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Cultural Hegemony & African American Development By Clovis E. Semmes, Praeger Publishers, 1992, 272 pp., US $XX.XX (paperback), ISBN: 0-275-95339-4
In Cultural Hegemony & African American Development, Dr. Clovis Semmes performs an in
depth exploration, from the new cultural hegemonic perspective, of the development of African
American social theories as a result of a well thought-out and manipulative plan supporting and
encouraging inequality since slavery. In the first sentence of his introduction, Semmes states, “The
purpose of this work is to provide a way of seeing and understanding the intellectual tradition and body
of knowledge called Black, African American, or Africana studies.”i He goes on to say that Black, African
American, or Africana studies “is tied to explicating social and historical processes that affect the status
and development of people of African descent on a global scale.”ii Within the pages of this book, he
uses series of essays to answer questions, such as, “What organizing principles emerge that seem to
direct the production of knowledge within the discipline? What are its logical as well as empirical
underpinnings? How do we properly locate the parameters of the discipline? What are its major
theoretical and conceptual issues and why?”iii He basically proposes that cultural hegemony has turned
into the metaproblem or substrate that propagates issues from all areas within African American
studies, including issues of epistemological, conceptual, theoretical, and critical concerns.
In chapter 1, Foundations of Knowledge in African American Studies, Semmes defines cultural
hegemony as “the systemic negation of one culture by another,”iv and goes on to put it into context by
stating, “the internal dynamics of one culture evolves in such a way that it calls into dissolution the
independence, coherence, and viability of another culture to which it has a socio-historical connection.”v
Through slavery and colonization, the manipulation of language and religion and the appropriation of
music and art, as well as, stratification within the labor force and the economy, cultural hegemony was
achieved. In regards to African American Studies, Europeans seized Africans for labor and wealth. In
doing so, they attempted to seize the African mind and alter and manipulate African culture to achieve
success and wealth in the New World. It is at this point, that Semmes gives the reader the term dialectic
and informs us that two opposing viewpoints, and the resulting conflict that arises out of that
opposition, produces change in both cultures. It must be noted that Semmes does substantiate his
work with empirical data by giving as example, the capture, dismantle and dissolution of Africans and
their culture, and the resurgence and manipulation of aspects of African thought, life and culture in the
ensuing slave communities and eventual free communities of Africans that experienced cultural
dislocation. He uses as a direct example, the plantation experience as a prototype for the use of cultural
hegemony within the African American culture, as well. The plantation prototype was used as a system
of hierarchical order, in which color stratification within the African American community lead to self-
hatred, intra-racial conflict and the use of subordination with its own members. Semmes gives an in
depth discussion of African-centered thought and several forms by which this has been studied. He
points to the studies done by John Blassingame, George Washington Williams and St. Clair Drake, who
wrap their discussion of African-centered thought around the Bible and whether or not slavery, in any
form, was condoned or condemned, and whether the Bible upholds the superiority of one race over
another. He continues with a contemporary discussion of Afrocentrism, reviewing the philosophical and
psychological views of Alain Locke, the sociological view of Robert Staples and Joyce Ladner and
psychological views from Reginald Jones and Addison Gayle. In the end, Semmes brings to the forefront
some major divisions in African-centered thought, including, but not limited to “a Kemetic (or ancient
Egyptian) focus, a world presence focus, a West African focus, a reconstructivist focus, a bicultural focus,
and a White supremacy and comparative societies focus.”vi He draws his thoughts to conclusion by
saying,
For the African American, the impetus to recapture a center represents cultural expression of
knowledge. It is at this normative level that we may posit the possibility for greater inter-
cultural harmony and for enlarging human knowledge for both Afrocentric and Eurocentric
traditions. Moreover, the normative expression of Afrocentric thought signals transcendence of
the dialectic of cultural hegemony.vii
Semmes gives as a final representation of thought with regards to African Americans the idea of social
organization and culture as presented by sociological theorist Walter Wallace. He believes “a critical
focus on the interrelationship between social organization and culture, becomes one of the key
theoretical concerns of African American studies.”viii
In chapter 2, The Frazerian Paradigm, Semmes presents a look at the sociological theory of E.
