The End of Black Studies

Conceptual, Theoretical, and Empirical Concerns

Clovis E. Semmes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138674660
• eBook ISBN: 9781317200611
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: African American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Following a history of racial oppression and segregation, Black Americans were able to move in greater numbers into previously all- or predominantly-White colleges and universities. However, they encountered normative structures that excluded or distorted the Black experience and denied Black perspectives. As a result, Black studies grew up reconstructing the humanity of a historically oppressed, devalued, and exploited group. Knowledge production in Black studies offers distinct insights into the strength and resiliency of the human spirit and poses exemplary models for enlightened social change.

This book examines the foundational parameters and historical mission of the field of African-American Studies, which emerged from a broad-based Black intellectual tradition defined by the metaproblem of cultural hegemony. Semmes seeks to broaden our thinking about the scope and content of Black studies. The End of Black Studies identifies Afrocentric or Black-centered approaches to knowledge production that are distinctly different from, yet inclusive of, a historiographical emphasis on ancient Egypt, but alternative to the claim of a singular African worldview.

This book will appeal to students and scholars interested in the field of Black Studies, including African American studies, Africana studies, Africology, and Pan-African studies. It will be a source of critical discussion for graduate seminars examining theory building and/or knowledge production (research and writing) in Black studies.

The End of Black Studies has received the 2017 Outstanding Book Award from the National Council for Black Studies. Read the Introduction for free online using our eBook widget >>

1 The End of Black Studies and the Closing of Oppositional Discourse

A perennial problem facing Black intellectual discourse is the failure to articulate a comprehensive theory of White supremacy. This is not to say that African-descent scholars and others have not periodically addressed this problem,¹ but the tendency in the broader society is to shift intellectual discourse away from a full and sustained examination of this phenomenon. Discourse is limited to the language of race versus class and debates over their relative strength and value. Shifts from discussions of equity to those of diversity are similarly limiting. White supremacy, as it has been exhibited via Western expansion and domination, is one of the most significant forces shaping human history in the last 500 years. It is foundational to all human-freedom issues created by Western-capitalist expansion. Moreover, development of a comprehensive theory of White supremacy, which must accompany all theory development regarding Black cultural and institutional development, is a fundamental end (purpose) of Black studies. Without such theoretical work, Black studies as an emancipatory and credible academic enterprise, comes to a functional end.

White Supremacy and Cultural Hegemony

White supremacy is not purely a conservative ideology; it has fluid customary manifestations that exist systemically in radical, liberal, and conservative variants of everyday discourse and representations. Capitalism cannot be divorced from White supremacy, and both tend to absorb oppositional and transformative social forces in ways that affirm the subordination of African Americans and other groups who have been historically oppressed by Eurocentric, imperial, cultural-economic systems. This form of oppression operates through the vehicle of cultural hegemony and tends to weaken or contain group efforts at transformation and elevation through either segregation (isolation) or assimilation (negation) or both. Further, when I say cultural hegemony I am alluding to a metaprocess that is dialectical and the result of a historical trajectory involving European expansion and contact in the world.²

By dialectical I mean the historically situated emergence of oppositional phenomena that create a profound need for societal resolution and transcendence. The specific social context of these penetrating oppositional phenomena determines the character and degree of tension produced and the type of resolution and transcendence required. With respect to an African diaspora, the context to which I am referring is the master–slave (and later, colonizing) experience spawned by the European exploitation of African labor and land, which, among other things, forced a shift in the perspective of oppressed African peoples. In the context of European exploitation becoming a slave required not only physical bondage but also intense cognitive accommodation. Thus, there emerged among the oppressed group varying degrees of acceptance of the worldview(s) of the oppressor and the right of the oppressor to extend or withhold legitimacy to all forms of social construction. The normal requirements of White supremacy tended to destabilize and/or negate the institutional arrangements of the oppressed or enslaved group, and the disruption, negation, and control of social organization of necessity involved cultural manipulation and regulation.

The most critical dialectic of this metaprocess and historical trajectory is the rotation of perspective, where the objective of the oppressor is to impose his/her view and interpretation of the world on the oppressed. Thus, a deep structured dialectical tension is sustained through normative institutions of ideation. The form, complexity, and significance of these institutions may vary over time, but they remain as essential tools in the social reconstruction and maintenance of White supremacy.³ The myth of superiority becomes hidden in everyday life and as Frantz Fanon observed long ago, “The rigor of the system made the daily affirmation of a superiority superfluous.”⁴ The dialectic embedded in the historically based rotation of perspective pervades the Black existence. W.E.B. Du Bois has called this double consciousness and observed that a Black person in America lives in “a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world.”⁵ Carter G. Woodson has simply referred to this process as “mis-education.” He observed:

The Negro’s mind has been brought under control of his oppressor. The problem of holding the Negro down, therefore, is easily solved. When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his “proper place” and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.⁶

And, as we shall examine later, African American sociologist E. Franklin Frazier provided an important foundational work through which to understand the basis of the above dialectic when he scrutinized global European expansion and conquest in his classic study, Race and Culture Contacts in the Modern World.

Normative Structures of Whiteness

I argue that Whiteness involves a collective consciousness held by groups of people who see themselves linked genetically, historically, and culturally to traditions that derive from Greek, Roman, and Germanic roots. It is guided by a worldview that embodies belief in the myth of a White-only, exclusive Judaic tradition and a White-only, imperial (but interpreted as universal) historiography of Roman Christianity. Whiteness and its sacred underpinnings involve various schisms, but there is a sharing of myths related to historical origins. This historical and group consciousness is symbolized phenotypically (somatic norms and ideals) as well as through sacred lore (religious myth and representation). It is also manifested in performance and phantasy (cartoons, comic books, motion pictures, video games, TV shows, theatrical productions, and the like). White supremacy is the process by which the culture that sustains this collective consciousness of Whiteness categorically appropriates the preeminent right (power) to define (legitimize or extend recognition and respect) all sacred and secular phenomena, rank intelligence and cultures phenotypically, and create and preserve social systems that result in the distribution of goods and resources hierarchically, with Whiteness and the preservation of Whiteness as the principal criteria for ascendancy to the status of ruling or controlling elites. We also must understand that human collectives who find themselves under the umbrella of Whiteness are not monolithic. There is variation and intra-group competition for power and status. Distinctions within religious groupings, such as Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish, are essential but not definitive to understanding this variation and the competition for status and power.

The collective consciousness of Whiteness is preserved in everyday representations of social reality. For example, for federally mandated affirmative action purposes, employers typically ask applicants for jobs to voluntarily identify their race and/or ethnicity through completion of an affirmative action form. However, in doing so, applicants are at the same time validating underlying social constructions of White supremacy through the way that race and ethnicity are defined. These racial and ethnic definitions are as follows:

1. 1 Hispanic—A person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race.
2. 2 American Indian or Alaska Native—A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) who maintains cultural identification through tribal affiliation or community attachment.
3. 3 Asian—A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian Subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.
4. 4 Black or African American—A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa.
5. 5 Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander—A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands.
6. 6 White—A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.⁷

There are at least two main contradictions in these categories that reveal the social constructions of White supremacy and that specifically subordinate African Americans relative to other groups. The first is that African Americans or Blacks are denied ethnicity. Self-identification and community attachment are ignored as defining features of a Black identity. The second is that Blacks are the only group who are not part of any original people anywhere. This contradicts the fact that archeological finds in Africa constitute the earliest and most complete record of the origins of human kind.⁸ In contrast, Whites are depicted as the original people of Europe (a peninsula of Asia), North Africa, and the Middle East, a veiled but false claim to have been responsible for African (Black) civilization building in North Africa. The category Hispanic, of course, includes, in reality, New World peoples of Native and African descent whose ancestors were subjected to Spanish enslavement, oppression, and cultural hegemony. However, this category may also include the descendants of Spaniards.

A graphic example of the legal expression of normative White supremacy was the plight of Mostafa Hefny, a naturalized American citizen who had contacted me about his struggle some years ago. Mr. Hefny was waging a battle against the United States government to be declared Black instead of White. He noted his dark complexion and African features, but because he was a naturalized citizen who was from Egypt, the US Department of Immigration Directive Number 15 classified him as racially White.⁹ Legally, although mythically, the United States government designated the original people of North Africa as White.

The collective consciousness of Whiteness is characteristically imbedded in supremacist constructions and normatively reproduces racist and denigrating representations when it comes to people of African descent. I am reminded of the time when American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) apologized after some of its employees and the North Carolina NAACP complained about the use of an image of a monkey to depict African customers. An in-house magazine that was distributed to 300,000 employees showed customers from around the world talking on the telephone. All of the characters were human except in Africa where the magazine used an image of a monkey.¹⁰ It is revealing that this racist imagery escaped notice through the various phases of approval and production that one would expect in a multinational, multibillion-dollar corporation.

Popular culture presents other examples of normative White supremacy. British imperialism and generalized White supremacy are normatively legitimized through the character of James Bond. Through the image of this popular motion picture hero, we receive the racial image of a character who commands dominion over the air, the sea, and the land. Bond has complete control over all technology. His culture provides him with superior weaponry, but it is his native instincts, his genetic heritage, that allows him to survive and conquer others for his country. We learn not to question Bond’s intrusions into other cultures and nations; we learn not to question his use of deadly force. After all, he has a license to kill. Finally, his phenotype and national culture are glorified through the myth of his sexual attraction. Beautiful women of all races and cultures are drawn to Bond and mesmerized by his sexual allure. Bond does not seek these women; they come to him and gain pleasure by pleasing him.

Another iconic character in popular culture, Tarzan, “king of the jungle,” is a cousin of James Bond in terms of conveying White supremacy as a normative universal condition. Tarzan is the embodiment of the nature/nurture arguments where European colonizers debated the humanity of African peoples and other non-Whites. Is European (White) domination a forgone conclusion because of White genetic superiority or are non-Whites simply suffering from cultural inferiority that could be altered if only they could be nurtured under European cultural tutelage? Both perspectives are steeped in racist assumptions, but the Tarzan myth leans toward the view of genetic superiority. Tarzan, though raised by apes, easily rises to dominate the animals and humans (non-Whites) in his environment, despite his disadvantaged circumstances at birth. Through his genetic superiority, Tarzan becomes “king of the jungle,” but, like James Bond, genetic and cultural superiority become linked in normative constructions of Whiteness relative to non-Whites, particularly peoples of African descent or those who White society have defined as Black or Negro. Tarzan and James Bond are cousin icons of normative White supremacy. They are universally known and accepted, reproduced over and over again in popular culture, and represent the myth that Whites naturally dominate (and should dominate) in any culture or environment outside of their own. Most importantly, the right to dominate and control others is represented as normal.

The following comments by a hero of US culture further reflects the dialectic imbedded in normative constructions of White supremacy:

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes (sic), nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Publication Acknowledgments
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The End of Black Studies: Conceptual, Theoretical, and Empirical Concerns
• 1 The End of Black Studies and the Closing of Oppositional Discourse
• 2 Minority Status and the Problem of Legitimacy
• 3 Religion and the Challenge of Afrocentric Thought
• 4 Existential Sociology or the Sociology of Group Survival, Elevation, and Liberation
• 5 Foundations in Africana Studies: Revisiting Negro Digest/Black World, 1961–1976
• 6 The Normative Assault on Black Studies
• 7 Entrepreneur of Health: Dick Gregory, Black Consciousness, and the Human Potential Movement
• 8 E. Franklin Frazier’s Theory of the Black Family: Vindication and Sociological Insight
• Conclusions: Toward the End of Black Studies
• Index