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The Birth of African-American Culture: An Anthropological Perspective

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'The Birth of African-American Culture: An Anthropological Perspective' is an early 1970s reaction to the `swift' establishment of Afro-American and Black Studies programmes within the U.S. American Universities, in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement. Its authors-Sidney Mintz and Richard Price-feared that, with the `explosion' of general interest in Black History, ideological concerns might sidetrack the invaluable `scholarly quest' previously established by the likes of W.E.B. Du Bois and Zora Neale Hurston (in the U.S.A.) Jean Price-Mars (in Haiti) or Fernando Ortiz (in Cuba) to name a few. Therefore, 'The Birth of African-American Culture' cautiously offers strategies/approaches to study the Afro-American past that would do justice to the complexity of the subject. Its central thesis, supported both by documentary material and speculation, is straightforward: continuities between the so-called `Old' and `New' Worlds must be established on a comprehension of the `basic conditions' under which the migrations of `enslaved Africans' took place.
Today, that the analysis of the development of Afro-American culture should focus on `process' is no longer an issue; the works of renowned scholars such as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Lawrence W. Levine are a testimony to it. In a sense, these academics vindicate Mintz and Price who, two decades earlier, have emphasised the need for more analytical subtlety, flexibility, and sound socio-historical research in Afro-American Studies. What is more, Mintz and Price are aware of the book's achievement, even though, in its 1992 re-edition, caution is still strong in the way they reassert their belief in a two decade-old thesis. For example, in the new preface, Mintz and Price repeat that the unavoidable fact in the study of Afro-America is `the humanity of the oppressed, and the inhumanity of the systems that oppressed them.' Both believe that such oppression `has by no means ended should be clear to everyone, as it is to us.'
The text of 'The Birth of African-American Culture', including introduction and conclusion, is eighty-five pages long; yet amazingly it covers a broad range of complex issues focused on slave society, from the origins and beginnings of Afro-American societies and cultures to questions of kinship and sex roles therein. In their rigorously balanced, albeit too tentative at times, analysis of Afro-American Culture the authors rightfully argue that the transfer of culture intact from Africa to the Americas is more fiction than reality. Mintz and Price believe that `Retentions' and `Survivals' are more the exception than the rule in any group's transport of beliefs and values from one locale to another (Europeans included).
The Birth of African-American Culture is thought provoking; it is still very useful in the scholarship on slavery, and issues of the origins and development of Afro-American culture. It is also a must-read for those Africans who refuse to be carelessly melted in the pot of global Blackness. Because of never-ending and multifaceted oppression, contemporary Africans and Afro-Americans still need to negotiate an awful number of complex issues before being `brothers' and `sisters': it has been so for centuries despite the numerous bonds that (do) exist between members of the Black Diaspora. Like Mintz and Price, it is my profound conviction that `the nature of oppression, while obvious in its most familiar forms, involves subtleties as well, one of these being the way it divides and confuses honest [souls] by perpetuating suspicion and fear.' However, in its future editions, 'The Birth of African-American Culture''s authors need to:
(1) Go beyond offering startegies/approaches to the study of the Afro-American past, and present results of such studies, albeit selectively, if only to corroborate and strengthen their own thesis/be bolder in their arguments. I believe that Mintz and Price missed this opportunity two decades after the first publication of their book but, still, it can be done;
(2) Spend time to explain to the reader how `Caribbeanist' scholars like themselves can write about (Afro-) `American' culture. In other words the intertwined issues of what `America' is, what `Americans' are and how they relate to the subject matter of 'The Birth of African-American Culture' must be tackled in much detail and clarity.

Even though I am versed in the topic, I am not a social scientist. I found the writing too technical to engage me as a casual reader.