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How James Brown Made Black Pride a Hit

 

It’s been 50 years since he wrote “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud,” a song that is still necessary.

By Randall Kennedy

 

  In the gym at Paul Junior High School in Washington, D.C., in the spring of 1968, not that long before the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I asked a buddy whether he was interested in a certain girl. He told me that he was not because she was too dark.

  He and I were African-American. (Then we would have called ourselves Negro.) So was she. All of us supported the Civil Rights Movement and idolized Dr. King, yet I did not hold my friend’s colorstruck judgment against him. And he did not state his opinion with embarrassment. We had both internalized our society’s derogation of blackness.

  Indeed, we luxuriated in the denigration, spending hours trading silly, recycled but revealing insults: “Yo mama so black, she blend in with the chalkboard.” “Yeah, well, yo mama so black, she sweats chocolate.”

  It was precisely because of widespread colorism that James Brown’s anthem “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” posed a challenge, felt so exhilarating, and resonated so powerfully. It still does. Much has changed over the past half century. But, alas, the need to defend blackness against derision continues.

  Various musicians in the 1960s tapped into yearnings for black assertiveness, autonomy and solidarity. Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions sang “We’re a Winner.” Sly and the Family Stone offered “Stand.” Sam Cooke (and Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding) performed “A Change is Gonna Come.” But no entertainer equaled Brown’s vocalization of African-Americans’ newly triumphal sense of self-acceptance.

  That Brown created the song most popularly associated with the Black is Beautiful movement is ironic. He generally stayed away from protest, endorsed the presidential re-election of Richard Nixon, lavishly praised Ronald Reagan, and consistently lauded Strom Thurmond.

  His infrequent sallies into politics usually sounded in patriotic, lift-yourselfup-ism. In the song “America is My Home,” he proclaimed without embarrassment that the United States “is still the best country / And that’s without a doubt.” Alluding to his own trajectory, he challenged dissenters to name any other country in which a person could start out as a poor shoeshine boy but end up as a wealthy celebrity shaking hands with the president.

  At the very time that in “Say It Loud,” Brown seemed to be affirming Negritude, he also sported a “conk” — a distinctive hairdo that involved chemically removing kinkiness on the way to creating a bouffant of straightened hair. Many AfricanAmerican political activists, especially those with a black nationalist orientation, decried the conk as an illustration of racial self-hatred. For a brief period, Brown abandoned the conk and adopted an Afro, but that was only temporary. The conk was part of the characteristic look of “The Godfather of Soul.”

  Even though by 1968 uprisings against white supremacism had been erupting for a decade with great intensity and success — the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Children’s’ Crusade in Birmingham, the protest against disenfranchisement in Selma — prejudice against blackness remained prevalent, including among African-Americans.

  Champions of African-American uplift in the 1960s sought to liberate blackness from the layers of contempt, fear, and hatred with which it had been smeared for centuries. Brown’s anthem poignantly reflected the psychic problem it sought to address. People secure in their status don’t feel compelled to trumpet their pride. At the same time “Say it Loud!” was a rousing instance of a reclamation that took many forms. Instead of celebrating light skin, thin lips, and “good” (i.e., straight) hair, increasing numbers of African-Americans began valorizing dark skin, thick lips and “bad” (i.e., kinky) hair.

  The reclamation of blackness in the sixties made tremendous headway quickly. By 1970 my friend would not have dared to repeat out loud what he had told me unapologetically two years before. Here, as elsewhere, however, changes wrought by the black liberation movement, though impressive, were only partial. Nearly four decades after the release of “Say It Loud,” Professors Jennifer Hochschild and Vesla Weaver, having synthesized the pertinent academic literature, declared authoritatively that compared to their lighter-skinned counterparts, dark-skinned blacks continue to be burdened by lower levels of education, income, and job status. They receive longer prison sentences and are less likely to own homes or to marry. Filmmakers, advertisers, modeling agencies, dating websites and other key gatekeepers demonstrate repeatedly the ongoing pertinence of the old saw: If you’re black get back. If you’re brown, stick around. If you’re white you’re alright.

