African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
225 p., Whitmarsh describes how he followed a team of genetic researchers to Barbados, where he did fieldwork among not only the researchers but also government officials, medical professionals, and the families being tested. Whitmarsh reveals how state officials and medical professionals make the international biomedical research part of state care, bundling together categories of disease populations, biological race, and asthma. He points to state and industry perceptions of mothers as medical caretakers in genetic research that proves to be inextricable from contested practices around nation, race, and family.
"You must understand that we are very different in Cuba," insisted Gabriel Molina Franchossi, director of Gramma newspaper, the official organ of the communist party in Cuba. "To Afro-Cubans, big lips and big backsides are objects of beauty. To us, such images represent the feminine ideal." Afro Cubans also seem naive. Cubans are fond of saying that Fidel Castro abolished racism when he came into power 40 years ago, as though this can be accomplished by a simple decree. What they really mean, of course, is that Castro outlawed discrimination And again, who am I to say he hasn't? In the United States, discrimination didn't become illegal until the mid-60s when Congress passed a series of civil rights laws effecting voting rights, equal employment, and fair housing. By 1968, Richard Nixon was ending a wave of white backlash into power and the process of undermining those gains began. Blacks appear to have had a different experience in Cuba, where better than 40 percent of the population is either Black or mestizo (mixed) and where a fair percentage of those who are considered "white" acknowledge some degree of African or mestizo blood in their heritage. "We in Cuba are not so easily categorized as in the United States," said Reynaldo Calviac Lafferte, director of the International Press Center. He pointed to a wall in his office. "In the same family, there are some who are as white as that wall." Then he slapped his patent leathers. "And there are some who are as black as my shoes. For us, race is not an issue like it is for you."
Portuguese and Spanish slavers supplied the Americas with "los Negros," the Blacks. Only those young and strong, impervious to European disease and able to withstand months of torturous living packed in the cruel quarters of slave shipholds survived the middle passage. Those who arrived, stunned and malnourished, lost in a foreign land, were easy prey to the slavers. Removed from a world that had nourished them, left to the mercy of those whose own lack of humanity prevented the recognition of theirs, they were utterly dependent and at the mercy of their captors. Vestiges of racism threaten to dismantle further progress in South America, as they do here. The prophecies of Willie Lynch, a slave owner who created a divisive plan to keep Blacks separate by fostering dissent among them, are coming true. Lynch outlined the differences in physical characteristics among the slaves-skin shade, hair texture, height, etc. By playing up these differences, Lynch promised, "The Black slave, after receiving this indoctrination, shall carry on and will become self-refueling and self-generating for hundreds of years, maybe thousands." Throughout North and South America, Lynch's plan lives on. Color lines rule, with the predominantly European strains remaining in power, and those of darker skin and crisper hair texture continue to be oppressed. It is a chilling reality that echoes down from the brutal suppression of the native peoples of Chiapas to the continued repression of Mexicans here and in their own country, to the harsh discrimination shown the Blacks of Brazil and America.
Reviews the book "Women's Activism in Latin America and the Caribbean: Engendering Social Justice, Democratizing Citizenship," edited by Elizabeth Maier and Nathalie Lebon.
Gacitúa-Marió,Estanislao (Author), Norton,Andrew (Author), and Georgieva,Sophia V. (Author)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
2009
Published:
Washington, DC: World Bank
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
270 p., Examines the validity of a social guarantees approach as a framework for evaluating, monitoring, and improving the design of social policy. Social guarantees are defined as sets of policy mechanisms that determine citizens' entitlements related to basic services and ensure their fulfillment on the part of the state. Includes Rachel Hannah Nadelman, Lavern Louard-Greaves, and Carol Watson Williams' "Achieving equitable and inclusive citizenship through social policy : the case of Jamaica and St. Kitts and Nevis."
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
48 p., Examines black history from 1968 until 2008, discussing race relations around the world, apartheid in South Africa, genocide in Rwanda, the assassination of Martin Luther King, affirmative action programs, Hurricane Katrina, artists and important figures of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Includes sections on "Black and British" and "Caribbean independence."
Hall,Kenneth O. (Author) and Chuck-A-Sang,Myrtle (Author)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
2011
Published:
Georgetown, Guyana: Commonwealth Secretariat
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
503 p, pt. 1. Globalization and CARICOM external policy options -- pt. 2. South-South cooperation -- pt. 3. External trade negotiations: concerns and convergence -- pt. 4. Caribbean imperatives and concluding reflections.
Miami, FL: Florida International University, Cuban Research Institute
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
The Cuban Research Institute (CRI) at Florida International University (FIU) is dedicated to creating and disseminating knowledge about Cuba and Cuban Americans. The institute encourages original research and interdisciplinary teaching, organizes extracurricular activities, collaborates with other academic units working in Cuban and Cuban-American studies, and promotes the development of library holdings and collections on Cuba and its diaspora. Founded in 1991, CRI is a freestanding entity within FIU's Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs and works closely with its prestigious Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center.
Looks at Barbados's experience of abortion law reform undertaken in the 1980s. The movement was led by then Cabinet Minister and lawyer Billie Miller. Documents the nuances, important moments, key strategies and major players in the reform movement, and highlights the critical role that Miller played in getting the Medical Termination Act passed in 1983. Background information on the situation of Barbadian women and the nature of parliamentary governance at that time is also addressed in order to give context to the politics surrounding the issue.
