Diaspora Blackness in the Caribbean: A Radical Resource
Blackness is often only discussed in an American context, without an understanding of its social, political, economic, and cultural interconnections to the rest of the Afro-Atlantic, Europe, Asia, and the continent of Africa. Far too many Black folks in America remain unconcerned or without knowledge of the African Diaspora worldwide. It is imperative for Blackness to be understood in an international context, as Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael and other Black freedom fighters attempted to do so in the formation of their own radical consciousness and revolutionary politics. The following resources and media are not by any means exhaustive, but an attempt to hold Black millennials in the Western hemisphere accountable for developing a complex, internationalist analysis as Afro-descendants, particularly in respect to the radical history of Black power movements in the Caribbean. Resources will be given on Puerto Rico, Barbados, Martinique, Guyana, Haiti, Suriname, Grenada, the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, the Virgin Islands (U.S.), Jamaica, and Trinidad.
Puerto Rico
“The ‘making’ of the Puerto Rican nation has been a conflicted and complicated process. The so-called harmonious integration of the ‘three races’ (European, African, and Taino) stemmed from the imposition of Eurocentric power over the Tainos and the Africans; the fusion resulted from the rape and coercive sexual appropriation of subordinated indigenous and African women. In light of this, we urge Afro-Puerto Ricans and all Puerto Ricans to reject the myth that we are all the product of an ‘indissoluble fusion of three races’. The mythical view that the Puerto Rican is the fusion of three races, compounded by the perfunctory declaration that all Puerto Ricans are African on one side or the other, has operated to silence, veil and marginalize Afro-Puerto Ricans. The state and the political parties, the church, the academy, and the public education system as well as other institutions, including the family, have all conspired in this operation. Together, they have exerted an ideological and psychological control that has often precluded Afro-Puerto Ricans from speaking as to one to collectively denounce and defy our discrimination and marginalization.”
— Miriam Jimenez Roman, the Afro-Latin@ Reader
Notable Afro-Puerto Rican figures: Dominga Cruz, Isabel La Negra, Basquiat (also Haitian), Rafael Hernandez, Pedro Albizu Campos, Jesus Colon, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, Rosie Perez, Arroyo Pizarro, Marcos Xiorro, Felipe Luciano, Pete “El Conde” Rodriguez, Tego Calderon, Kelis, Ozuna, and Pilar Barbosa.
Books: Remixing Reggaeton: The Cultural Politics of Race in Puerto Rico. Slave Revolts in Puerto Rico: Conspiracies and Uprisings, 1795–1873. Afro-Puerto Rican Music: Cultural Studies and the Resurgence of Bomba. In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam. Imposing Decency: The Politics of Sexuality and Race in Puerto Rico, 1870–1920.
Joints:
Afraid of Neither Death or Prison: the life of Dominga Cruz Becerril
From bozal to boricua: Implications of Afro-Puerto Rican Language in Literature.
A brief History of the Afro-Boricano.
Puerto Rico and Africa: Elements of Yoruba Culture
If God were Black and from Loiza: Managing Identities in A Puerto Rican Seaside Town.
Tego Calderon: Reggaeton On Black Pride
Police Brutality and Unjustified Lethal Force In Puerto Rico
Between Blackness and Latinidad in the Hip-Hop Zone
Barbados
Notable Afro-Barbadian figures: Audre Lorde, Bussa, Grandmaster Flash, Doug E. Fresh, Grantley Adams, Samuel Jackman Prescod, Rihanna, Frank Leslie Walcott, Granville Williams, and Sara Ann Gill.
Books: Black Rebellion in Barbados: The Struggle Against Slavery, 1627–1938. Pan Africanism in Barbados: An Analysis of the Activities of the Major 20th Pan African formations in Barbados. Empire and Nation Building in the Caribbean, Barbados 1937–66. The Children of Africa In the Colonies: Free People of Color in Barbados In the Age of Emancipation.
Joints: The Slave Drivers’ War: Bussa and the 1816 Barbados Slave Rebellion.
Slave Revolts and Conspiracies in 17th Century Barbados.
The Creole Residue in Barbados
Martinique
“The history of slave emancipation in the French West Indian colony of Martinique suggests the complexity of social forces and political projects involved in the abolition of slavery…To speak schematically, a ‘revolution from above’ converged with a ‘revolution from below’.”
— Dale W. Tomich, Through the Prism of Slavery: Labor, Capital, and World Economy
Notable Afro-Martinican figures: Franz Fanon, Eduard Glissant, Laurent Valere and Aime Cesaire.
Books: French Caribbeans in Africa: Diasporic Connections and Colonial Administration. Sweet Liberty: The Final Days of Slavery in Martinique.
