AAS/ANT 112 Midterm Exam Review Flashcards
African Diaspora
The voluntary and involuntary movement of Africans and their descendants to various parts of the world during the modern and pre-modern periods.
Unique because united by a past rooted in racial oppression, but not necessarily the desire to return to Africa.
Study of this diaspora must start with Africa. Complex, given the trajectories of people of African descent in different nation-states (ex: Jamaica vs US vs Brazil)
Ubuntu
Origin: South African Zulu and Xhosa
I am what I am bc of who we all are
Thinking in terms of collective identity, collective struggle, and communal sharing
Foodways
Menas to understand the way food and food customs have shaped group and iniduvuals indientides especially the cultural retentions of West Africa and how these were adapted within the New World
“We are what we eat and we are also what we don’t eat and that our present lives are influenced deeply by what our ancestors did or didn’t eat” (ex: pig intestines, pig feet)
Griot
A griot is a West African storyteller, singer, musician, and oral historian. They train to excel as orators, lyricists and musicians. The griot keeps records of all the births, deaths, marriages through the generations of the village or family.
Food = oral performance/ cooks as griots
The Clotilda
The schooner Clotilda was the last known U.S. slave ship to bring captives from Africa to the United States, arriving at Mobile Bay, in autumn 1859 or July 9, 1860, with 110 African men, women, and children.
Creolization
Not food but mixing of cultures to create something new and distinct
Yam and Sweet Potatoes (new world)
American cuisine is a creolization of food mixing
Cuisine
It is a product of history, A distinct body of doof prep and presentation, Presentation: Iconic rituals that mark culture and ethinic identity - ex dress, music, dance)
Cuisine: Product of Two Factors:
Dominant political cultures - African empires, imperialism, and colonization
Cultural exchange - trade, intermarraige, or religious conversation
Debt peonage
Large landowners who were also local stores exploited sharecroppers by keeping then in debt by deducting their earnings from purchases in their store, allowed slavery to keep having legally.
Sharecroppers
Sublease of land from the initial plantation
Food Rebels
Food Rebels: Groups who questioned the wisdom of eating traditional soul food:
Black Muslims (Nation of Islam)
Advocates of Natural Food,
College educated Black Americans
They question it as a means to uplift balck liberation not just saying soul food is bad for you but it is bad for you on black liberation
Juneteenth
Juneteenth commemorates an effective end of slavery in the United States. Juneteenth (short for “June Nineteenth”) marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed
Pullman car porters/Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
Founded in 1925 by labour organizer and civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) aimed to improve the working conditions and treatment of African American railroad porters and maids employed by the Pullman Company, a manufacturer and operator of railroad cars.
Pullman porters were men hired to work on the railroads as porters on sleeping cars. Starting shortly after the American Civil War, George Pullman sought out former slaves to work on his sleeper cars. Pullman porters served American railroads for 100 years from the late 1860s until late in the 20th Century.
Buffalo Soldiers
American Plains Indians who fought against these soldiers referred to the black cavalry troops as “buffalo soldiers” because of their dark, curly hair, which resembled a buffalo’s coat and because of their fierce nature of fighting. The nickname soon became synonymous with all African-American regiments formed in 1866.
Given the name by Native Americans who thought they had hair like buffalo. The 9th and 10th regiments of the US responsible for patrolling the Great Plains in New Mexico and Arizona. Experiences significant racial discrimination.
Formerly enslaved black man in charge of looking over the great plains.
Survailing indigenous people
What do members of a Diaspora share?
Emotional attachment and ancestral bond; Cognizant of their dispersa; Cognizant of their oppression or alienation in their new settled societies; Poses racial and ethinc, religious identity that transcends geography; Broad cultural similarities; Sometimes articulate a desire to return to their homeland
What is the significance of “soul food” as a foodway?
Speaks to social and economic inequality in the Black community
Explores the changing role of women
Uncovers culinary and cultural histories of oral traditions of Black culture
Used to lens to discuss health, race, and class issues
Seen as a means of maintaining community identification
Five Streams of the African Diaspora:
Pre Modern Era Movements:
1. Early humankind (100,000 years ago)
2. Bantu movement (3,000 BC)
3. Trading diaspora (beginning 5th century BC)
Modern Era Movements:
4. Transatlantic slave trade (5th centry)
5. 19th century until today (post emancipation)
What were the contested identities illustrated in the film, Black Is, Black Ain’t?
Test with a cone, shade of black, where they live, and kind of hair
Multiple identities not just one
Purpose of this film was to challenge what blackness was.
b. Masculinity
c. African American Homosexuality
d. Plight of a black women/ Sexuality, religion, education (Femininity)
e. Black and educated
f. Economic status
How was gumbo used as a metaphor about Black identity in Black Is, Black Ain’t?
The gumbo alludes to the diverse black community, symbolizing unity, communion, and inclusiveness.
Acknowledging differences in our community under this one pot of black identity
Communion: understand and respect differences but still part of the black identity
What are some of the parallels that the Black community faced in Black Is, Black Ain’t that still resonate today?
employment discrimination, occupational segregation, and unequal pay
Film made in the mid 1990s the director is detailing with dying from aids and how aids today continue to borrow in poor or discriminated sections, any type of public health is more in marginalized people. It is the system itself that makes them more volurbanle. Clips showed the aftermath of the police being arrested for beating a black person and then the charges were dismissed. Immediately following the charges being dismissed a rebellion happens with looting fires and violence. Similar to the George Floyd situation. Still dealing with police brutality, health issues, and taking to the streets still.
What were the contributions of the Igbo and Mande tribal people to the New World (US)?
Igbo traditions and use: Use of yam, palm oil, and kola nut - Hail from Biafra region for Nigeria
Mande traditions and use: Rice cultivators, curries
Both examples of impacts through food by slaves
Both from the West and want the rice cultivation
Mande people rice cultivars wanted by people in carolinas
What social movements were active in the United States in the 1960’s?
Mass mobilization against the Vietnam conflict, for civil rights and black liberation movements, and for women’s rights
i. Civil Rights Movement
ii. 1962: First black student enrolled in College; Lunch counter protests
iii. 1963: I have a dream
iv. 1964: 1st Civil Rights act passed
v. 1965: Civil rights march
What was happening on the continent of Africa during the 1960’s?
Reframing the Year of Africa: Independence as a Process
The year 1960 is known as the “Year of Africa,” when 17 countries across the continent celebrated the joy, excitement, and possibilities of independence. But liberation in Africa was more than this one moment in the global process of decolonization.
The Sharpeville massacre in South Africa took place on 21 March 1960, triggering mass underground resistance as well as international solidarity demonstrations. This event is sometimes cited as the beginning of worldwide struggle against apartheid.
How did activities lead to “food rebels”?
During civil rights and black power movements, breaking away from soul food became another way of resisting white man’s culture and returning to an idealized African culinary heritage
Nation of Islam and the White food conspiracy - the nation called for a site restricting pork, processed foods like white flour, white rice, bread, and sugar
Natural Health Food Advocates
Dick Gregory’s natural diet for folks who eat cooking with mother nature (1973)
Physical liberation through food
Quickest way to wipe out a group of people is having them eat soul food
African Americans eat properly will help their food and mind - plant based
Why is the Haitian revolution significant in the history of the African Diaspora as depicted in the film, Egalite?
Anti slavery document
Haiti was the first black republic
Haiti the only place were slaves created a nation
The Haiti revolution was a domino effect for the rest of the world
The constitution was very important because it made people recognize what was happening
USA reaction to Haiti becoming the first black republic they were shocked, USA did not recognize Haiti as a country 60 years later
