Synopses & Reviews
Race has long shaped shopping experiences for many Americans. Retail exchanges and establishments have made headlines as flashpoints for conflict not only between blacks and whites, but also between whites, Mexicans, Asian Americans, and a wide variety of other ethnic groups, who have at times found themselves unwelcome at white-owned businesses.and#160;and#160;
Race and Retail documents the extent to which retail establishments, both past and present, have often catered to specific ethnic and racial groups. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the original essays collected here explore selling and buying practices of nonwhite populations around the world and the barriers that shape these habits, such as racial discrimination, food deserts, and gentrification. The contributors highlight more contemporary issues by raising questions about how race informs business ownersandrsquo; ideas about consumer demand, resulting in substandard quality and higher prices for minorities than in predominantly white neighborhoods. and#160;In a wide-ranging exploration of the subject, they also address revitalization and gentrification in South Korean and Latino neighborhoods in California, Arab and Turkish coffeehouses and hookah lounges in South Paterson, New Jersey, and tourist capoeira consumption in Brazil. and#160;and#160;
Race and Retail illuminates the complex play of forces at work in racialized retail markets and the everyday impact of those forces on minority consumers. The essays demonstrate how past practice remains in force in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.and#160;and#160;
Review
andquot;This is the most important book on race and consumerism in many years.andquot;
Review
andquot;Massood focuses on Harlem and the representations of African American bodies and spaces in photographs and films in her engaging book,
Making a Promised Land.andquot;
Review
andquot;Examining still and moving images of Harlem over the last century, Massood thoughtfully analyzes two popular visual mediums of the 20th century, photography and film, as new modes of historical interpretation. The author examines African American urban history with a sharp eye for enlightening visual portrayals. Recommended.andquot;
Review
andquot;Thoroughly researched, well-argued, and clearly written, Making a Promised Land is a fine piece of work, providing new insight in its attention to visual culture in Harlem.andquot;and#160;
Review
andquot;In this elegant, evocative study, Massood explores the relationshipand#160;between African American representation and urban life as documentedand#160;in still and moving images over the past century . . . a compelling analysisand#160;of the changing image of Harlem in the cultural imaginary.andquot;
Review
andquot;An important contribution to the scholarship on black television representations, Watching While Black fills a gap in the literature by placing recent shows aimed at black audiences front and center.andquot;
Review
andquot;Reading this collection is like channel surfing and landing on theand#160;black spaces. This is what television scholarship looks like and theand#160;televisual experience feels like when the fullness of black life isand#160;made central to television.andquot;
Review
andquot;Beretta E. Smith-Shomade has assembled a timely, necessary contribution to and intervention within the literature on television and blackness.andquot;
Synopsis
Race and Retail documents the extent to which retail establishments, both past and present, have often catered to specific ethnic and racial groups. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the original essays collected here explore selling and buying practices of nonwhite populations around the world and the barriers that shape these habits, such as racial discrimination, food deserts, and gentrification.and#160;and#160;
Synopsis
In Making a Promised Land, Paula J. Massood examines the interconnected histories of African American representation, urban life, and citizenship as documented in still and moving images of Harlem over the last century. She analyzes how photography and film have been used over time to make African American culture visible to itself and to a wider audience and charts the ways in which Harlem, the andldquo;Mecca of the New Negro,andrdquo; became a battleground in the struggles to define African American politics, aesthetics, and citizenship.
Synopsis
Watching While Black exclusively considers and critically engages programs that Black audiences watch and enjoy. With fresh perspectives, contributors both expose and introduce programming targeted at very specific and under-examined Black demographics. Cutting across forty years of Black television, the book looks at behind-the-scenes practices, significant historical texts, twenty-first century shows, and programs produced for Black audiences around the world.
About the Author
MIA BAY is a professor of history and co-director of the Rutgers Center for Race and Ethnicity at Rutgers University. She is the author of
The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas About White People 1830andndash;1925.and#160;
ANN FABIAN is a distinguished professor of history and co-director of the Rutgers Center for Race and Ethnicity at Rutgers University. She is the author of The Skull Collectors: Race, Science, and Americaandrsquo;s Unburied Dead.and#160;and#160;
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I
1. The Importance of Roots
2. Two Different Worlds
3. A Black Cast Doesnandrsquo;t Make a Black Show
4. Blacks in the Future
Part II
5. andldquo;Regular Television Put to Shame by Negro Productionandrdquo;
6. andldquo;HEY, HEY, HEY!andrdquo; Bill Cosbyandrsquo;s Fat Albert as Psychodynamic Postmodern Play
7. Gimme a Break! and the Limits of the Modern Mammy
8. Down in the Treme . . . Buck Jumping and Having Fun?
Part III
9. Keepinandrsquo; It Reality Television
10. Prioritized: The Hip Hop (Re)Construction of Black Womanhood in Girlfriends and The Game
11. Nigger, Coon, Boy, Punk, Homo, Faggot, Black Man
12. Graphic Blackness/Anime Noir
Part IV
13. Resistance Televised
14. South African Soapies
15. Minority Television Trade as Cultural Journey
Notes on Contributors
Index