  Intraracial colorism in Black America is often seen as a topic that should, if possible, be avoided, especially in “mixed company.” That sense of embarrassment three decades ago prompted officials at Morehouse College to demand that Spike Lee cease filming on campus once they learned that his movie was exposing, among other things, black collegiate colorism. The impulse toward avoidance remains strong

  With racial prejudice against all African-Americans still a potent force, many would just as soon ditch the discussion of “black on black” complexional bias. Colorism, however, remains a baleful reality

  Half a century after James Brown’s proclamation, it remains imperative to assert what should have been assumed and uncontroversial all along: that black is beautiful and as worthy of pride and care and consideration as any other hue.

(Adapted from: www.nytimes.com, 20/07/2018)

The text mentions a certain paradox in Brown’s attitudes. This is because:

How James Brown Made Black Pride a Hit

 

It’s been 50 years since he wrote “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud,” a song that is still necessary.

By Randall Kennedy

 

  In the gym at Paul Junior High School in Washington, D.C., in the spring of 1968, not that long before the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I asked a buddy whether he was interested in a certain girl. He told me that he was not because she was too dark.

  He and I were African-American. (Then we would have called ourselves Negro.) So was she. All of us supported the Civil Rights Movement and idolized Dr. King, yet I did not hold my friend’s colorstruck judgment against him. And he did not state his opinion with embarrassment. We had both internalized our society’s derogation of blackness.

  Indeed, we luxuriated in the denigration, spending hours trading silly, recycled but revealing insults: “Yo mama so black, she blend in with the chalkboard.” “Yeah, well, yo mama so black, she sweats chocolate.”

  It was precisely because of widespread colorism that James Brown’s anthem “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” posed a challenge, felt so exhilarating, and resonated so powerfully. It still does. Much has changed over the past half century. But, alas, the need to defend blackness against derision continues.

  Various musicians in the 1960s tapped into yearnings for black assertiveness, autonomy and solidarity. Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions sang “We’re a Winner.” Sly and the Family Stone offered “Stand.” Sam Cooke (and Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding) performed “A Change is Gonna Come.” But no entertainer equaled Brown’s vocalization of African-Americans’ newly triumphal sense of self-acceptance.

  That Brown created the song most popularly associated with the Black is Beautiful movement is ironic. He generally stayed away from protest, endorsed the presidential re-election of Richard Nixon, lavishly praised Ronald Reagan, and consistently lauded Strom Thurmond.

  His infrequent sallies into politics usually sounded in patriotic, lift-yourselfup-ism. In the song “America is My Home,” he proclaimed without embarrassment that the United States “is still the best country / And that’s without a doubt.” Alluding to his own trajectory, he challenged dissenters to name any other country in which a person could start out as a poor shoeshine boy but end up as a wealthy celebrity shaking hands with the president.

  At the very time that in “Say It Loud,” Brown seemed to be affirming Negritude, he also sported a “conk” — a distinctive hairdo that involved chemically removing kinkiness on the way to creating a bouffant of straightened hair. Many AfricanAmerican political activists, especially those with a black nationalist orientation, decried the conk as an illustration of racial self-hatred. For a brief period, Brown abandoned the conk and adopted an Afro, but that was only temporary. The conk was part of the characteristic look of “The Godfather of Soul.”

  Even though by 1968 uprisings against white supremacism had been erupting for a decade with great intensity and success — the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Children’s’ Crusade in Birmingham, the protest against disenfranchisement in Selma — prejudice against blackness remained prevalent, including among African-Americans.

  Champions of African-American uplift in the 1960s sought to liberate blackness from the layers of contempt, fear, and hatred with which it had been smeared for centuries. Brown’s anthem poignantly reflected the psychic problem it sought to address. People secure in their status don’t feel compelled to trumpet their pride. At the same time “Say it Loud!” was a rousing instance of a reclamation that took many forms. Instead of celebrating light skin, thin lips, and “good” (i.e., straight) hair, increasing numbers of African-Americans began valorizing dark skin, thick lips and “bad” (i.e., kinky) hair.

