes Back: Blackness As Aporia In Moby-Dick And Benito Cereno, Jerome D. Clarke

Student Publications

What is the American Gothic a reaction to? Whereas other thinkers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne locates the building blocks of the American Gothic in Puritan Christianity or Amerindian Genocide, I argue that Melville posits the genesis of chattel slavery and the construction of racial category as the repressed events that haunt the Americas and return uninvited. By using the Gothic motif of the living corpse, the famed writer of Moby-Dick addresses the social bereavement which Blackness comes to represent in the Americas. By looking for truth on the skin and flesh, the main characters of Moby-Dick and “Benito Cereno” represent …

The Dark Skin I Am In, Zakiya A. Brown

SURGE

“You know, you’re pretty for a dark skinned girl, but I’m sure people tell that all the time”

“Can I honestly tell you, that you are the prettiest dark skinned girl I know?”

Throughout my life I have received comments such as these. I’ve heard them from my mother’s colleagues, strangers, and sometimes my friends. They provoked me to think that somehow I genetically lucked out to be physically attractive even though I was cursed to live within dark skin. [excerpt]

Style Watch: Blackface Edition, Rashida Aluko-Roberts

SURGE

The above quote is from a statement/apology offered by Sebastian Kim, a photographer, whose recent editorial, “African Queen,” which featured a 16-year-old white female made to appear black, was marred with controversy. According to the photographer, dousing a young white female in deep bronze, accessorizing her in elaborate head wraps and heavy jewels (symbols that are often associated with Africa), was in no way an attempt to depict what an “African queen” looks like. Rather, his spread was attempting to showcase “the beauty aesthetic of his shoot” by using a “tanned or golden skin” model. [excerpt]

Remember The Fillmore: The Lingering History Of Urban Renewal In Black San Francisco, Christina Jackson, Nikki Jones

Africana Studies Faculty Publications

In the summer of 2008, I moved to San Francisco, California. I lived in the city for three months. As a researcher, my objective was to learn more about Mayor Gavin Newsome’s African-American Out-Migration Task Force. The Task Force convened in 2007 and met eight times from August to December. In 2009, the Mayor's office released a final report on the Redevelopment Agency's website that summarized the history of blacks in the city and outlined several recommendations for reversing their flight. The final report found that the political, economic, and social conditions of African-Americans are disproportionately more dire than any …

An Analysis Of Media Perceptions Regarding African Americans In Gettsyburg Throughout 1963, Brendan M. Shelley

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

On Monday, September 28, 1863, the Compiler, Gettysburg Pennsylvania’s Democratic newspaper, published an article taken from the Sussex Messenger about a black man forcing himself onto a white woman. The girl, daughter of Mr. Daniel Messick, was going from her father’s house which was just outside of the town limits to a neighbor’s home when she was suddenly assaulted by a black man. The man jumped out from behind thick brush and grabbed the girl. A struggle ensued and the assailant ripped off the girl’s clothing and put his hand over her mouth in order to keep her from …