Slave English to Ebonics
Topic: CARICATURE
 

Ebonics, which stands for Ebony + Phonics is a new term that Linguistics use to describe Black Dialect or Black English or many of the other names that it has been given for more that 350 years.. has been in the news recently but it is definitely not a new topic.

Ebonics is a "language" that is a combination of "proper English" and a combination of African languages. History states that around 1619, during the slave trade, ships collected slaves not just from one nation but from many nations. Although they were all Africans certain areas spoke different languages. Some Africans spoke Ibo, Yoruba and Hausa. They were then separated from each other and had to travel with people whom the could not understand.

 

The slaves then had to learn English so that they could have some form of communication with their masters. Their native language and English would be combined and they would speak African-English pidgin.

As the slaves began to learn how to communicate with each other, their words would merge into one common word that they could all understand. This is one of the ways that the language became mixed with English.

When the African slaves had children they talked to them in African English pidgin. The slaves taught the children both languages so that they could communicate with the slaveowners and to other slaves. As each generation went on the Africans began to speak better English but there were still word that were never spoken correctly or said in proper form.

In Georgia and other southern states there were blacks who were not brought from Africa and quite a few knew how to speak standard English. Around 1858 over 400 slave from Africa were brought straight to Georgia and none of them knew a word of English. Being that these two groups merged together they adapted each others language whether it was correct or incorrect.

It is obvious that masters kept tabs on how well their slave could talk. It was one of the ways that the masters could identify their slaves when they had many of them. They also used the slaves that new good English to translate or explain what the other slaves were saying. In the Mid 1800's slaves tried to use their language to help them escape from slavery. They would sing spirituals which their masters could not understand. Harriet Tubman and many others communicated in Ebonics which their masters couldn't understand and escaped through the underground railroad.

This is one of the spiritual song during slavery. It is not written in Ebonics but when the slaves song the song their masters still had no idea what the were talking about. Masters figured that their slaves didn't know left from right and called their language gibberish. The Masters didn't realize that this song meant that the slaves were going to escape to a free state and get away from all the dangers and the pain they suffered during slavery.

This proves that Ebonics has been around for many years and will be around for a long time. This was a language that was forced upon people. It then passed from generation to generation. Ebonics has improved from the early 1600's to now but some of the improper English still stands today. This tells where Ebonics originated from.

Myth of the Strong Black Woman
Topic: CARICATURE

The myth of the strong black women (SBW) is so simple and so clear that it is somewhat amazing that we are still bamboozled. You see, we - being the black women who are the “johns” of this particular scam - think that being an SBW is something to which one should aspire; we feel complimented when we are included in the category of others similarly bravery; and we blame ourselves for any indication that we are falling below the standards of the SBW. The greatest achievement the rest of the world ever achieved was convincing black women that SBW existed, and that our job was to grow up into one. Black women are raised to be SBW in the most exemplary fashion possible, and faithfully to remain one without pause or rest until the grim reaper relieved us of the burdens of our mortality.

It is really terrifyingly, astonishingly and ineffably well-crafted, this myth. Insofar as, so long as we are kept either desiring, or believing ourselves actually to be, Strong Black Women, there is no amount of pure nonsense, abuse, overwork, ingratitude, exploitation, underappreciation, and just plain shit that we will not put up with.

You see, SBW, of course, can make $10 stretch into meals for a week, clothes for everyone, payment of bills, and school fees, etc.,— this is just a well known and, indeed required characteristic of SBW. 

SBW are, by nature, ready, nay, eager to work five jobs at a time so as to feed and clothe their nearest and dearest without expecting, and more properly, absolutely rejecting any help.

 One has, after all, one’s pride as a Strong Black Woman. SBW are also expected to give command performances as free, endlessly sympathetic and reliable therapists, counselors, substitute mothers, and wise women, who willingly provide free emotional and mental labour to everyone else.

You have a problem? Go and cry on an SBW shoulder, which is guaranteed (why else are they SBW?) to be there, to provide cleenex, food and appropriate ego validation and finally, to manage to complete the four hours worth of work interrupted and delayed by your tales of woe.  This function of the SBW is usually taken advantage of by non-Strong Black Women  This is because of course non-SBW’s problems are real and agonizing.

SBW, it is understood, do not suffer emotionally as much as the other, more fragile and helpless non-SBW population: because they are strong, and thus, better able to endure better.

 This is like having a bullet-proof vest when the shooting starts: the unprotected get to scream and wail and run for cover whilst the SBW who are already armoured and thus have no fear, should promptly assume their assigned rescue service, feeding service, administrative, and problem-solving roles.  

