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The Continent of Black Consciousness: On the History of the African Diaspora from Slavery to the Present Day
Book by Brodber, Erna
- GenresNonfictionHistory
194 pages, Paperback
First published September 18, 2003
About the author
Erna Brodber
21 books41 followersErna Brodber (born 20 April 1940) is a Jamaican writer, sociologist and social activist.
Born in Woodside, Saint Mary Parish, Jamaica, she gained a B.A. from the University College of the West Indies, followed by an M.Sc and Ph.D. She subsequently worked as a civil servant, teacher, sociology lecturer, and at the Institute for Social and Economic Research in Mona, Jamaica.
She is the author of four novels: Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home (1980), Myal (1988), Louisiana (1994) and The Rainmaker's Mistake (2007). She won the Caribbean and Canadian regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 1989 for Myal. In 1999 she received the Jamaican Musgrave Gold Award for Literature and Orature. Brodber currently works as a freelance writer, researcher and lecturer in Jamaica. She is currently Writer in Residence at the University of the West Indies.
(from Wikipedia)
Born in Woodside, Saint Mary Parish, Jamaica, she gained a B.A. from the University College of the West Indies, followed by an M.Sc and Ph.D. She subsequently worked as a civil servant, teacher, sociology lecturer, and at the Institute for Social and Economic Research in Mona, Jamaica.
She is the author of four novels: Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home (1980), Myal (1988), Louisiana (1994) and The Rainmaker's Mistake (2007). She won the Caribbean and Canadian regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 1989 for Myal. In 1999 she received the Jamaican Musgrave Gold Award for Literature and Orature. Brodber currently works as a freelance writer, researcher and lecturer in Jamaica. She is currently Writer in Residence at the University of the West Indies.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 26, 2018
Maybe it makes sense to think of this book as presenting the result of academic study, with primary and secondary research methods, in a form that is accessible to non-specialists and non-academics. Or maybe that is a very roundabout way of thinking about it... In a series of lectures, Erna Brodber raises questions and then attempts to answer them. It particularly deals with the author's own context, Jamaica, as a standpoint to survey the wider diaspora.
The first lecture compares modes of slavery, drawing on Slavery and Social Death, to ask whether the specific form of slavery that took Africans to the Caribbean and US, the "Atlantic Slave Trade" perpetrated mainly by the British and US, was more traumatic than other forms of slavery. I was grateful for this investigation, because I had not been able to respond to attempts to equivocate about responsible parties when talking about slavery. Slavery always causes the "social death" and loss of honour (an insult to a slave is an insult to their master) of the slave, but depending on the circumstances, a slave might have some degree of status, a comfortable life, a choice of occupations, a family life, possibilities for manumission and so on. The main conclusion here is that the Africans who were taken to the Caribbean and US to enrich others by "working" on plantations and performing domestic, reproductive and other forms of forced labour, or were descended from those slaves, endured, in general, a particularly traumatic form of slavery because they were in general kidnapped, separated from their families, had very poor living conditions, very little (if any) hope of manumission, no choice of occupation, and due to their physical difference from their exploiters, were denigrated as racially inferior (in other historical slavery contexts, there were no significant visible differences between slaves and masters).
The next part that caught my attention was in the third lecture The World the Freedman/woman Made. This focussed particularly on Jamaica, where after abolition, the people of the African diaspora became peasants (any pejorative connotations felt around this word should be dispelled), that is, people subsisting on their own small landholdings, while working for the plantations when it suited them. This did not suit the plantation owners at all, because they were forced to pay decent wages and were not at liberty to abuse their employees, who would walk off and put their efforts into their own various concerns instead. Erna Brodber underlines at the start of this lecture the intention behind abolition
The fifth lecture, Afro-Caribbean Voices in the International Arena provides a detailed and interesting take of the development of Pan-Africanism by, in particular, C.L.R. James and Malcolm Nurse/Padmore. Much of this, like the material in the 4th lecture about Marcus Garvey's success in creating, for one thing, a self-sufficient economic and cultural organisation in the UNIA, was new to me.
The 6th lecture, From Juba's Head, discusses novels, Crick Crack, Monkey and Praisesong for the Widow by Merle Hodge and Paule Marshall respectively, to investigate the African-Jamaican experience from female perspectives. Erna Brodber's commentary seems very insightful - I might well return to it when I get around to reading those novels in order to understand their context better. Besides that, this section describes in some aspects the micrological texture of the story previous chapters told in much broader strokes.
The last lecture unpacks some of the history of the author's own village and her experience of interpreting and composing that history. This case study emphasises the value of this kind of direct research in making sense of received wisdom and myths.
The first lecture compares modes of slavery, drawing on Slavery and Social Death, to ask whether the specific form of slavery that took Africans to the Caribbean and US, the "Atlantic Slave Trade" perpetrated mainly by the British and US, was more traumatic than other forms of slavery. I was grateful for this investigation, because I had not been able to respond to attempts to equivocate about responsible parties when talking about slavery. Slavery always causes the "social death" and loss of honour (an insult to a slave is an insult to their master) of the slave, but depending on the circumstances, a slave might have some degree of status, a comfortable life, a choice of occupations, a family life, possibilities for manumission and so on. The main conclusion here is that the Africans who were taken to the Caribbean and US to enrich others by "working" on plantations and performing domestic, reproductive and other forms of forced labour, or were descended from those slaves, endured, in general, a particularly traumatic form of slavery because they were in general kidnapped, separated from their families, had very poor living conditions, very little (if any) hope of manumission, no choice of occupation, and due to their physical difference from their exploiters, were denigrated as racially inferior (in other historical slavery contexts, there were no significant visible differences between slaves and masters).
The next part that caught my attention was in the third lecture The World the Freedman/woman Made. This focussed particularly on Jamaica, where after abolition, the people of the African diaspora became peasants (any pejorative connotations felt around this word should be dispelled), that is, people subsisting on their own small landholdings, while working for the plantations when it suited them. This did not suit the plantation owners at all, because they were forced to pay decent wages and were not at liberty to abuse their employees, who would walk off and put their efforts into their own various concerns instead. Erna Brodber underlines at the start of this lecture the intention behind abolition
Please take note of the subtitles. It was not just an act for the the abolition of slavery, it was an act "for promoting the Industry of the manumitted slaves, and for compensating the Persons hitherto entitled to the services of such slaves".Initially, former slaves were required to perform 40.5 hours of unpaid labour per week for their former masters, who were "compensated to the tune of £20,000"...
The fifth lecture, Afro-Caribbean Voices in the International Arena provides a detailed and interesting take of the development of Pan-Africanism by, in particular, C.L.R. James and Malcolm Nurse/Padmore. Much of this, like the material in the 4th lecture about Marcus Garvey's success in creating, for one thing, a self-sufficient economic and cultural organisation in the UNIA, was new to me.
The 6th lecture, From Juba's Head, discusses novels, Crick Crack, Monkey and Praisesong for the Widow by Merle Hodge and Paule Marshall respectively, to investigate the African-Jamaican experience from female perspectives. Erna Brodber's commentary seems very insightful - I might well return to it when I get around to reading those novels in order to understand their context better. Besides that, this section describes in some aspects the micrological texture of the story previous chapters told in much broader strokes.
The last lecture unpacks some of the history of the author's own village and her experience of interpreting and composing that history. This case study emphasises the value of this kind of direct research in making sense of received wisdom and myths.
July 8, 2007
Excellent!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews