The Birth of African-American Culture: An Anthropological Perspective

Rating:
Summary: Old Wine/New Bottle? Depolarizing African-American Culture
Review: 'The Birth of African-American Culture: An Anthropological Perspective' is an early 1970s reaction to the 'swift' establishment of Afro-American and Black Studies programmes within the U.S. American Universities, in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement. Its authors-Sidney Mintz and Richard Price-feared that, with the 'explosion' of general interest in Black History, ideological concerns might sidetrack the invaluable 'scholarly quest' previously established by the likes of W.E.B. Du Bois and Zora Neale Hurston (in the U.S.A.) Jean Price-Mars (in Haiti) or Fernando Ortiz (in Cuba) to name a few. Therefore, 'The Birth of African-American Culture' cautiously offers strategies/approaches to study the Afro-American past that would do justice to the complexity of the subject. Its central thesis, supported both by documentary material and speculation, is straightforward: continuities between the so-called 'Old' and 'New' Worlds must be established on a comprehension of the 'basic conditions' under which the migrations of 'enslaved Africans' took place.
Today, that the analysis of the development of Afro-American culture should focus on 'process' is no longer an issue; the works of renowned scholars such as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Lawrence W. Levine are a testimony to it. In a sense, these academics vindicate Mintz and Price who, two decades earlier, have emphasised the need for more analytical subtlety, flexibility, and sound socio-historical research in Afro-American Studies. What is more, Mintz and Price are aware of the book's achievement, even though, in its 1992 re-edition, caution is still strong in the way they reassert their belief in a two decade-old thesis. For example, in the new preface, Mintz and Price repeat that the unavoidable fact in the study of Afro-America is 'the humanity of the oppressed, and the inhumanity of the systems that oppressed them.' Both believe that such oppression 'has by no means ended should be clear to everyone, as it is to us.'
The text of 'The Birth of African-American Culture', including introduction and conclusion, is eighty-five pages long; yet amazingly it covers a broad range of complex issues focused on slave society, from the origins and beginnings of Afro-American societies and cultures to questions of kinship and sex roles therein. In their rigorously balanced, albeit too tentative at times, analysis of Afro-American Culture the authors rightfully argue that the transfer of culture intact from Africa to the Americas is more fiction than reality. Mintz and Price believe that 'Retentions' and 'Survivals' are more the exception than the rule in any group's transport of beliefs and values from one locale to another (Europeans included).
The Birth of African-American Culture is thought provoking; it is still very useful in the scholarship on slavery, and issues of the origins and development of Afro-American culture. It is also a must-read for those Africans who refuse to be carelessly melted in the pot of global Blackness. Because of never-ending and multifaceted oppression, contemporary Africans and Afro-Americans still need to negotiate an awful number of complex issues before being 'brothers' and 'sisters': it has been so for centuries despite the numerous bonds that (do) exist between members of the Black Diaspora. Like Mintz and Price, it is my profound conviction that 'the nature of oppression, while obvious in its most familiar forms, involves subtleties as well, one of these being the way it divides and confuses honest [souls] by perpetuating suspicion and fear.' However, in its future editions, 'The Birth of African-American Culture''s authors need to:
(1) Go beyond offering startegies/approaches to the study of the Afro-American past, and present results of such studies, albeit selectively, if only to corroborate and strengthen their own thesis/be bolder in their arguments. I believe that Mintz and Price missed this opportunity two decades after the first publication of their book but, still, it can be done;
(2) Spend time to explain to the reader how 'Caribbeanist' scholars like themselves can write about (Afro-) 'American' culture. In other words the intertwined issues of what 'America' is, what 'Americans' are and how they relate to the subject matter of 'The Birth of African-American Culture' must be tackled in much detail and clarity.