Whence, in addition to everything else, comes the ugly fact that SBW are granted less time for grieving, assumed to have less sense of loss and suffering and required to have a faster recovery time from trauma than everybody else, so that they can go and take care of the pain and sickness of others. Well, naturally. It is an SBW thing: you wouldn't understand and are very careful not even to try.

Do you know how much crap that a black woman has had to go through?  

Do we ever ask ourselves what sort of toll it took on her, what scars were left, whether she ever needed to lock herself in the bathroom and weep, if she ever thought of giving up and why she didn't?  

Do you know what demons plagued her at night whilst the world slept, what private spaces of knowing pain and knowing suffering her poetry comes from?

 

 

Whether she ever lost her faith and her certainty in the cause, and if, indeed, by now she is not so tired by all those years of giving, giving and giving--to us? 

Many of us who have or have had the kind of mothers or aunts or honorary aunts whom we admire and who make us proud and to whom we owe everything – those we see as Strong Black Women. 

Whilst acknowledging all their sacrifices, their struggles overcome and their achievements, have you ever thought that they accomplished then not because of some counterfeit “extra” strength but despite the weaknesses common to us all?  

I’ve thought of my own mother, whom I have idolized my whole life, because she did just amazing things.  

She was the first this and the first that. She was the only African woman ever to do x. She left a lasting legacy through her work in y. She also managed to bring me up, protect and shelter me, and mould me into a competent human being. 

But what about her life? 

The problem with the myth of the SBW is this. It falsely supposes that SBW have powers, skills and capacities beyond those of ordinary mortals - sort of like super heroes –

 

So much so that their achievements are not as difficult to attain as they would be for others and somehow inhere in the very quality of SBW-ness, itself.

 

When you look at this logic for long enough, it becomes pretty obvious that we don’t need to thank SBW or even to congratulate them.

 

Strong Black Women are permanently off the list of things that I want to be when I grow up. I am going to treasure and revel in and treat tenderly all my weaknesses and mistakes and failures—all of which I have in amazingly copious quantities - because they make my achievements that much more precious to me.

 

Let the age of the Weak Black Women begin!

  

Coon Songs
Topic: The Minstrels Shows

Americans have long been fascinated with the African American culture and most often in the past, that fascination has been expressed in very negative and ugly ways. American popular music, as a reflection of society, was no exception and as a result, in our travels through the past, we encounter many, many songs that in today's society are offensive, mean spirited and uncomfortable to look at.

  The term coon, did not originally appear as a racial slur term for a Black American, though over a short period of time it evolved into that. In early minstrel songs, the "coon" was reference to a raccoon, whose meat was reference to a raccoon, whose meat was supposedly preferred by plantation slaves.

In many cases, for unknowing composers, the term "coon" became entangled with the 'possum, also thought to be a preferred food source. Apparently, many composers were not very familiar with American wildlife and could not tell the difference. As a result, "coon" and "possum" were often used in the same context. The earliest use of the possum term in a song was in the 1830 work by Charles Matthews, A Possum Up A Tree. By the mid 19th century, coon and possum songs were a regular part of the musical scene, most often heard performed in minstrel shows. However, the style emerged much earlier than 1830. As early as 1793, we see descriptions of African Americans in songs for comic operas in America. Perhaps the earliest was the song Poor Black Boy from the Stephen Storace production, The Prize. About that same time, Charles Dibden produced Yanko Dear in which he featured black slaves as minor characters. In both cases, the music was deliberately simple and included exaggerated dialect lyrics, neither of which had any relationship to true African American style or speech.

In 1822, an English stage star, Charles Matthews, came to the US and became in love with the speech patterns and physical characteristics of American blacks. He began to incorporate skits, mock lectures and songs drawing on his view of black culture and as a result, he really is responsible for the trend in stage impersonation of African Americans during the early 19th century.

 

In 1828, Thomas Dartmouth Rice introduced the song Jim Crow to his audiences as a part of his impersonation of an old black man. The song became an immediate hit and was widely distributed, becoming one of the first large distribution sheet music songs in America. Rice's success spurred other performers to impersonate Blacks and soon, entire troupes of performers did, beginning with the Virginia Minstrels in 1843. Soon, the American stage was filled with groups performing in blackface and performing entire shows made up of comic dialogs, skits, dance and songs about Black Americans. Some of the names of these groups live on today with such names as the Christy Minstrels and the Kentucky Minstrels. I think it wise to state here that the term "Minstrel", is not exclusively a blackface performer. That term has been in use for centuries and according to the Miriam Webster Dictionary is: "one of a class of medieval musical entertainers; especially : a singer of verses to the accompaniment of a harp." In other words, a musician. It is only when minstrel groups began their blackface performances that the term took on its more unsavory association in today's meanings.

Unfortunately, the minstrel show became the most popular and distinctive product of the American entertainment scene and reached a new peak of popularity after the Civil War. Much to our embarrassment now, when the English were introduced to Rice's music and performances by the Virginia Minstrels in 1843, they viewed the music and performances as characteristic American music. Perhaps the most ironic thing about that is that many of the early minstrel songs, including the lauded Jim Crow, were actually based on the melodic foundations of English folk songs!! After these early beginnings, the Minstrel show settled in as an American Institution and coon songs flourished. By 1880, the term was used as a disparagement of Blacks in general and the songs took on a rather ugly tone also. Some mocked Black's social aspirations such as The Full Moon Union (1880) by Edward Harrigan and David Braham in which they said:

Dere isn't a coon
But what am a luminary in
A half a quarter moon.

 

A political song from the same year Ef de Party Wins points out the Black's loss of political and social influence at the end of Reconstruction. A flood of songs poured into the popular collection from this period on with titles such as , The Dandy Coon's Parade, Oh Mr. Coon and The Coons Are On Parade. Composers capitalized on the fad by adding words typical of coon songs to previously published songs and rags. According to the New Grove Dictionary of American Music, though the ragtime elements of syncopation and harmony were borrowed for the coon song style, it is incorrect to consider them synonymous. We can clearly see fundamental differences in form, style and most of all, mood, that separates the two.

 

In Vaudeville, coon songs also flourished and a rather odd performance convention emerged; white females became the favored deliverers and were called "coon shouters".  Foremost among the coon shouters was one May Irwin. Her performance of the Charles Trevathan hit The Bully Song (1896) was influential in establishing the stereotype of the razor toting, jealously belligerent black male.  Also, this song has perhaps the worst racist lyrics of any song. Once this level of ugliness was reached, it seemed that composers piled it on higher and deeper. Other coon songs soon exploited every conceivable black characteristic, real or imagined, for its comic possibilities. African-American aspirations to a place in society, food preferences, the imagined tendency for crime, and gambling all were exploited. The final insult was a number of songs where there was an imagined desire by all African Americans to become white as in the song, She's Gettin' Mo' Like The White Folks Every Day.

 

Sadly, even black songwriters produced songs as fully demeaning of their own race as those by white composers. The worst of these was Ernest Hogan's All Coons Look Alike To Me. The most prolific of the black composers to join in was Bob Cole who wrote dozens of songs such as, No Coons Allowed and I Wonder What The Coon's Game Is?

Just as with the earlier minstrel shows, skits, entertainers and entire shows were developed from the coon song and many coon songs found their way into the legitimate theater as a part of productions. At the peak of its popularity, the coon song was everywhere and just about every songwriter in the country worked to fill the seemingly insatiable demand.

In their time, coon songs spoke volumes about white attitudes towards African Americans. Unfortunately, in many cases they also spoke volumes about some black composers sense of personal pride and self image. They are an historical document that clearly shows white attitudes and the terribly oppressive social world that African Americans had to cope with. There seemed to be a piling on mentality that simply escalated what started as a cute novelty song into a national obsession that in the end is a complete and hopeless embarrassment. How we could ever let a musical fad reach the levels it did, is hard to even begin to understand in today's society. (Yet, the trend today of some Rap "music" is in many respects even worse. Coon songs were written in ignorance, much of today's Rap is written with malice, forethought and pure hatred in mind.) Because of the lyrics in Coon songs, none of these songs are seen or performed today as they were originally written. it is a chapter in our musical history that should not and cannot be swept under the rug. It seems a shame to have an entire genre of song lost to today because of the words, yet we could not tolerate a resurgence. (Let us hope the same happens with today's "hate songs".) The loss for us is certainly not in the lyrics but in losing the incredible musical richness of some of the songs that for a time, were the most popular and hottest selling hits in American popular music.

The Minstrels Shows
Topic: The Minstrels Shows

The American musical has one shameful chapter in its history – minstrel shows. The most popular musical stage shows of the early and mid 19th Century, minstrelsy embodied racial hatred. Both white and black performers donned blackface, and audiences of all colors loved it.

Minstrel shows developed in the 1830'S peaked after the Civil War and remained popular into the early 1900s. Minstrelsy was a product of its time, the only entertainment form born out of blind bigotry. In these shows, white men blackened their faces with burnt cork to lampoon Negroes, performing songs and skits that sentimentalized the nightmare of slave life on Southern plantations. Blacks were shown as naive buffoons who sang and danced the days away, gobbling "chitlins," stealing the occasional watermelon, and expressing their inexplicable love for "ol' massuh."

"Blackface" and "minstrelsy" are not true synonyms. Blackface performers were around several decades before the first minstrel shows evolved.

