The science of genetics has created an exciting new dimension in the study of black history and heritage. In this program, DNA analysis leads to fascinating discoveries about the lineages of participants—and the ancestry of host Henry Louis Gates Jr. himself. A groundbreaking study links Professor Gates to a powerful ancient Irish warlord, while genetic evidence suggests that Peter Gomes’s direct paternal line reaches back to a Portuguese Jew who fled the country in the early 1500s to escape the Inquisition. Distributed by PBS Distribution. Part of the series African-American Lives 2. (54 minutes)
"Because enslaved African Americans were prohibited from reading, writing, marrying, owning land, and voting, few of the documents genealogists depend on exist for them, and those that do take extra patience and determination to discover. Even for those researching recent ancestors, segregation has left a series of obstacles that make the process more of a challenge.
Mat Johnson plays with images of blackness and whiteness throughout PYM, especially the whiteness of the Arctic and the “snow honkies.” His protagonist, Chris Jaynes' aversion to his friend Garth’s favorite artist, Thomas Karvel, makes sense as a reaction to the Eurocentric idealization in the paintings, but also in terms of color imagery. “Thomas Karvel” is a parody of the American painter Thomas Kinkade (1958-2012) whose use of highly saturated color is famous and indeed quite popular.
"Critical race theory is a movement and body of literature which evolved out of the critical legal studies movement in the US. Repairing the absence from critical legal studies of an analysis of how race and racialization are imbricated within legal doctrines and liberal legal frameworks was (and remains) a prime objective of critical race theory as it emerged in the 1980s and 1990s. Critical race theory offers analyses of the social and legal construction of race in a wide variety of contexts. Rather than taking ‘race’ as a given biological or natural category, critical race theorists take as their starting point the socially constructed nature of race. The ways in which law and legal apparatuses rely upon and further entrench socially constructed notions of race is a prime focus of critical race theory... "
Above image is a sign from the early to mid 1900's during segregation and reads : "Colored Served in Rear"
Images from Ebony magazine
Illustration from: Pigmentocracy by Trudier Harris, National Humanities Center