Franklin Frazier in regards to the study of African American culture and institutional life, and the race
relations theory. Semmes states that “the corpus of Frazier’s work makes broad and significant
contributions to the foundations of the intellectual tradition called African American studies and
captures the essential problems driving the discipline.”ix The metaproblem of cultural hegemony has
become connected epistemologically with Frazier’s work due to his concentrated focus on African
American institutional growth and the dilemma of assimilation. In regards to the basis of African
American studies, Frazier has contributed most importantly in five areas of focus: the family and its
relationship to the assimilation problem; the formations of the middle-class to appraise mobility, the
potential of leadership, and its economic development; the association between religious principles and
social organization; the development of consciousness and personality of African American youth; and,
Frazier’s comparative work where he expands globally and analyses the extreme influence of European
global development on African development and expansion throughout the African diaspora. Semmes
concludes, “More than any other social scientist, E. Franklin Frazier created an integrated body of work,
methodologically, theoretically, and empirically, upon which Afrocentric inquiry in the social sciences
can rest.”x
Chapter 3, The Dialectics of Harold Cruse, covers the critical thought of social justice, very
prominent in the later 1960s. During the later years of the Civil Rights movement and a move from
concern for the impoverished and racially depressed to the upwardly mobile view of materialism and
profit, Semmes contends, “Cruse maintained that the organization of American society, which he said
was fundamentally structured by the racial and cultural orientation of its elites, served to block an
ethnic consciousness and cultural particularism among African Americans. Cruse recognized the cultural
realm as the critical arena for Black social transformation.”xi It is at this point that Semmes gives
another example of cultural hegemony, “when groups are economically, politically, and culturally
dependent, they are coerced to move away from their own collective goals in order to achieve
functional goals defined by more powerful others.”xii Cruse empirically identified a culturally negating
dialectic through the use of case studies and historical and critical analyses. For Cruse, this dialectic was
the universal propensity to interpret the group tribulations of African Americans into individual and class
issues. To this, Semmes states, “Thus, Crusian dialectics contributes to illuminating an important
dimension of the pervasive existence of the metaproblem of cultural hegemony.”xiii In Semmes opinion,
Cruse creates the procedural steps, significant scrutiny, recommendations to promote change, and
groupings of inquiry that are germane for future studies and analyses. He then lists for the reader the
four categories into which Cruse’s ideas can fall: analysis of integrationist ethic, analysis of the crisis of
Black intellectuals and creative artists, assessment of the crisis of Black leadership in a plural society, and
his outline for developing a theory of the cities.xiv Under the first category, Integrationist Ethic, Semmes
concludes, “there seems to be an inherent cultural tendency by mainstream intellectuals, probably due
to the pervasive and submerged (unconscious) characteristics of White supremacy, to delegitimate the
presence and significance of ethnicity among people of African descent.”xv For the second category,
Crisis in Black Intellectual Thought, Semmes concludes that by reviewing the broadminded and drastic
backing of Black scholars and artists during integral historical eras including the Harlem Renaissance,
Cruse pointedly designated independence and control of the cultural as the most important areas for
the middle class, scholars and artists to maintain control, without which “the socially transformative
dimensions of African American culture will be blocked.”xvi For the third category, Black Leadership in a
Plural Society, Semmes sees that the detrimental mechanisms of Cruse’s study are the vagueness in
constitutional law when it relates to Black political, economic, and cultural rights; the powerlessness of a
African American leadership group to distinguish this vagueness in the situation of the plural character
of American society; and the unfortunate response tactically of this leadership group to deal with these
areas of vagueness. In the final category, Theory of the Cities, Semmes shows the reader Cruse’s
“dialectical approach to historical and social analysis using a Black perspective.”xvii He puts forth that
Cruse branded a point-of-view, rationale, and route for African American studies through illuminating a
main dialectic that included the interaction of the owners and group in charge of cultural production
and distribution, as well as, the spiritual requirements of a people. Semmes reverently concludes,
“Harold Cruse has given scholars a vision through which to coherently and logically recognize the key
parameters and essential elements of Black, African American, or Africana studies.”xviii
In chapter 4, The Problem of Legitimacy, Semmes points out an important aspect of the
metaproblem of cultural hegemony is the issue of legitimacy. He states, “Legitimacy involves gaining
recognition and respect for one’s perspectives, beliefs, and actions.”xix He examines psychologist Cedric
Clark’s research of regarding the persistent troubles typical of the African American experience. After
an in depth discussion of Clark’s research Semmes concludes, “Legitimacy is always a problem in human
relationships in which a gross imbalance in power favors a group that seeks to dominate and control