Joints: Discourse on Colonialism.
The Survival of Names of African Origin in Martinique.
Martinique: The African Flowers of the Caribbean and Die-Hard Slavery Resistance People.
Guyana
Notable Afro-Guyanese figures: Akara, Jack Gladstone, Quamina, Walter Rodney, and Forbes Burnham.
Books: Ideology and Change: The Transformation of the Caribbean Left.
Joints: She Who Returned Home: The Narrative of An Afro-Guyanese Activist.
Gender, Ethnicity, and Place: Women and Identities in Guyana.
Forbes Burnham: The Black Past Remembered.
Haiti
Notable Haitian figures: Sanite Belair, Cecil Fatiman, Touissant L’Overture, Jean-Jaques Dessalines, Garcelle Beauvais, Maxwell, Basquiat (also Puerto Rican), Nemours Jean-Baptiste, Coupé Cloué, Master Dji, Webert Scott, Jean Bertrand Aristide, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, Manno Charlemagne, and Emeline Michel.
Books: Damning the Flood: Haiti and the Politics of Containment. Diaspora, Politics, and Globalization. Choosing Their Own Style: Identity Emergence Among Haitian Youth in Quebec.
Joints: The 1915 U.S. Invasion of Haiti: Examining A Treaty of Occupation
Haitian Rara and Dominican Gaga
Needed, But Unwanted: Haitian Immigrants and their Descendants in the Dominican Republic
The Haitian Diaspora in the United States
Yoruba Influences on Haitian Vodou and New Orleans Voodoo
Cuba
Notable Afro-Cuban figures: Antonio Maceo y Grajales, Machito, Celia Cruz, Chano Pozo, La Lupe, the Afro-Cuban All Stars, Las Krudas, Arsenio Rodriguez, Ju Ju C., Gina Torres, Dayme Arocena, Mongo Santamaria, and Mario Bauzá.
Books: Guarding Cultural Memory: Afro-Cuban Women In Literature and the Arts. Afro-Cuban Identity in Post-Revolutionary Novel and Film: Inclusion, Loss, and Cultural Resistance. Cuban Women and Salsa: To the Beat of their Own Drum. Suspect Freedoms: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Cubanidad in New York, 1823–1957. The Power of Race in Cuba: Racial Ideology and Black Consciousness During the Revolution.
Joints: From Black Cuban to Afro-Cuban: Researching Race in Cuba
Rapping Rebellion: Hip-Hop As a New Social Movement in Cuba
Suriname
Notable Afro-Surinamese figures: Boni, Ruth Jacott, Remy Bonjasky, and Clarence Clyde Seedorf.
Books: “What’s Identity Got to Do with It?” Remaking Identity In Light of the Mati Work in Suriname — Female Desires: Same-sex Relations and Transgender Practices Across Cultures. In the Shadows of Slavery: Africa’s Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World. Post-Colonial Immigrants and Identity Formations in the Netherlands.
Joints: Sexual Globalization and Heteronormativity: The Case of Suriname.
The Politics of Passion: Women’s Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Culture.
Slave Uprising — Tempati Rebellion
Grenada
“They said that 95 percent of our population is Black — and they had the correct statistic — and if we have 95 percent of predominantly African origin in our country, then we can have a dangerous appeal to 30 million Black people in the United States.”
— Maurice Bishop, Hunter College
Notable Afro-Grenadian figures: Julien Fédon, Craig David, Maurice Bishop, Louise Little, Malcolm X, and Leslie Pierre.
Books: Gunboat Democracy: U.S. Interventions In the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Panama. Decolonizing and Feminizing Freedom: A Caribbean Genealogy. Women in Grenadian History, 1783–1983.
Joints: Malcolm X: Caribbean Connections.
Rastafari in the Grenadian Revolution
Art, Memories, and the Grenada Revolution
The American Invasion of Grenada: a note on false prophecy
The Dominican Republic
Notable Dominican figures: Mama Tingo, Amara La Negra, Junot Diaz, Victor Rasuk, Zoe Saldana, Anthony Santos, Ozuna, Alfonso Ribeiro, Rubby Perez, Prince Royce, Anais, Juelz Santana, Dania Ramirez, Dascha Polanco, Rosa Acosta, Julia Alvarez, Hector Acosta, Jose Alberto, and Fabolous.
Books: Representing Queer and Transgender Identity: Fluid Bodies in the Hispanic Caribbean and Beyond. The Development of Literary Blackness in the Dominican Republic. Women Warriors of the Afro-Latina Diaspora. What’s Love Got to Do with It?: Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism in the Dominican Republic.
