In the first part of Consumers and Citizens, Canclini theorizes the need for “redefinition of the cities” because traditional concepts are unable to cope with the electronic reordering of cultural practices and how this has modified the ways in which people consume culture and act as citizens. The Black Church in America has historically held the black population together in unity by influencing and molding their thought and life more than most other agencies. In The Black Church in the African American Experience by C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya they describe the, “seven major historic black denominations: the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church; the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church; the Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church; the National Baptist Convention, USA Incorporated (NBC); the National Baptist Convention of America, Unincorporated (NBCA); the Progressive National Baptist Convention (PNBC); and the Church of God in Christ (COGIC),” as comprising “the black Church.”
According to 2005 U.S. Census figures, some 39.9 million African Americans live in the United States, comprising 13.8% of the total population and according to a 2007 survey, more than half of the African American population is part of the historically Black churches. Some would declare this type of consumption excessive, especially since the role of the Black church in many ways dominates all major decisions made by its members including whom they elect as their political leaders. Collectively, African Americans are more involved in the American political process than other minority groups in the United States, indicated by the highest level of voter registration and participation in elections and according to the U.S. Census, African Americans collectively attain higher levels of education than immigrants to the United States and also have the highest level of Congressional representation of any minority group in the nation. Canclini says that the “criticisms of consumption point to its individualist organization as the reason for disconnecting…” and goes on to add that, “these criticisms are partially correct, but the expansion of communications and consumption generates associations of consumers and social struggles, even among marginal groups, who are better informed about national and international conditions.”
Black churches date back to the last part of the 1700s, when the majority of Blacks in America were still slaves but most black denominations began after the Civil War. Albert J. Raboteau’s Slave Religion: The 'Invisible Institution' in the Antebellum South explores how black slaves became Christians as a result of the Second Great Awakening, a Christian religious revival movement during the early 19th century. These early churches helped blacks survive the dehumanization of slavery by providing economic and educational support and by serving as major political hubs for slave rebellions, civil rights protests and the mobilization of the Black vote. The “motivation for black spiritual and religious independence was not initially grounded in religious doctrine,” but rather a reaction to segregation in the churches by whites in America and inconsistencies between the teaching and expression of the Christian faith, according to C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya’s book, The Black Church in the African American Experience.
In Part II, Postnational Suburbias, Canclini explores the “commercialization of cultural commodities,” as well as how the reorganization of symbolic markets have modified the relationships between individuals and posed new challenges to nation states in their dealings with cultural heritage and public space. This is especially true for the Black community during the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama. Intended to oppose the city's policy of racial segregation on its public transit system, it caused crippling financial deficit for the Montgomery public transit system, because the city's black population and principal boycotters were also the majority of the city’s paying customers. This “challenge to the nation state” led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the laws on segregated buses unconstitutional. Other than the family, the Black Church existed, and still does, as one of the main social institutions for African Americans, and thus assumes significant roles and burdens that distinguished it from other communities. Black churches play a dominant role in helping Black people internalize the ethic of economic rationality that leads to economic mobility.
According to christianchronicler.com, the 1950s and 1960s saw a great deal of social unrest because of civil rights legislation and the effort to end segregation. As a result, many black religious leaders focused on social issues. For many years the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led the struggle for black civil rights and social change. Their "Christian" work focused more on a political agenda than evangelism and the biblical Gospel. During that same time period many blacks abandoned the white Christian community including Malcolm X who preached that Islam was better suited to meeting the social goals of Blacks in America.
Consumers and Citizens articulates that the social interaction of commodities found in symbolic distinction and rituals contributes to the “integrative and communicative rationality of society” and sees consumption as a means of redirecting practices of citizenship in what Canclini calls interpretive communities of consumers. Due to the Black Church, urbanization was hastened in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and by the 80s, almost one-third of the Black population was considered middle class fully embracing most American middle-class values. In Chapter six, Canclini argues that it is only through awareness of the possibilities that these new spaces provide for political action that citizens and states will be able to challenge the neoliberal model of globalization by endorsing an alternative model that allows democratic multicultural citizenship to emerge. This especially resonates with how urbanization also introduced a greater separation of social class in the African American community when a new binary-consciousness emerged for the African American who desired to become a part of the American political, social and economic mainstream while at the same time sought to protect its historically religious community.
In the section Citizenship and Consumer Communities, Canclini asserts, “A key issue for redefining civil society… is the crisis of the nation.” African Americans have improved their social and economic standing significantly since the Civil Rights Movement and recent decades have witnessed the expansion of a robust, African American middle class across the United States. Nevertheless, due in part to the legacy of slavery, racism and discrimination, African Americans as a group still remains at a blatant economic, educational and social disadvantage in many areas relative to White or European Americans. Persistent social, economic and political issues for many include inadequate health care access and delivery; institutional racism and discrimination in housing, education, policing, criminal justice and employment; crime, poverty and substance abuse.
In the PBS series God in America, Professor Jonathan Walton of Harvard Divinity School said that for more than 300 plus years, the Black church in America has provided a safe haven for Blacks in a nation shadowed by the legacy of slavery and a society that remains defined by race and class. As a result, the Black church, as an entity, continues to offer affirmation and dignity to a people still searching for equality and justice, still willing to reach out for a more inclusive, embracing tomorrow. It has cognitive value, is good for thinking and has and continues to act in a meaningful way that renews social life for the African-American community or as Canclini concludes, in the section, How Civil Society Speaks Today, the Black church holds on “to the premise that emancipation and the renewal of the real also constitute(s) part of social life: utopia…”
by
gfamily4me (student)