  The reclamation of blackness in the sixties made tremendous headway quickly. By 1970 my friend would not have dared to repeat out loud what he had told me unapologetically two years before. Here, as elsewhere, however, changes wrought by the black liberation movement, though impressive, were only partial. Nearly four decades after the release of “Say It Loud,” Professors Jennifer Hochschild and Vesla Weaver, having synthesized the pertinent academic literature, declared authoritatively that compared to their lighter-skinned counterparts, dark-skinned blacks continue to be burdened by lower levels of education, income, and job status. They receive longer prison sentences and are less likely to own homes or to marry. Filmmakers, advertisers, modeling agencies, dating websites and other key gatekeepers demonstrate repeatedly the ongoing pertinence of the old saw: If you’re black get back. If you’re brown, stick around. If you’re white you’re alright.

  Intraracial colorism in Black America is often seen as a topic that should, if possible, be avoided, especially in “mixed company.” That sense of embarrassment three decades ago prompted officials at Morehouse College to demand that Spike Lee cease filming on campus once they learned that his movie was exposing, among other things, black collegiate colorism. The impulse toward avoidance remains strong

  With racial prejudice against all African-Americans still a potent force, many would just as soon ditch the discussion of “black on black” complexional bias. Colorism, however, remains a baleful reality

  Half a century after James Brown’s proclamation, it remains imperative to assert what should have been assumed and uncontroversial all along: that black is beautiful and as worthy of pride and care and consideration as any other hue.

(Adapted from: www.nytimes.com, 20/07/2018)

In the second paragraph, the boldfaced sentence: “We had both internalized our society’s derogation of blackness.” means that:

Why is medicine important

 

Human existence and the strike of diseases go hand in hand, and it has remained so right from the beginning of times. In the primitive civilizations, there existed no notion of symptoms and causes of diseases. An ailment was considered a supernatural and uncontrollable occurring, attributed to the forces of nature and those beyond it. Consequently, the cure of the ailment was also left as a task to nature itself. In rare cases, spontaneous natural interaction would result in a favorable change in health, however, most of the times, this did not happen. As a result, human life was short-lived.

The present age is in utter contrast. Not only are most common diseases curable, there are well established norms of leading life in a certain manner so that these ailments do not trouble a human being. This tremendous achievement is a boon of medical science. A simple fact can throw light on the remarkable importance of medical sciences in the progress of human beings. From a petty 25 years, the age of the average human being has almost tripled itself because of the groundbreaking inventions of medicine. No wonders medicine is considered the most essential branch of all sciences, as its impact on human beings is immediate and indispensible. Linguistically speaking, medicine is a derivative of the Latin words ars medicina, which means the art of healing. Medicine is a specialization in health sciences, with the sole aim of preventing and alleviating the ill effects of a disease. One does not need to look far away to smell the fragrance of medical science.

Commonplace medicines for curing body pain and fever are used in the quantities of millions everyday. Medicine is a vast study that applies its theories to ensure a healthy life for human beings through the use of tablets, drugs, syrups, exercises and other similar means. Medicine has the potential to provide a human being comprehensive immunity from uncontrollable factors of environment. Studies aiming at identifying the agents that cause a certain deficiency or disease, and then experimenting to develop the antidote for the agent make much of the framework within which medical science works. The importance of studying medicine and pursuing further betterments can’t be stressed enough.

It is due to the efforts of scholars of this field that the human race has the norms of a healthy lifestyle laid out clearly in front. The modern day medicinal research attempts at nullifying the side effect of drugs and making our lives even more secure.

Disponível em: <http://www.adorablescience.com/why-is-medicine-important/>. Acesso em 22 de agosto de 2018.

 

According to the text we can conclue that:

Read the ad.

This piece of advertisement is asking people to make a difference by

Read the text to answer question.

 

High-flying ideas?

