There are over 519 million Black Women on the planet Earth, give or take a dozen. There's a Black Woman on each of the seven continents, in almost every country and in almost every context. There are even Black Women in the space program. So no matter where you go, she's already been there. She travels with forces greater than herself. Her presence is everywhere.
Black Women For Beginners is a documentary comic book that chronicles the trials and triumphs of Black Women from antiquity to the present, reflecting with wit and humor the challenges they have faced and the fortitude and strength that have sustained Black Women and patterned history with a diversity of excellence. As warriors, healers, teachers, mothers, queens, and liberators Black Women have had tremendous impact on issues from food to fashion, from politics to poetry. Replete with a glossary of reference terms, Black Women For Beginners whimsically details the influence of stereotypes on the portrayal of Black Women in various venues and punctuates the absurd.
There are over 519 million Black Women on the planet Earth, give or take a dozen. There's a Black Woman on each of the seven continents, in almost every country and in almost every context. There are even Black Women in the space program. So no matter where you go, she's already been there. She travels with forces greater than herself. Her presence is everywhere.
Black Women For Beginners is a documentary comic book that chronicles the trials and triumphs of Black Women from antiquity to the present, reflecting with wit and humor the challenges they have faced and the fortitude and strength that have sustained Black Women and patterned history with a diversity of excellence. As warriors, healers, teachers, mothers, queens, and liberators Black Women have had tremendous impact on issues from food to fashion, from politics to poetry. Replete with a glossary of reference terms, Black Women For Beginners whimsically details the influence of stereotypes on the portrayal of Black Women in various venues and punctuates the absurd.
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Overview
There are over 519 million Black Women on the planet Earth, give or take a dozen. There's a Black Woman on each of the seven continents, in almost every country and in almost every context. There are even Black Women in the space program. So no matter where you go, she's already been there. She travels with forces greater than herself. Her presence is everywhere.
Black Women For Beginners is a documentary comic book that chronicles the trials and triumphs of Black Women from antiquity to the present, reflecting with wit and humor the challenges they have faced and the fortitude and strength that have sustained Black Women and patterned history with a diversity of excellence. As warriors, healers, teachers, mothers, queens, and liberators Black Women have had tremendous impact on issues from food to fashion, from politics to poetry. Replete with a glossary of reference terms, Black Women For Beginners whimsically details the influence of stereotypes on the portrayal of Black Women in various venues and punctuates the absurd.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781939994004 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | For Beginners |
| Publication date: | 08/21/2007 |
| Series: | For Beginners |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 192 |
| File size: | 20 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
BLACK WOMEN FOR BEGINNERS
By S. PEARL SHARP
For Beginners LLC
Copyright © 1993 Saundra SharpAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-939994-00-4
CHAPTER 1
WHERE DID SHE COME FROM?
(AND THEN, WHERE DID SHE GO??)
We thought you'd never ask!
The BW comes from Africa, which holds (to date) the only evidence of humans living more than a million years ago. Her most famous known ancestor is "Lucy" ...
... whose skeleton was at least 3 million years old when they tripped over it in an Ethiopian desert back in 1974. What a surprise! However, Lucy hadn't finished evolving into a "Human" as we know them today. That took another 2 million, 800 hundred thousand (or so) years.
Which brings us to the first known diva, SISTUH EVE— our "Mitochondrial Mother," or cell mother.
Through modern technology, scientists have isolated the DNA in our gene cells, and determined that a Sistuh (whom they nicknamed "Eve") lived some 200,000 years ago, (roughly 6 million years post chimpanzee), claimed Africa as her hometown, and liked to travel. Which is to say, scientifically, that everybody came from one woman, and she was Black.
Of course, not everyone is thrilled about this:
Still, Sistuh Eve represents the beginning of modern homo sapiens, modern "humans" — folks who walk, eat, and reason like you do, and that's what's important. She is the original "First Lady."
No, this Mohenjo-Daro bronze image dates back to the Harappan people of 2500 B.C.
The woman made a career out of grandmothering. She's the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great- great-grea — —whoops!—we're out of room.... O.K.!, she's the great grandmother 100 squared of us all.
Everybody has an Eve connection.
So, how did this African diva turn some of her children white???
WHERE DID SHE GO?
Sistuh Eve and her children went all over the place, via migration, war, commerce, assimilation, enslavement, marriage, procreation. They took their melanin (the genetic stuff that keeps them bbbBlack) with them.
In ancient times Africa and Asia were connected by land, so Sistuh Eve sent some of her children out to play—in what we know today as Asia, India, Europe and the Americas.
Around 5000 years ago some families moved from Africa to Sumer (in Southwest Asia, later known as Mesopotamia). A few hundred years later the DRAVIDIANS went to check out the Indus Valley (India), stayed, and ruled it for a thousand years. Today India has the largest number of Blacks in Asia.
