Modernity, Freedom, and the African Diaspora

Elisa Joy White

Description

Racial barriers in modern globalized societies

Elisa Joy White investigates the contemporary African Diaspora communities in Dublin, New Orleans, and Paris and their role in the interrogation of modernity and social progress. Beginning with an examination of Dublin's emergent African immigrant community, White shows how the community's negotiation of racism, immigration status, and xenophobia exemplifies the ways in which idealist representations of global societies are contradicted by the prevalence of racial, ethnic, and cultural conflicts within them. Through the consideration of three contemporaneous events—the deportations of Nigerians from Dublin, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and the uprisings in the Paris suburbs—White reveals a shared quest for social progress in the face of stark retrogressive conditions.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part 1. The African Diaspora in Dublin
1. Decolonization, Racism, and the Retro-Global Society
2. Status, Numbers, and the "Retro" Revealed
3. Media Representation and Black Presence
4. Racism, Immigrant Status, and Black Life
5. A Community in the Making

Part 2. The Glitches of Modernity
6. Dublin: The Olukunle Elukanlo Case
7. New Orleans: Race Meets Antediluvian Modernity
8. Paris: The Liberating Quality of Race
9. Conclusion: Toward a Modern Future
Notes
References
Index

Sujets

• African Studies
• Ethnic Studies
• Black Studies
• Social Science
• Ethnic
• Sociologie, société et politique
• América
• General officer
• Ethnic group
• African American
• Anthropology
• General
• American
• Migration
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 11 juin 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253001283
• Langue: English

Extrait

MODERNITY, FREEDOM, AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA

BLACKS IN THE DIASPORA

FOUNDING EDITORS:Darlene Clark Hine, John McCluskey, Jr., and David Barry Gaspar

SERIES EDITOR:Tracy Sharpley-Whiting

ADVISORY BOARD:Herman L. Bennett, Kim D. Butler, Judith A. Byfield, and Leslie A. Schwalm

MODERNITY, FREEDOM, AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA

This book is a publication of

Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, Indiana 47404-3797 USA

iupress.indiana.edu

Telephone orders800-842-6796 Fax orders812-855-7931

© 2012 by Elisa Joy White

All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

White, Elisa Joy. Modernity, freedom, and the African diaspora : Dublin, New Orleans, Paris / Elisa Joy White. p. cm. — (Blacks in the diaspora) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-253-00115-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-253-00125-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-253-00128-3 (electronic book) 1. Blacks—Ireland— Dublin—Social conditions. 2. African Americans—Louisiana—New Orleans— Social conditions. 3. Blacks— France—Paris—Social conditions. 4. African diaspora. 5. Community life—Ireland—Dublin. 6. Community life—Louisiana—New Orleans. 7. Community life—France—Paris. 8. Dublin (Ireland)—Race relations. 9. New Orleans (La.)—Race relations. 10. Paris (France)—Race relations. I. Title. DA995.D75W49 2012 305.896—dc23

1 2 3 4 5 17 16 15 14 13 12

2011051854

To my beautiful parents, Reggie and Margaret, with love and gratitude

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I. The African Diaspora in Dublin 1. Decolonization, Racism, and the Retro-Global Society 2. Status, Numbers, and the “Retro” Revealed 3. Media Representation and Black Presence 4. Racism, Immigrant Status, and Black Life 5. A Community in the Making