 

  A camera-equipped drone flies around the outskirts of Seoul, South Korea, hovering near an industrial plant and capturing video of pollutants. Below, on the crowded, litter-covered streets, residents wear white and black masks that cover their noses and mouths. A gray haze hangs in the sky.

  The unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, is part of a pilot program by South Korea’s Ministry of Environment. Tasked with inspecting factory emissions in the capital’s greater metropolitan area, it’s the latest in a series of tech solutions aimed at solving Seoul’s dust dilemma. In fact, the fine dust has South Koreans so concerned they’ve cited it as their No. 1 stressor in life – more distressing than the country’s economic stagnation, its rapidly aging population and even North Korea’s erratic dictator and nuclear weapons program.

  Their worries are well-founded. The World Health Organization (WHO) advises exposure to fine dust, or PM10, of no more than a daily average of 50 micrograms per cubic meter, and to ultra-fine dust, or PM2.5, of no more than 25. At one point in 2017, Seoul’s PM10 hit 179. In late March 2018, Seoul’s PM2.5 soared to over 100. PM2.5 is of greatest concern. So small it can get lodged into the lungs and penetrate the lining to enter the bloodstream, PM2.5 is comprised of black carbon, nitrates, ammonia and other harmful compounds linked to respiratory diseases and cancer. The WHO has classified fine and ultra-fine dust as carcinogenic since 2013.

  Developed by the government-run National Institute of Environmental Research, the drone is the first of what the environment ministry intends to be a fleet deployed nationwide. Some South Korean tech companies, too, are stepping in with their own innovations. Although much of the new tech appears promising, Greenpeace’s Seoul office stresses the importance of addressing the root of the problem. Part of the solution is getting residents to recognize their own role in curbing carbon output. So, even though the new fixes may do a good job of measuring dust, what about actually busting it? That’s where the technology hasn’t quite caught up yet.

(Ann Babe. www.usnews.com, 08.08.2018. Adapted.)

The text concludes by stating that tech innovations in South Korea

Read the text to answer question.

 

High-flying ideas?

 

  A camera-equipped drone flies around the outskirts of Seoul, South Korea, hovering near an industrial plant and capturing video of pollutants. Below, on the crowded, litter-covered streets, residents wear white and black masks that cover their noses and mouths. A gray haze hangs in the sky.

  The unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, is part of a pilot program by South Korea’s Ministry of Environment. Tasked with inspecting factory emissions in the capital’s greater metropolitan area, it’s the latest in a series of tech solutions aimed at solving Seoul’s dust dilemma. In fact, the fine dust has South Koreans so concerned they’ve cited it as their No. 1 stressor in life – more distressing than the country’s economic stagnation, its rapidly aging population and even North Korea’s erratic dictator and nuclear weapons program.

  Their worries are well-founded. The World Health Organization (WHO) advises exposure to fine dust, or PM10, of no more than a daily average of 50 micrograms per cubic meter, and to ultra-fine dust, or PM2.5, of no more than 25. At one point in 2017, Seoul’s PM10 hit 179. In late March 2018, Seoul’s PM2.5 soared to over 100. PM2.5 is of greatest concern. So small it can get lodged into the lungs and penetrate the lining to enter the bloodstream, PM2.5 is comprised of black carbon, nitrates, ammonia and other harmful compounds linked to respiratory diseases and cancer. The WHO has classified fine and ultra-fine dust as carcinogenic since 2013.

  Developed by the government-run National Institute of Environmental Research, the drone is the first of what the environment ministry intends to be a fleet deployed nationwide. Some South Korean tech companies, too, are stepping in with their own innovations. Although much of the new tech appears promising, Greenpeace’s Seoul office stresses the importance of addressing the root of the problem. Part of the solution is getting residents to recognize their own role in curbing carbon output. So, even though the new fixes may do a good job of measuring dust, what about actually busting it? That’s where the technology hasn’t quite caught up yet.

(Ann Babe. www.usnews.com, 08.08.2018. Adapted.)

According to the third paragraph, PM2.5 is currently a topic of greatest concern in Seoul because