A modern Dravidian woman, early 1900's.
Another Black prehistoric group, the GRIMALDIS, made it to Europe some 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, and are considered its first modern population. (If they'd known about the Ice Age they would have stayed home.) Their icons have been discovered in Italy and Australia.
A 4 1/2" clay piece by the Grimaldis, one of the earliest depictions of the female form. Found in Austria, dubbed (strangely) "The Venus of Willendorf."
The Anu (Ani) people from Southern Europe and Nubia settled in China, India and Persia (now Iran), and Blacks were visible in China's Shang Dynasty from 1766-1043 B.C.
"Negritos whom the Chinese call 'Black Dwarfs' are reported in the mountainous districts south of Yangtze ... Some emigrated, but others remained and were assimilated by the dominant southern Mongolian stock, as witness to kinky hair and swarthy skin noticeable among a few southern Chinese."
L. Carrington Goodrich A Short History Of The Chinese People, (USA)
As documented by Herodotus and others, Blacks (Colchians) have been in Russia for at least 3000 years, near the Black Sea in the Caucaucus Mountains. In the late 17th Century, Blacks were imported by Peter the Great as servants and court amusements.
Around 1000 B.C. sailors from Africa's southwest coast (Guinea) made boats and followed the ocean currents to the Americas. Their self-portraits--stone heads averaging 7' tall, weighing 20 tons--have been found throughout Mexico and Central America.
A 20 ton artifact should make you wonder how anyone could celebrate Chris Columbus' "discovery!"
The Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci was headed toward the Americas in 1500 when (according to his letters) he spotted Black men on the Caribbean island that is now Curacao. He later witnessed African sailors on the Atlantic returning to Africa.
In other words, the BWs presence outside Africa began, not as a slave, but free!
How long were they gone?
Long enough for Sistuh Eve's children to change their physical appearance. Sistuh Eve's descendants provided the seed for all the non-Black populations known today.
Over hundreds of years they adapted to different climates, terrains, foods, etc., with slow changes they didn't even notice. But moms see everything, and when they came home again—to trade or to conquer or to get some clean laundry—Sistuh Eve saw that some of her children's hair had straightened out. Their eyes had narrowed. Their physique had changed. They were low on melanin so they were looking a little bleached, or a little yellow, or, my goodness!, even white.
So now there were races distinguished by color. and ... humans had discovered the art of SEXUAL POLITICS:
a) the SEXUAL part: Conquerors slept with the folks they conquered. Travelers slept with the folks they visited. This took the BW around the world more "intimately" than anything. (In time, women who were despised for their race would be wooed, wedded and bedded by "the enemy.")
b) the POLITICS part: In "Dynastic incest" queens married their brothers and cousins to preserve the family power line. Gender. even without sex, was manipulated in political relationships to secure land for empires. EMPIRE BUILDING! Ah, there's the rub!....
Sistuh Eve's children were into DYNASTIES long before the TV show (and did it better!) During B.C., empire building was relatively local. A few conquering s here, a few dynasties there. Africa was invaded for the first time in the 1700's B.C. by the Hyksos, a people the Egyptians had formerly ruled. The Greeks came en masse to Egypt (which is in Africa) where they learned all the stuff they later claimed to have created on their own. However, as we cross the bridge into the Christian Era, things get a lot more complicated.
In the mid 1600's, there was an Irish invasion (well, in a manner of speaking) of Jamaica:
AMANDA CASH ROMAN b. approx. 1840, a Black American whose Jamaican mother married a Jamaican Irishman.
Oliver Cromwell sent a large group of Irish prisoners to.. Jamaica [where] they intermarried with blacks ... and over a period of years lost their identity. Today many blackjamaicans still carry Irish surnames.
—Joseph John Williams Whence the "Black Irish" of Jamaica (USA)
In 711 those handsome Moors went all the way to Europe to conquer Spain. Then they missed that home cooking and sent for their women. Black men and women ruled Spain for seven centuries, imprinting the literature, architecture and culture.
In the Portuguese runs a deep current of Negro blood, and there the Negro has often risen to the caste of the nobility. Napoleon's army had many small, black Portugese soldiers ... merchants purchased ... Negroes as servants; in all large cities of commerce there were several hundred blacks, and many a house was known simply as 'at the Moors'."
Brunold Springer, Racial Mixture As The Basic Principle Of Life (Germany 1940)
Which is how we came to have Black blood among the royalty of Europe ...
... and vice versa:
QUEEN CHARLOTTE SOPHIA, 1744-1818
German-born wife of England's George III. (Described by court observer Walpole as "Not a beauty, the nostrils spreading too wide; mouth has the some fault." (Of course!)
TSAN MERRITT-PORRE, a bona fide Black Jew, and her German-Jewish great-grandmother, Elizabeth Cohen-Johnston. Tsan, a culinary arts specialist, "keeps Kosher" in her home.
(I know this is a little rough on some of you, so go make a cup of tea, stay calm and stay tuned.)
Imagine going to the market and finding out that YOU are the item on sale.
Starting in the late 1300's the BW was taken on a 500-year world tour without Tourist status.
She was taken from West Africa to the West Indies to be "trained" for slavery, then dispatched to the United States to do her j.o.b.
She was taken by Arabs from East Africa to Turkey and other slave centers around the Black Sea.
She was taken to Jamaica where she fought enslavement for a century. Dubbed a Maroon, she was captured in the late 1700's and shipped to Nova Scotia.
In 1517 she was used to entice Spaniards to settle in Latin America. "Have slaves, will go."
She was sent to the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Surinam, Cuba, to cut sugar cane and refine it for European tastes.
"The Chinese ravished New Guinea for slaves. By the 14th, 15th Century, the Muslim-Indonesian Sultan of Pidor was going to New Guinea for slaves for the Middle East, Turkey and Iraq, and for exportation to the Chinese empire."
C. Madang, "The African Diospora In Asia"
She was taken from the Sudan, Libya and Chad to Yugoslavia. Descendants could be found in Ulcinj as recently as the 1950's.
Only the money was counted, not the victims. So the numbers on slavery are not in yet.
But historians' wide-ranging estimates show from 5 to 30 million BWn taken from Africa.
After all that, some Sistuhs actually got back to Africa. In 1787 Maroons and Black Loyalists who were suffering in Nova Scotia accepted Britain's offer to be returned to Sierra Leone.
Between 1820 and 1870 hundreds of Blacks from the Americas and West Indies voluntarily moved to Liberia, sponsored by "colonization societies."
Not all Blacks during the period of slavery were slaves.
Captured Africans survived the wreck of Spanish ships off the Caribbean coast of St. Vincent in 1635, and formed a community with the Carib Indians and slave fugitives from other islands.
In the U.S., Indians (Native Americans) assisted escaped slaves. Through intermarriage a substantial group of free "Black Indians" evolved.
"The number of Afro-Americans with an Indian ancestor was once estimated at about one-third of the total. In Latin America the percentage is much higher."
William Loren Katz, Black Indians (USA)
Diana Fletcher, a Black Indian of the Kiowa Nation.
Loyalists were those siding with Britain during America's war for independence. Among them were free Blacks and Blacks who gained freedom in exchange for soldiering. Some 5,000 fled to Canada. More followed after the War of 1812. In the early 1900's Black families founded settlements in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
MARY SEACOLE, an adventurous nurse, was born in Jamaica, schooled in Britain, nursed cholera victims in Panama with her own formula. In the mid 1850's she found her way to Turkey, setting up a mini-hospital and canteen for soldiers in the Crimean War. She was celebrated in England as a war hero.
"Some people have called me quite a female Ulysses. They intended it as a compliment but from my experience of the Greeks, I do not consider it a very flattering one."
Through the trade of goods, the African presence in Germany predates colonialism. After WWI the occupation forces brought their colonized African soldiers to Germany. Black men and German women produced daughters who became victims of the Nazi regime.
"We often heard about mulattoes being taken to concentration camps... Many colored women were sterilized. Christel's mother hid her in a convent near Cologne. They got her out of there and sterilized her too. Our nephew, also."
Doris Reiprich and Erike Ngambi ul Kuo, Farbe Bekennen (Showing Our Colors) (Germany)
1990 photo of German BWn includes three generations of one family.
Estimates of today's Afro-German population, where there is no longer a census by race, range from 30 thousand to one million.
"Where did she go?" is a question some Sistuhs hope no one ever answers.
We tried to get some first-hand interviews. Skin color and assumptions have destroyed the unity of Black communities world-wide. We put an ad in the paper. The "one- [??] -of-black-blood" theory—
... created The Mulatto, the Quadroon, the Octoroon, the ... We asked for referrals. The [??] has cost millions in "miscegenation" litigation and legislation from S.A. to U.S.A., while filling the coffers of Hollywood. We stood on corners taking notes. The [??] has caused much stress and heartbreak among those who want one [??] and those who want to get rid of the one [??] they have. We staked out family reunions and stores selling bleaching creams.
Assimilation = a marked decline in the African-descended populations of several Central and South American countries. Brazil has the largest number of Blacks living Outside Africa, yet in Brazil's 1980 census only 5.7% (7.5 million) of the citizens claimed to be "Black."