Part II. The Glitches of Modernity 6. Dublin: The Olukunle Elukanlo Case 7. New Orleans: Race Meets Antediluvian Modernity 8. Paris: The Liberating Quality of Race 9. Conclusion: Toward a Modern Future Notes References Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In the course of developing this book—a journey that spans a decade, three countries, and at least seven personal residences from the Atlantic to the Pacific—I have benefited from the kindness, commitment, insight, time, patience, and support of many wonderful people in various places, spaces, and capacities along the way. I am sincerely grateful for them all and what follows will no doubt neglect a few. Thank you to Kim Butler, who expressed interest in this project in the early days and has been a beacon all along, and Robert Sloan, Editorial Director at Indiana University Press, for keeping the project alive and offering crucial critiques that pushed this work into its strongest form. Many thanks for the very helpful comments from the anonymous readers who approached the scope of the work with great care and consideration. Thank you to Sarah Wyatt Swanson for her careful preparation of the manuscript and Louis Simon for his gentle and fastidious copy-editing. I am particularly indebted to the many individuals in Dublin’s anti-racism and immigrant rights communities for the numerous interviews, rich conversations, “hang out” time, friendship, and candid expressions of hope, doubt, joy, and pain. Thank you to the members of the Anti-Racism Campaign, Residents Against Racism, and the Anti-Fascist Action for the camaraderie, commiseration, and inspiration, from Mountjoy Prison to the pub. Special thanks to Rosanna Flynn and Mags Glennon for allowing me to lurk a bit and for unendingly demonstrating how the good fight gets won. Thank you to Pat Guerin for the useful updates, the proper politics, and the “good for you” Guinness over the years. When working on a project like this, though there is certainly pleasure, it seems one mostly courts tragedy, stressful conditions, disaster, and sadness, or at least sniffs around in the aftermath. Thank you to the African Diaspora community of Dublin for showing me the meaning of perseverance and the drive to create something new in the world. Thank you to the individuals in the Paris suburbs who did not look askance at a wandering pregnant woman poking around for a whiff of the bad times. Equal thanks to the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward who were forthright and kind when yet another person came around to ask yet another question about the horrible events that had so changed their lives. The initial Dublin field research would not have been possible without a grant from the Fulbright Program and my subsequent affiliation with the M.Phil. in Ethnic and Racial Studies Program (now Race, Ethnicity, Conflict) in the Department of Sociology at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). I am most especially grateful to Ronit Lentin for providing me with a space within the university community and, more importantly, the anti-racism and gender rights communities, as well as her scholarly mentoring, honesty, and continued support over the years. I would also like to thank my mentors and advisors at the University of California, Berkeley, in the African Diaspora Studies Ph.D. program, who did not flinch at the idea of conducting research on the once-uncharted area of “Blacks in Ireland.” I’ve particularly appreciated the conversations, feedback, and support from my dissertation committee members, Michel Laguerre, Waldo Martin, and Stephen Small, as well as the encouragement from Percy Hintzen, Ula Taylor, and the late VèVè Clark. Thank you to Sean O’Riaian for providing the initial statistical data, back in the UC Berkeley days, that moved the project forward, and also for connecting me with the Ethnic

and Racial Studies Program at TCD. I am also very grateful to the late Daniel Cassidy for graciously allowing me to audit courses in the Irish Studies Program at the New College of California in San Francisco and also connecting me with his niece, and my friend, Siobhan Leftwich, who also helped to expand the necessary and invaluable landscape of Dublin connections for me. Thank you to Peggy Piesche and Fatima El-Tayeb for organizing the Black European Studies (BEST) conferences in Schmitten and Berlin, and facilitating the opportunity for me to participate in a vibrant community of Black Europe scholars. I am particularly grateful for the insights and comments brought forth by my co-members of the “Theorizing Blackness Europe-wide” working group during those exciting and intense few days of the first BEST conference. Thank you to Allison Blakely, Maisha R. Eggers, Terri E. Givens, Young-Sun Hong, and Sara Lennox for the productive conversations and healthy exchange of perspectives. Mahalo nui loa to my colleagues (and some former colleagues) at the University of Hawai‘i at M noa for the thoughtful feedback during our short-lived, but productive, faculty housing writing group: Hokulani Aikau, Jodi Byrd, Petrice Flowers, Ty Kawika Tengan, and Katerina Teaiwa. A powerful caffeine-filled thank-you to Ken Kraft, owner of the Crafted Kup in Poughkeepsie, New York, for providing me with a summer “office” and the fine Woodstock Blend. I am greatly appreciative of the many rich conversations, dialogues, passing comments, interventions, meditations, and intellectual considerations offered to me across diasporic, transnational, academic, and “real world” communities. At meeting halls, conference centers, wine bars, pubs, beaches, back alleys, and some combination thereof, the encouragement, positivity, and feedback brought forth by the following individuals have lifted this project well above its beginnings and provided immeasurable instances of inspiration. Many thanks to Maggi Morehouse, Barnor Hesse, Anna Everett, Abel Ugba, Chinedu Onyejelem, Trica Keaton, Katrina Goldstone, Tanya Ward, Fidele Mutwarasibo, Kensika Monshengwo, Bisi Adigun, Kate O’ Flaherty, Caroline Ang, Conor Houghton, and so many others who can’t be named here (but, surely, I owe you a pint, glass of wine, or fizzy mineral water straight-up). Finally, heartfelt and passionate gratitude to my lifeline: my family. Thank you to my partner (and husband) Ian Fleet for his patience, research assistance, and love over the very long haul of this project. Thank you (and kisses) to my extra-special children, Declan and Oliver, for all the times they’ve endured the oft-heard expression, “Sorry, Mommy’s working.” Thank you to my parents, Reginald and Margaret White, for planting in me the joy of inquiry, the desire to see the world in new ways, and thoroughly indulging my lifetime of “dancing to the beat of a different drummer.”

MODERNITY, FREEDOM, AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA