Introduction
The book “Globalization and race: Transformations in the Cultural Production of Blackness”, explores a number of issues related to the race of the “black”. The book mainly revolves around diasporic movements, missions and modernities, geographies of racial belonging and the popular blackness and legitimacy.
The book is a collection of essays which explore the change in perception of the black people with recent developments in globalization. According to the author, “it illuminates the connections between contemporary global processes of racialization and trans-national circulations set in motion by imperialism and slavery.”
Several writers give their opinions which suggest that imperialism and slavery was still the order of the day in some ways. The main concern is the life of the black people who live away from home that is in the European and Americas. The author refers to this kind of people as Diaspora in the book. Some writers have tried to explore the contents of the book and why the “black other” is central in explaining the experiences of the African diaspora.
The first part of the book, entitled “Diasporic Movements, Missions, and Modernities,” shows how earlier models of racialized subject formation provide a foundation for the continuation or reinterpretation of these political, social, and economic identities in the current process of globalization.
In part two “Geographies of Racial Belonging,” the authors focus on clarifying how the mapping of diasporic circulations of belonging articulate with the kinds of relations that emerges in local fields of engagement. In the final section of the book, “Popular Blacknesses, Authenticity and New Measures,” the focus is explicitly on addressing the ways that “the mapping of race and space has also influenced, and has been influenced by, the production of popular cultural forms.”
Diaspora and Desire Gendering “Black America” in Black Liverpool By Jacqueline Brown
The term “Black Other” here means brother hood or rather identification with a fellow African. “The terms black Liverpool and black America, no less than the African diaspora, refer to ‘racialized’ geographies of the imagination. The mapping of racial signifiers onto geographical ones lends such terms the illusion of referring to physical rather than social locations. That there is no actual space that one could call “the African Diaspora”,” (Kamari and Deborah 73).
The researcher (Brown J.) did am investigation in the city of Liverpool, United Kingdom, in this essay the findings showed that the black Liverpool was attached to the Black American. According to Brown, “He became increasingly amazed at how frequently my informants would make discursive forays into “black America.” (Kamari and Deborah 73). Clearly this indicates that the “Black Liverpool” identified with the “Black America”. Thus the “Black Other” was a very essential factor in their social, political and cultural structures.
She argues that, Diaspora culture is not connected to the home land by citing the example, “Black Britons’ connection to black South Africans is based on neither a primary affiliation to Africa, romantic visions of a homogeneous African culture, nor shared Africanness; on the contrary, it is quite particular, deriving from “a common experience of powerlessness” understood in racial categories (Kamari and Deborah 158)” (Kamari and Deborah 75).
And further explains that, “Black Britain defines itself crucially as part of a diaspora. Its unique cultures draw inspiration from those developed by black populations elsewhere.” (Kamari and Deborah 75). This clearly shows that the “Black Other” is not the mother land “black” but the diaspora black mainly in America and the Caribbean.
In relation to sex, Black men explained that “the kinship they felt toward black women precluded the formation of any sexual desire for them” (Kamari and Deborah 76). However, the black seamen to Liverpool are credited to giving birth to the black community in Liverpool. The black race in Liverpool is largely associated with the black seamen. To explain further on how the black men associated with black women, different race relationships in Liverpool comprise a majority of black men and white women. (Kamari and Deborah 80).
“Mama, am Walking to Canada” Black Geopolitics and Invisible Empires By Naomi Pabst
This article examines the relationship between black subjectivity and geopolitics as one trans-historical manifestation of globalization. It emphasizes that, “Geopolitics is about the proverbial cultural studies homonym of “routes” and “roots.” It is about identity in relation to “place,” with place signifying dwelling and movement.” (Kamari and Deborah 298).
There is so much that is borrowed from the “Black America” for the “Black Canada”. However, Canada embraced multiculturalism as indicated by (Yolanda 240) “My point here is not merely about the politics of inclusion. Rinaldo Walcott says it well when he insists that it is enough that “black Canadas exist and will continue to do so”.
With regard to the experiences borrowed by the “Black Canada” from the “Black America,” there are a number of instances which are clearly manifested.
The book indicates that, “consequential fall-out for those transnational black subjects within and outside of the U.S. context who become black “others,” inauthentic and inappropriate blacks, in the wake of circulating ideologies of African Americanness that unintentionally set a standard for blackness locally and globally” (Kamari and Deborah 241). It is clear that the “Black America” set some standards for the Africa Diaspora which in turn may have been practiced by Black Canada.
As much as the Black Canada borrows much from the Black America life in America for Blacks, it is totally different from life for Blacks in Canada. Kamari and Deborah (242) illustrate that, “despite sharing certain manifestations of racial oppression, black Canada is not a replica of black America nor does racism in Canada replicate the U.S.’s. The black/white binary is not the primary racial formula in Canada”.
Therefore, the experiences of “Black Canada may be molded along the aggression of White Canada towards them. The behavior of “Black Canada” is widely borrowed from the Black America.
Recasting “Black Venus” in the “New” African Diaspora By Jayne Ifekunigwe
This piece of article directly connects the “Black Other” to the “Black Diaspora”. The article addresses continental African dispersals to Europe, highlighting the trafficking in West Africa (especially Nigerian) women to Italy as part of the global sex trade. It will enable the understanding of the effect of the black other in relation to the experiences of the Black diaspora.
“There are a number of ideas that attempt to draw together new African diasporas by looking backwards to an ideal African homeland and to sets of Afro-centric values that stream from this common origin” Kamari and Deborah (206) emphasizes.
The author explains the differences in the job opportunities for African men and women among the Europeans. Clearly, male and female exhibit extreme differences in terms of the job opportunities. Kamari and Deborah ( 207) argue that, “If one asks a recently arrived migrant woman today where the opportunities for work lie in Europe, she will tell you that apart from sex work or domestic work, the avenues for employment are closed to her (Yolanda 131)”.
The author argues that due the placement of the diaspora in a certain class, blacks may not be in a position to forge their way out. As implied in, “‘Otherness’, so common in work on representations of the socially oppressed, whether women, black people or working- class people. This ends up by placing the oppressed as objects within a previously conceptualized framework that denies them any consciousness to refuse their place” (Kamari and Deborah 208). Thus, their experiences may be affected by their current situation.
Havana’s Timba: A Macho Sound for Black Sex By Ariana Hernandez Reguant
‘Havana Timba’ was music that saturated the air, “It was the worst economic crisis in memory, yet the blasting beat was everywhere, playing on the radio along with new commercial advertisements and live at night clubs throughout the town” (Yolanda 249). The origin of the music is illustrated by this explanation, “ ‘Timba’ is “ a hard-edged form of salsa, but unlike New York style salsa, it is based as much on ‘rumba’, ‘bata’, and other traditional Afro-Cuban rhythms” (Kamari and Deborah 251).
This kind of music explains the spread of the black Culture and the importance of the “Black Other”. In this essay (Kamari and Deborah 251) explain the black experience through ‘Timba’, “Black experience at the heart of what it meant to be Cuban in a post-Soviet era caught the imperatives of socialist morality and market expansion”. It further explains that ‘Timba’, “naturalized blackness and along with its difference and inequality”.
The essay brings out the hyper sexuality of black men, “…nature and culture situated the black male on top-male hyper sexuality being a marker of superiority. … ‘Timba’ fixed black as a naturalize category and being black became an asset rather than a hindrance” (Kamari and Deborah 251).
In Conclusion, the route and roots of any diaspora explains the current experiences of the diaspora. The ‘other’ is the source of most of the experiences mainly because of the sense of belonging.
Works Cited
Kamari, Clarke; Deborah, Thomas. Globalization and race : transformations in the cultural production of blackness. Durham : Duke University Press, 2006.
Yolanda, Moses. Article Title: Globalization and Race: Transformations in the Cultural Production of Blackness. Durham : Duke University Press, 2006.