"Don't let your color fade into white/ Don't let yourself be erased." Brazilian Census poster
We eavesdropped
on old wives telling tales.
None of the Sistuhs who are currently "passing" would agree to be interviewed for this book.
We wanted to tell them that if one [??] could make your whole thang truly Black, then perhaps it's one hell of a powerful [??], which may be the real reason we've been forced to share it, and maybe they should rethink this.
Translation on 1924 North African post card reads "Woman of Chad-white race"
Oh, really?!
"Ancient black life rooted upon its base with all its fascinating new layers of brown, low-brown, high-brown, nut-brown, lemon, maroon, olive, mauve, gold. Yellow balancing between black and white. Black reaching out beyond yellow. Almost-white on the brink of change. Sucked back down into the current of black by the terribly sweet rhythm of black blood ..."
Claude McKay, Home To Harlem (Jamaica)
Names by which she is known
"Young Black Woman what's your name?
....
It's pride and beauty far I have no shame I'm Young Black Woman. You Know my name."
Sebek Sanyika (USA)
Folks can't handle something without a name.
Names that denote status, race, physical look, free or slave, and especially names with attitudes.
The BW was renamed after being "discovered" by colonialists. A slave's name was often changed when she was sold, making it difficult to reunite with family or to maintain a personal identity. With freedom, some declared their names invalid — "slave names" — and took one of their own liking.
Names become part of social rituals—who can call who what, and get away with it.
Names can put you in boxes (class x caste x category x character). Or they can clarify.
"I'm a Black Feminist Lesbian Mother Warrior Poet."
Audre Lorde (USA)
Naming should not be confused with name-calling. To help you distinguish, we offer:
NAMES BY WHICH SHE IS KNOWN
A GLOSSARY
African queen - a head-up BW of the African diaspora
auntie - 1) masters'/overseers' name for female slave who can no longer breed; 2) member of your extended (non-blood) family who loves you like you were her own
Aunt Jemima - one of the most recognized symbols of the happy "mammy," used to market pancakes and other domestic products to Whites since the 1880's. The name Jemimah once had esteem as the eldest of Job's (the Bible) daughters, and as a city in ancient Arabia named after its queen
Auset (Ast)- original, Egyptian name for Isis
baby - an affectionate ID for a lover, friend or kin
beef - Jamaican males' description of a BW
bellywoman - a pregnant West Indian woman
bleke-uma - a BW in Surinam
black rose, black pearl - poetic descriptions of the BW
blonde Negroid - term coined by European historians to describe Europeans with a visible "Negro strain" (broad nose, thick lips); a.k.a. Nordic Negro
London edition of the American song, 1831
breeder - a slave forced into multiple pregnancies to increase the number of slave laborers
Candace - translation of ancient Ethiopian word for Kentake, a female ruler
chamba - A Black West Indian woman in Panama, often used negatively in Latin American countries
Cleopatra - reference point, as in "the Cleopatra of ______"; applied to very sensuous BWn, particularly if they have a good head for business
cocola - a Black West Indian woman in the Dominican Republic
daughter - an affectionate I.D., no age or family relationship required
Angela Davis - reference point, as in "the Angela Davis of _____"; applied to tall, politically outspoken BWn. Around the world in 1970, sistuhs were arrested for "being" Angela, even after she was incarcerated
diva - BW who gives a consistently strong performance, with or without a stage/audience
Eve- 1) scientists' nickname denoting the first modern homosapiens; 2) in theology, the mother of all living humans, but also the first alleged transgressor
exotic erotic - some folks' fantasy psychosis which sees all Black women as simultaneously strange, fascinating, primal and childlike, uninhibited, earthy, sensuous and highly sexed. ("You can be some of the women all of the time, but you can't be all ...") gin - British colonizers' term for native Aboriginal woman
Hey, mama! - 1) a warm greeting 2) a catch phrase used by unfamiliar men, usually followed by "Can I go wich choo?"
'ho - a derivative of, but less operative than, "whore", since you don't have to be one to be called one
hot chocolate - a very sexy BW
(Continues...)
Excerpted from BLACK WOMEN FOR BEGINNERS by S. PEARL SHARP. Copyright © 1993 Saundra Sharp. Excerpted by permission of For Beginners LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
CONTENTS,Acknowledgements,
WHERE DID SHE COME FROM? (AND THEN WHERE DID SHE GO?),
NAMES BY WHICH SHE IS KNOWN,
THE BEAUTY BANK,
MADONNAS OR MADAMS?,
WITCHES, WIVES, & WARRIORS,
MOVERS & SHAKERS,
TAKIN' CARE OF BIZNESS,
DIVAS DON'T DIE,
Bibliography,
Credits,