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Black Culture, the Black Esthetic, Black Chauvinism: A Mild Dissent
- Canadian Review of American Studies
- University of Toronto Press
- Volume 12, Number 3, Winter 1981
- pp. 275-285
- Article
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The CanadianReview of American Studies, Volume 12, No. 3, Winter 1981 Black Culture, the Black Esthetic, Black Chauvinism: A Mild Dissent George A. Levesque Whethercause or consequence, the Civil Rights Revolution of the 1960s reviveda militant brand of black nationalism among (especially) young Americanblacks. In academic circles ostentatious nationalism (popularly celebratedby the slogan "Black is Beautiful" and the wearing of Dashikis) generateda heated debate over whether black culture was different from, andtherefore distinct from, the larger American culture. Generated by events whichtook place nearly two decades ago, the black culture topic has literally openedthe floodgates to a Niagara of publication. Shamefacedly partisan andpolemic as much of this outpouring has been, it is not surprising that much of it should be characterized by confusion concerning the culture concept as well as by a careless disregard for the canons of historical evidence as these relate to the black experience in both Africa and America. One of the more regrettable (and sinister) consequences of this partisan debate has been its use by a vociferous faction of the black literary "establishment ." Dogmatically convinced that there exists a separate and hegemonicblack culture, these race chauvinists have called for a separate black esthetic-that is, a set of criteria for judging literary and artistic productions, established and interpreted exclusively by blacks. While one can understand and, indeed, sympathize, on an emotional level with the cultural-literary architects of black chauvinism, the time is at hand, now that the period of 276 George A. Levesque ideological excess is sufficiently behind us, to examine the evidence andto register a mild but firm dissent. The premise of those who champion the notion of a separate and distinct black culture emerges from the conviction that blacks were not allowedto remain African and not permitted to become American. Unlike other immigrant groups whose cultural homogeneity declined as each successivegeneration took on more and more of the characteristics of the larger society,the American Negro, from the beginning, has existed as a colonial being.In;tead of establishing a colonial empire in Africa as did the European powers, America brought the colonial system home and installed it in the Southern states. 1 And although slavery was legally abolished in 1865, the law,rather than dissipating the white colonial mentality, had the effect of exacerbating it; thus, while it appeared that the demise of the "peculiar institution'' signalled the dawn of a new day, developments soon made it clear that postbellum blacks, and their descendants, had merely exchanged one formof subjugation and control (slavery) for another, equally as pernicious (peonage I. This summary, it must be said, aptly underscores an important difference in the acculturative experience of white and racial ethnics in America; but that both groups did not acquire identical levels of acculturation in the same time span should not be taken to mean that America's racial ethnics have remained whol(}1,or even essentially, unassimilated. So to argue is to confess not only to a woeful ignorance of the dynamics of cross-cultural transmission but also of the facts relating to the history of blacks in both Africa and America. That blacks in America have never developed a hegemonic race cultureis hardly surprising since the homogeneous African culture which Negroesare told they must reclaim as exclusively theirs is a figment of hysterical imagination . Thus misinformed about their own history, race chauvinists insistthat the young generation be given training in the Swahili language, blissfully ignorant of the fact that there are at least five hundred spoken languages in Africa and that Hausa comes nearest to being the lingua franca of the African continent. Unaware of the great religious diversity among the African people-some Africans are ancestor worshipers, some totemist, some Judaist, some animist, and some, perhaps a fourth of Africa's 450,000,000 inhabitants are Christians of various denominations-young American blacks are encouraged to convert to Islam and to adopt Islamic names. Unaware, so it would seem, of African political realities since the early 1960s,cultural chauvinists dogmatically affirm the right of American blacks "to claim kinship with the MOTHER COUNTRY," the source of their historical roots. 2 My point, to cut short an illustrative list which could...