another.”xx Semmes goes through a review of the Plantation Prototype and the resulting adaptation of
this prototype to the hierarchical divisions of the slave community and eventual adaptation and
adoption of the same within the free communities of African Americans. With the use of color
stratification, racial etiquette and a warped reward system, legitimacy and status were structured
around the norms of the Eurocentric body form and economic and cultural aspirations. In the final
subsection of this chapter, Legitimacy, Integration, and New Forms of Domination, Semmes begins by
stating that “Cultural hegemony withholds or extends legitimacy based upon a propensity to preserve
dominant group power and privilege.”xxi He demonstrates to the reader how, over time, ‘dominant
society elites’ change the meaning of segregation, and later integration, for African Americans to fit their
political needs. In addition, Semmes demonstrates that both segregation and integration can be both
positive and negative dependent upon the definition at that time in history. Semmes states,
These trends in the definition and validation of integration and segregation are consistent with
the problem of cultural hegemony. This problem has never been successfully remedied by the
“segregation is bad, integration is good” conceptualization of inequality, or the mislabeling of
human rights-oriented, group-directed behavior as segregation. The persistent social trend,
regardless of the social form, is to serve the cultural interest of White elites at the expense of
African American development.xxii
Semmes concludes this chapter by remarking that the dilemma of legitimacy is a significant means by
which cultural negation confronts Black scholarly and cultural progress due to the fact that it warps the
capability of African Americans to identify approaches for affecting change in a method consistent with
social and historical circumstances that lead to and sustain their subordination.
Moving on to chapter 5, Culture, Economics, and the Mass Media, Semmes presents the reader
with an interesting statement,
For African Americans, unique political and economic circumstances have taken place within a
distinctive cultural dynamic that restricts significant portions of Black economic activity to
brokering Black markets and that promotes the expropriation of African American cultural
products for the purpose of stimulating capitalist expansion. These structural relationships
contribute to a tendency toward African American cultural negation. However, culture is at the
foundation of collective power in American society and the potential for economic
development, social mobility, and progressive social transformation. Cultural negation limits
group advancement and mobility because the acquisition of political and economic power
requires a collective consciousness, collective action, group sponsorship, and shared goals.xxiii
He goes on to substantiate this statement with examples of the blackface minstrels, mammies, the
tragic mulattoes, and much more. In each instance, the image of the black person is presented in a
manner that degrades the African image in every way possible. Semmes continues with a look at Group
Power versus Black Cultural Fragmentation, with an observation of the fact that normally ethnic groups
react as a group, but the African American ethnic group has been fragmented so many times, from
Catholic to Protestant to Baptist to Islamic, that their power as a group has been greatly diminished. In
addition, one must note the number of other ethnic groups that are growing in size in the United States.
He poses as a critical question, “To what extent will African Americans be in a position to compete
economically and politically within this new cultural arena?”xxiv In analyzing the challenges to African
American group power, Semmes covers three structural relationships that critically affect their viability.
First is racial oppression and “as a result African Americans are almost completely consumers.”xxv
Second is Black labor is no longer required by the ruling White elites, resulting in a “surplus [of] Black
labor [that] is absorbed by the prison system, the welfare system, and the military, and Black
communities are plagued by violence stemming from economic competition associated with the
emergence of alternative, illegal drug economies that are not regulated by legitimate state power.”xxvi
And, third, African Americans are primary providers of pop culture, but are not the controllers of this
market, resulting in the fact that “African Americans provide a commodity that is essential to the
stimulation and expansion of American capitalism but do not, as a group, control the structures that
govern the packaging, use, and distribution of that commodity.”xxvii Semmes continues with a look at
Contradictions of Capitalism, where he examines overproduction in regards to goods such as designer
clothes and athletic shoes and clothing sponsored by African Americans in professional music or athletic
careers. “The objective is to fuse commodity consumption with self-worth. The self feels devalued if it
cannot secure status-producing objects.”xxviii He examines, as well, The Growth of a Black Consumer
Market, where “individual and political freedom became the freedom to consumer.”xxix Semmes
continues by exploring the Restricted Economic Development and the Role of Brokers, where “maturing
capitalism cannot afford to ignore the profit-making potential of a Black market, but White supremacy
has already stacked the economic deck against African Americans.”xxx The capitalistic societies enlarge
markets by making use of the institutional weaknesses of the Black community, and these actions
convey a cultural schema that counteracts what the African American group needs. In conclusion to this