America was crazy for blackface. To the twanging thwang of the banjo, and the clatter of tambo and bones – tambourine and bone castanets – white men smeared burnt cork on their faces to sing, waggle their legs in imitation of blacks dancing, and tell jokes in "negro" dialect. Between 1750 and 1843, over 5,000 theater and circus productions included blackface.


Blackface acts were common features in circuses and traveling shows from the 1790s onwards. All this moved to a new level in the 1820s when white entertainer Thomas Rice caused a nationwide sensation by donning burnt cork to perform the song "Jump Jim Crow" on stage. He first heard it from an old black street singer who supposedly made up the lyric about his own name –

First on de heel tap,
Den on the toe
Every time I wheel about
I jump Jim Crow.
Wheel about and turn about
En do j's so.
And every time I wheel about,
I jump Jim Crow.
- From 1823 sheet music

"Jim Crow" turned out to be more than a popular song. It became the name of one of minstrelsy's stock comedy characters, and a by-word for legalized racial oppression.

In 1828, Jim Crow was born. He began his strange career as a minstrel caricature of a black man created by a white man, Thomas "Daddy" Rice, to amuse white audiences. By the 1880s, Jim Crow had become synonymous with a complex system of racial laws and customs in the South that enabled white social, legal and political domination of blacks. Blacks were segregated, deprived of their right to vote, and subjected to verbal abuse, discrimination, and violence without redress in the courts or support by the white community.

When Bigotry Sang
Topic: The Minstrels Shows


In the early 1840s, a group called the Tyrolese Minstrel Family toured the United States with a program of traditional mittel-European folk songs. Four unemployed white actors decided to stage an African-American style spoof of this group's concerts. Calling themselves Dan Emmett's Virginia Minstrels, their blackface revue premiered at New York's Bowery Amphitheatre in February 1843. Emmett, Frank Bower, Frank Pelham and Billy Whitlock became the first troupe to offer a full evening of blackface variety entertainment. With their chairs in a simple semi-circle, the quartet offered a fresh combination of songs, dances and comic banter, creating cartoonish Negro caricatures. Most historians mark this production as the beginning of minstrelsy.

The form was so natural, it seemed improvised – and, in fact. much of the evening, because of the talents of the four, was. But most of all, there was exuberance and excitement. The minstrels, in their wide-eyed, large-lipped, ragged-costumed absurdity, rolled onto the stage in a thundercloud of energy which hardly ever dissipated. They insulted each other, they baited each other, they made mincemeat of the language, they took the audience into their fun, and, in one night, they added a new form to show business in America – in fact, the world.

Over the next few years, the Virginia Minstrels introduced several hit songs that are still heard today, including "Polly Wolly Doodle" and "Blue Tail Fly." Similar all-white companies soon toured the United States and Europe. Although short on production values, minstrel shows became America's most popular form of stage entertainment. By 1856, New York City had ten full time resident companies, and twice as many a decade later.

Minstrelsy's comic characterization of Negroes was often hateful, but it marked the unintentional beginning of a lasting trend in American popular culture.

These negative images of blacks did have some elements of black culture in them, however twisted and distorted the overall effect was . . . Minstrelsy was the first example of the way American popular culture would exploit and manipulate Afro-Americans and their culture to please and benefit white Americans.

Though antebellum (minstrel) troupes were white, the form developed in a form of racial collaboration, illustrating the axiom that defines – and continues to define – American music as it developed over the next century and a half : African American innovations metamorphose into American popular culture when white performers learn to mimic black ones.

Companies continued to perform in both North and South throughout the Civil War, with the minstrel tune "Dixie" becoming an unofficial anthem for the Confederacy. After the war, minstrelsy remained popular, and many skits took a sentimental view of the lost world of plantation slavery. Although African Americans were forbidden by law to perform on stage with whites in many states, some companies secretly included blacks.

As laws changed, several all-black minstrel companies toured America and Great Britain. Black performers still had to wear blackface makeup in order to look "dark enough," performing material that demeaned their own race. Despite such drawbacks, minstrelsy provided African American performers with their first professional stage outlet.

Minstrelsy remained all-male until 1890, when The Creole Show offered a female interlocutor and women in the ensemble. After a successful tour, this troupe settled in at New York’s Standard Theater (an off-Broadway burlesque house) for a sensational run of five continuous seasons. Women became a common presence on the minstrel stage, but the form was losing appeal. By the early 1900s, Lew Dockstader's troupe was the last major minstrel company. Although blackface remained in use, minstrel shows were no longer commercially viable by 1920.

During the many decades of its popularity, minstrelsy developed a unique format. For more about minstrel performances, the still-familiar songs that minstrelsy inspired, and a performer who carried on the legacy of minstrelsy, go on to . . .

The Minstrel Line
Topic: The Minstrels Shows


The full ensemble sat in a semi-circle. At the center sat the whiteface host, always called "Mr. Interlocutor." Two blackface comedians at either end (the endmen) were always called "Bruder Tambo" (playing the tambourine) and "Bruder Bones" (playing a pair of rattling rib bones or spoons). After an opening number, the Interlocutor shouted, "Gentlemen, be seated," and the endmen would lead the ensemble in a series of jokes, songs and dances. The endmen spoke in a comic caricature of black colloquial speech, while the Interlocutor's florid eloquence spoofed white upper class condescension. (Variations of old minstrel line jokes became the mainstays of Ameruican comedy, and would be heard in film, radio and television right into the 21st Century.) Intermission was followed by.

The Olio: After an intermission, miscellaneous songs and variety acts were performed in front of a painted backdrop. This segment of the evening went by various names, with one troupe referring to it as a "terpsichorean divertissement." These acts were sometimes performed without blackface make-up, in part to prove that the performers were white. The last skit in the olio was often a "stump speech" given by one of the endmen. These satiric orations poked fun at contemporary issues and political figures, presaging the stand-up comedy acts of the next century. (The overall olio format would eventually evolve into vaudeville) After a second intermission came a.

One-Act Musical: These burlesqued a popular topic, novel or play. Two stock blackface characters were almost always depicted – "Jim Crow," an ignorant country bumpkin ripe for humiliation, and "Zip Coon," a city slicker whose self-assurance led to his comic come-uppance. Hateful to us, these stereotypes were accepted as part of wholesome family entertainment in the 1800’s. Both white and black audiences resisted attempts to change the racist tone of the songs and skits until minstrelsy disappeared. (These one act musical spoofs would grow into the full-length Broadway "burlesques" of the late1800s.)

The Cohan and Harris' Minstrels (1909) was the last minstrel show to play Broadway, but minstrel traditions remained in use for decades. The offensive content of minstrelsy lived on too. The long-running radio series Amos n' Andy featured two white actors impersonating contemporary black characters that were direct descendants of "Zip Coon" and "Jim Crow." Some blacks protested such stereotyping, but listeners made it a top series for more than a decade. When Amos n' Andy moved to TV in the 1950s, black actors were used – but the spectacle of blacks demeaning themselves had become unsettling, and the show was cancelled in 1953.

Minstrel Songs
Topic: The Minstrels Shows
Minstrelsy spurred the development of popular music in 19th Century America. For starters, it was the first genre to commission songs specifically for use on the American stage. Minstrelsy then gave those American songs nationwide exposure.

Most of the hit songs of the 1800s come from minstrelsy. Stephen Foster's "Camptown Races," "My Old Kentucky Home," "O Susanna" and "Old Folks at Home" were all popularized in minstrel shows. Minstrel star Dan Emmett composed several popular tunes including the unofficial Southern anthem "Dixie." In the years following the Civil War, James Bland became America's first popular black composer with such minstrel hits as "O, Dem Golden Slippers" and "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny." Bland was such a brilliant improvisational performer that he never bothered to write down more than three dozen of his 600-plus compositions. Like Foster, this composer of plantation songs was a Northerner with no direct experience of Southern life.

Many minstrel songs helped to perpetuate demeaning stereotypes. In 1890, black performer Ernest Hogan wrote a syncopated song that told of a young "dusky maiden" unable to choose between two suitors. "All Coons Look Alike to Me" became a nationwide sensation, inspiring a mania for "coon songs" – ragtime numbers with lyrics that reflected stereotyped notions of African American culture. In reality, most just paraded the social ignorance of their white composers and lyricists, offering cartoonish images of gambling men and high-falutin' women, all with razors at the ready to cut down opponents. But the genre remained popular with white and black audiences well into the 20th Century, including songs by such respected composers as George M. Cohan and Irving Berlin. A racist nation from its inception, America has never fully expunged racism from its cultural mindset. (In fairness, most every nation on earth has a skeleton of bigotry in its historic closet – but America was the only place where such hatred gave birth to a form of song and dance entertainment.)

The most famous graduate of minstrelsy was Al Jolson. He toured with Dockstader's Minstrels before achieving lasting stardom in vaudeville, Broadway and Hollywood. Jolson immortalized blackface in several films, including the talking landmark The Jazz Singer (1928). Considered one of the greatest entertainers of his time, Jolson's films are often dismissed as embarrassments today. Whatever his intentions were, the sight of a white man covered with burnt cork singing "Mammy" has become an unsettling reminder of the racial/cultural mindset that minstrelsy embodied.