Joints: Introduction to Dominican Blackness
Bachata — the Blues of the Dominican Republic
A New Perspective on Afro-Dominican Spanish
Race, Nationality, and anti-Hatianism in the Dominican Republic
Jamaica and the Saint Domingue Slave Revolt
The Bahamas
Notable Bahamian figures: Pompey, Ester Rolle, Sidney Poitier, Lenny Kravitz, and Rick Fox.
Books: Bahamian Culture and Factors Which Impact Upon It. Race Relations in the Bahamas, 1784–1834. The African Diaspora to the Bahamas. Islanders in the Stream: A History of the Bahamian People.
The Impact of HIV/AIDS On Bahamian Women: A Feminist Perspective
Antigua and Barbuda
Notable Antiguan and Barbudan figures: Jamaica Kincaid, Vere Cornwall “Papa” Bird, Melvin Claxton, Jazzie B, and DJ Red Alert.
Books: Bondmen and Rebels: A Study of Master-Slave Relations in Antigua. Troubling Freedom: Antigua in the Aftermath of British Emancipation.
Joints: Unearthing Antigua’s Slave Past
The 1835 Race Riots and the Aftermath of Emancipation in Antigua
Opening the Public Sphere and Coping With Resistance
Dominica
Notable Dominica figures: Trisha Goddard, Daniel John-Jules, Moira Clare Ruby Stuart, 21 Savage, and Emmanuel Christopher Loblack.
Books: Your Time is Done Now: Slavery, Resistance, and Defeat: the Maroon Trials of Dominica. Sugar and Slavery: An Economic History of the British West Indies.
Joints: Bele — Dominica’s Traditional Dance
Negrae Mawon — The Fighting Maroons of Dominica
The U.S. Virgin Islands (St. Croix, St. Johns, and St. Thomas)
Notable figures: Emile Griffith, Vanessa Daou, Bennie Benjamin, Delyno Brown, Kitty, Polly, and Katurah.
Books: Colonial Costitutionalism: The Tyranny of the United States’ Offshore Terrotorial Policy and Relations. Colonialism: An International Social, Cultural and Political Encyclopedia.
Joints: Powerful Sisterhood Led to Freedom in the U.S. Virgin Islands
American Colonialism in The U.S. Virgin Islands
Jamaica
Notable figures: Sam Sharpe, Bob Marley, Queen Nanny, Tacky, Dutty Boukman, DJ Kool Herc, Ziggy Marley, Stephen Marley, Damien Marley, Sister Nancy, Patra, Cindy Campbell, Keyshia Ka’oir, Harry Belafonte, Marcus Garvey, Claude McKay, Grace Jones, The Notorious B.I.G., Lady Saw, Beenie Man, and Michael Manley.
Books: Man Vibes: Masculinities in the Jamaican Dancehall. Wah Eye Nuh See Heart Nuh Leap: Queer Maroonage in the Jamaican Dancehall. Postcolonial, Queer: Theoretical Intersections. Race, Sexuality, and Identity in Britain and Jamaica. Brother’s Keeper: The United States, Race, and Empire in the British Caribbean. Caribbean Labor and Politics: Legacies of Cheddi Jagan and Michael Manley.
Joints: Musical Women: How Women in Dancehall, Soca, and Calypso Embody Black Feminism.
The Construction of Black Jamaican Masculinity in a Neocolonial Imaginary.
Female Tourists Sexual Behavior in the Caribbean
Dancehall Culture and Its World
Rave, Rap, and the Remix: The Jamaican Sound System’s Influence on Popular Music
Diaspora Cruises: Queer Black Proletarianism in Claude McKay’s
A Long Way From Home
The Role of the Caribbean in Black Intellectual Movements
The Evolution of Political Violence In Jamaica
On Being Queer in the Caribbean
Jamaican Revolts in British Press and Politics
Trinidad and Tobago
Notable Afro-Trinidadian figures: Calypso Rose, Claudia Jones, Stokely Carmichael, Foxy Brown, Pearl Primus, George Padmore, Hazel Scott, Tatiana Ali, Heather Headley, Geoffrey Holder, and Haddaway.
Books: Moko Jumbies: The Dancing Spirits of Trinidad. Carnival: A Culture in Action — The Trinidad Experience. Guinea’s Other Suns: The African Dynamic in Trinidadian Culture. Reclaiming African Religions in Trinidad: The Socio-political Legitimation of the Orisha and Spiritual Baptist Faiths.
Joints: In Trinidad and Tobago, Carnival Goes Feminist
George Padmore: Pan Africanism or Marxism?
The Shango African Derived Religion in Nigeria and Trinidad
Calypso Music of Trinidad and Tobago
Soca Mind: The influence of culture on success in soca music industry in Trinidad and Tobago