Blaxploitation Article
Topic: Blaxploitation
Between 1971-75 an estimated 200 "Blaxploitation" movies were produced. On witnessing many of these films, as the standard formulaic plots and characters mesh into one, with their funky "vines", outlandish street talk and generally bad acting one might ask why?

Enter Melvins Van Peebles, who as writer, producer, director, editor, actor, and soundtrack composer of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song set the pace in 1971.

Once the white executives saw the dollar signs, they weren't too concerned with honestly depicting the black experience.

An entirely black production, it broke the mould of black characterisation . Its story of a black pimp/stud suddenly radicalised by aiding a young black revolutionary who is beaten by white cops, keenly displayed Van Peebles' disgust at the white establishment and struck a chord with black audiences. The films ending, with it's proclamation that "a badasssss nigger is coming back to collect some dues" heralded the arrival of a new kind of black hero.

Van Peebles rightly became the first folk hero of black cinema, introducing a D.I.Y. ethic which allowed him total control of his product and message, which was no holds barred, as were the graphic depictions of sex and violence and use of experimental cinematic techniques. Viewed today it may be difficult to understand its extreme impact, it certainly didn't encompass a broad view of the black experience, but it did redefine the nature of black characters in films and it's success suggested that this section of the cinema going public were crying out for a voice.


The two films which consolidated the success of 'Sweetback' followed in quick succession, Shaft (1971) and Superfly (1972). If Shaft (Richard Roundtree) was a black James Bond fighting crime, then Superfly 's Youngblood Priest was his antithesis, a slick, hip pusher, doing what he's gotta do to survive on the "mean streets".

Both films were hugely successful, Shaft, the more palatable of the two by white standards, outlived all expectations, rescuing MGM from a slump and receiving an Oscar for Isaac Hayes' enduring score. The title track which frames the opening sequence is one of the most memorable in recent movie history, one which the film itself sadly fails to live up to. Superfly on the other hand aroused controversy for what was seen as its assimilation and endorsement of a "by any means necessary" credo. While it was one of gritty realism there was something decidedly fake about the glamorised Priest selling dope to white people and taking on the mob and winning? He improbably escapes his life of crime, making off with the loot and his old-lady.

If the social ramifications of the unreserved success of Priest's plan "to stick it to the man" are less cut and dry, is certainly clear that Superfly is as American as apple pie; the gun-play, the aggression, the self-assertion, like Shaft he reeks of rugged-individualism. Terrible values perhaps but the most American of values nonetheless.

But why waste time on analysis, these films are remembered more for their surface elements; the clothes, the music (Curtis Mayfield surpassing himself for Superfly ) the hip talk, the sex and the violence. Not surprisingly, it was these that provided the blueprint for the Hollywood take-over. Once the white executives saw the dollar signs, they weren't too concerned with honestly depicting the black experience.


"Blaxploitation" was born and it pandered to the lowest common denominator. Every available genre was plundered in an attempt to re-hash old ideas. There were black westerns like the improbably titled Boss Nigger ("He's Black, He's Brutal, He's Boss") and horror variations with Blacula. Blaxploitation had its own kung-fu hero in Jim Kelly, who, having risen to prominence in Enter The Dragon, got his own starring role in Black Belt Jones There were even excursions in a sci-fi/fantasy vein with Christopher St. John's Top Of The Heap. A well intentioned tale of a young black cop cracking up under the pressure of city life and the racist forces that control him - he escapes by fantasising about being the first black man on the moon. Unfortunately, suffering from a confused and poorly realised script, low production values and taking itself a bit to seriously it is frequently unintentionally funny, bizarre and sometimes quite surreal.

Despite the weaknesses of the movies themselves the Blaxploitation era did succeed in creating its own stars. Ex-football players like Jim Brown and Fred "The Hammer" Williamson fitted the bill perfectly, with the eponymous Antonio Fargas enlivening scores of shoddy product. Of the female leads Pam Grier is probably the most enduring.


Plucked from obscurity on the studio switchboard, she was catapulted to B-stardom in a succession of made to measure roles showcasing her more prominent assets. Whether Grier was a convincing personification of black female power is debatable, she takes on her roles with zeal and conviction, but they are merely comic book characters, one dimensional, campy and occasionally amusing. Foxy Brown (1974) somehow manages to live up to its outlandish tag-line "A pinch of sugar and a kiss of spice ... and for fun she keeps a cold steel .38 in a nice warm place! with Pam turning out in more fly outfits than De Niro in Casino, but even though Coffy (1973) promises "she's black and stacked" it could go down as one of the worst films of any genre, ever! It is true though, that despite the presence of high profile female leads the depictions of women in Blaxploitation movies was at best archaic, frequently brutally degrading and sometimes disturbing.

In Hitman, a remake of Get Carter (as if!) Bernie Casey and the unfortunate Pam Grier get to be ripped to shreds by lions in a safari park, perhaps typifying their common place roles as pieces of meat. But it's so easy to find fault with any and all of these movies on many levels that it becomes pointless. In retrospect it's almost impossible to take them seriously, and therefore slotting them under the broad heading of "cult" seems most appropriate.

Of course when you consider how many of these movies were made it's no surprise that there are a few notable exceptions to the rule of bad meaning bad. Exploitation guru Larry Cohen's Black Caesar(1973) is a superior gangster movie from the genre (Cohen was also responsible for Hell Up In Harlem from the same year and also starring Fred Williamson), while Max Julien in The Mack pulls off a suitably stylish yet sympathetic turn as a pimp on the way up (its unsubtle social critique is nonetheless quite affecting), and the Tamara Dobson showcase Cleopatra Jones (1973) which features a bizarre turn from Shelley Winters, is slick and funky if ultimately asinine. Also a special mention should go to Rudy Ray Moore's Dolomite character who featured in a series of films right up until the late 70's.

An icon with rappers, Dolomite's foul mouthed antics have inspired Richard Prior and Eddie Murphy among others. Unfortunately, it would take more than a few gems to reverse the damage done. Black audience's need for assertive black characters in which they saw a reflection of themselves was now paralleled by a new set of stereotypes which merely served to reinforce previously held prejudices. If blacks were no longer slave, servants or sidekicks then they were pimps, pushers, informers, studs and hot mama's.


Ultimately the audience was to realise it was being patronised and exploited, by 1975 they were leaving the cinemas in their droves just as they had first arrived to see 'Sweetback' in 1971. To all intents and purposes, the Blaxploitation boom was over. It wasn't until 1986 that Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It was to live up to Melvin Van Peebles' wish for white people to view black films in the same way they might Italian or Japanese films and form the basis of a true and consistent Black Cinema.

By the time Lee had delivered his tour de force Do The Right Thing in 1989 the floodgates had once again been opened. Robert Townsend's Hollywood Shuffle and the Wayans brothers' I'm Gonna Git You Sucka in 1987 and 1988 were satirical put-downs of Blaxploitation era stereotypes which treated the past with the levity it deserved while clearly showing that those days would never return (and all this before the style mags told us that the 70's was cool again). However, by the early 90's a spate of movies in the wake of John Singleton's Boyz 'N' The Hood(1991),despite their good intentions and the superlative nature of some of them, start to provide new successful formula's. Film's like New Jack City (1991),made by Melvin's son Mario, and Juice(1992), made by erstwhile Spike Lee cinematographer Ernest Dickerson, while excelling in their own rights, because of their success and the success of Boyz 'N' The Hood in particular we begin to see (yet again) an unhealthy interest from white studio executives in this particular aspect of the black experience.


The most successful of these "Gangsploitation" movies, indeed the most successful of all the post 'Boyz' movies, was Albert and Allen Hughes' Menace II Society (1993). 'Menace' typifies what has ostensibly become Blaxploitation for the 90's, a concentration on the surface elements especially music and violence, with a story line that pretends it's trying to say something genuine about the black experience, instead of just re-hashing last week's news. Fortunately, we are not dealing with 70's budgets and the direction is assured if not flamboyant, making the film eminently watchable.

This is hardly surprising since 'Menace' has more in common with the narration driven camera gymnastics of Scorsese than it does with Superfly , but like all the best (worst?) Blaxploitation it is all style and no substance. However, one thing is certainly true of the Hughes Bros., they know their movies, or more precisely they know other peoples movies inside out. Their follow-up movie Dead Presidents (1996) is a slice of genre defying Scorsese/Coppola-lite which serves to cement the Blaxploitation renaissance. It's a sort of coming-of-age/buddy movie kinda Vietnam/gangster with a splattering of gore and a sort of heist (gone-wrong) theme going on at the end. Like 'Menace' it has undeniable style and flair which somewhat belies the sledgehammer subtle social agenda. But, if you want the slickest violence, the meanest threads, and the definitive 60's/70's soundtrack ( 2 volumes no less !) then it certainly delivers.

And since this whole retro vibe shows no signs of letting up, I'll be waiting for the much touted John Singleton remake of Shaft to bring things full circle and put a cap on it (or should that be bust a cap in it?). Hopefully, he'll tighten up the original and make a defining action movie (black or otherwise) for the 90's, without too much earnest philosophising (laid on a bit thick in his last movie Higher Learning (1995), and with any luck Samuel L. Jackson as John Shaft. Once the dust has settled and all the clichs have been spent, undoubtedly directors like Lee, Singleton and the Hughes Bros. will find new areas of the black experience to explore (as Lee has already done with Crooklyn, he has also just made the 'hood' movie to end all 'hood' movies in Clockers (1996) ). Joining their ranks, the likes of Bill Duke (A Rage In Harlem and Deep Cover) and Carl Franklin (One False Move and The Devil In A Blue Dress) both of whom have explored uncharted terrain, in a distinctly Noir vein, confirming that the black presence in cinema today (at least in America) will only go from strength to strength.


Ironically if it were not for the saturation of Blaxploitation in the 70's the present explosion of talent might not have made such an impact, but generally the lessons were learned and today's black filmmakers have been able to work and gain respect within the industry, not just for their artistry but for their pulling power also. There's a black audience out there but like anyone else they demand a decent product...

That's Black Entertainment !!!
Topic: Race Films
More than 500 independent films were made almost exclusively by blacks and for black audiences from 1910 to 1953. And although only about 100 are in existence today, somehow this early major movement in American Independent filmmaking has passed into cinematic history with almost no recognition. Thanks to some restored 30 motion pictures found in a Tyler Texas warehouse, these unique and vital chapters of African American history can be brought out of the shadows and provide us with marvelous time capsules of black family life, political views, religion, dance and music.

But what created the need for all-black movies - or "Race Films" as they were commonly called, how were they made, and by who? To begin to understand the motivating forces, the ambitions and almost herculean effort of these filmmaking frontiersmen, we have to look at the prevalent racial climate of Hollywood in the early 1900s.

In 1903, before Hollywood was born, America's first black character appeared in a motion picture. The movie was all of 12 minutes and it was called Uncle Tom's Cabin. The actor playing Uncle Tom, however, was not black; he was played by a white actor in blackface. This was nothing uncommon. The early silent movies merely picked up the traditions of the theater in the days of slavery when Negroes were not allowed on the stage. Instead, white minstrels would cover their faces in burnt cork and caricature the lives of slaves on the plantation, always poking fun at the American Negro's inferiority and sending them up as utter buffoons, butlers, cooks, mammies, black bucks, lunatics, and lackeys.
They ranged from the loyal servant, eternally humble, selflessly giving of their life to make the life of the Massa and the Massa's family a little better and more comfortable; to the lazy, dim-witted good-for-nothing, schooled only in speaking unintelligible English, stealing chickens, and breezing the day away eating watermelons; to the crude savages, frenzied and lusting for white women, on the prowl to exercise his innately violent nature…
The release of "Birth of a Nation" in 1915 directed by D.W. Griffith that would shift the tide and forever change Hollywood's perception of blacks and the film industry...D.W. Griffith exploits every black stereotype to the hilt and employs white actors in blackface to play them. An epic paean to the Ku Klux Klan that portrayed blacks as violent, sex-crazed savages. When it was released in 1915, the movie stirred black boycotts and even race riots.

The Early Years
Topic: Race Films
During the early 1900?s when editing was introduced, the black image became what white directors wanted it to be. In most cases, whites? played black folks in blackface. The first black film company was formed by William Foster out of Chicago. From 1909 ? 1913 William Foster produced the first all black cast film shorts, i.e. The Pullman Porter 1910 & The Railroad Porter 1912. But, because of distribution problems he eventually folded the operation. In 1915, D.W. Griffith's, "Birth of a Nation" was produced. Even though, there were no black stars in the film, it can be considered to have been the kick that started Black film again in America. The Birth of a Nation took stereotypes to a new level, it would show the world what coloreds were really like during reconstruction. It showed crazed, exslaves running wild, raping and killing their good masters, the colored government leaders in session with their bare feet in chairs, eating chicken and acting like buffoons. The entire movie was an advertisement for the Klu Klux Klan, especially when they road in and saved the whites from the brutal coloreds at the end.

In response to Birth of a Nation, the Black community was up in arms and decided to counter act this horrid film by producing an All-colored cast, or Race film,(films especially made for the negro audience) to show the world the real truth. After an attempt by the N.A.A.C.P. to produce a movie, the Lincoln Motion Picture Company in 1916, produced one of the first positive image feature race film entitled, "The Realization of a Negro's Ambition." In 1917, the Lincoln Motion Picture Company contacted a young black novelist about making a film of his novel "The Homesteader." The novelist said he would agree if he could be involved in the directing of the film. Naturally, company executives refused his demands, and he returned home to South Dakota, determined now to see his book on film. This novelist, was Oscar Micheaux, the most prolific writer, director, and producer of Race films in the history of motion pictures.