chapter, Semmes lays out guidelines for the success of Black businesses and states,
Moreover, strong, positive cultural traditions provide the basis for restraining negative and
dysfunctional economic exploitation of the Black community. The values of radical consumption
must not go unmonitored and unfettered in African American communities, lest human and
communal relationships turn purely hedonistic, individualistic, and destructively competitive.xxxi
Chapter 6, Religious Fragmentation and Social Cohesion, is an in depth look at the African
American community and its relationship with religion. Semmes wraps up his introductory paragraph
regarding religious beliefs affecting the moral makeup of a society and its culture with this telling
statement, “As a consequence, religious beliefs become powerful motive forces, shaping such things as
economic activity, family life, and social movements. Thus, the religious dialectic, which contains the
seeds for social transformation and for social conservatism, is critical.”xxxii After making this statement,
he divides his examination into four discussions, the first of which is The Religious Dialectic and Cultural
Hegemony. Here Semmes discusses what he refers to as the ‘hegemonic qualities’xxxiii of Christianity and
their impact on the development of the African American culture. Christian hegemony was
implemented by White supremacy to delineate other religions as an insufficient guide for human
civilization and direction of human ethical discussion. Therefore, the African American community was
obligated “to exist with their feet in two worlds,”xxxiv those religious beliefs and actions that would
please the people in power and those that were passed through generations from Africa. In the next
discussion, entitled Responses and Tendencies, Semmes examines the use of Christian imperialism as a
vehicle by which Europeans propagated their image of superiority and systematically denigrated African
ethic variation and consciousnessxxxv. He gives, among others, two very poignant statements, “The
organization of work on the plantation; White supremacy and miscegenation, which contributed to color
stratification; slave and free status; and the type of religious orientation received from Europeans
contributed to a new basis of differentiation among the captive and displaced African population.”xxxvi
And, “In addition, the conditions of bondage contributed to the eventual erosion of African religious
practices and the erosion of a widespread African consciousness.”xxxvii Semmes finally reviews several
uses of particular religious factions that connected themselves with Christianity, such as Baptists,
Methodists and Pentecostals and the disconnection from Christianity through the emergence of
religious factions like “Moorish Science under Noble Drew Ali, a proto-Islamic movement, Black Jews,
and the Nation of Islam,”xxxviii among others. From here, Semmes moves on to The Psychology of
Oppression and Religious Imagery. He gives the reader this thought taken from St. Clair Drake,
“scholarship clearly shows that Europeans venerated sacred images of African divines in their early
history. It was the African slave trade and the full-scale development of White supremacy as a stated or
implied creed that contributed to the denigration, elimination, or displacement of African images as
sacred symbols.”xxxix He proceeds with further analysis from both psychological and somatic points-of-
view that substantiate the distrust that some in the African American community has of organized
religion. Concluding this chapter, Semmes expounds on The Myth of the Truth and the Truth of the
Myth, where he acknowledges the Christian denigration of Africans through religion and states, “There
is a certain fluidity in Black religious expression, which suggests that Black people are searching for a
religious vehicle that can more fully embody their social and spiritual needs.”xl He goes on to
acknowledge the nonexistence of critiques of Western religious dogma by Black religious leaders or
productions of modes of religious expression that will unify the Black masses. Semmes analysis in this
section shows a direct poignant example of myths propagated by European Christianity used as
culturally hegemonic devices.
In chapter 7, Toward a Theory of African American Health, Semmes takes an in depth look at the
health of African Americans through their years in the United States and relates direct causes and
outcomes of these observations. He begins the chapter with this statement, “The health of a people is
an important measure of the viability of their culture.”xli When this statement is examined in regards to
the mental, physical and spiritual degradation endured, one can see the existence of African Americans
today is a miracle. Semmes brings to the forefront again the thought of cultural hegemony, “Cultural
hegemony consists of those social forces surrounding African American institutional development that
tend to place the African American community in a state of dependency and economic dislocation.”xlii
He goes on the relate this statement to the “health-negating”xliii facets of crime, predominantly through
homicide, drug use, and other types of violent behavior, are an enormous health issue for African
Americans and characterizes a serious negative adaptation to oppression. It is at this point that Semmes
purposes the establishment of a “countervailing health ethic”xliv to reject and counteract the effects of
these negative adaptations. In the subsection, Exploitation, Culture, and Health, Semmes lays blame at
the feet of Europeans and their economic needs for the “profound and negative changes in the health of
Africans in Africa and in the New World,”xlv and states, “Europeans were responsible for introducing
venereal diseases, tuberculosis, smallpox, measles, pneumonia, strong alcoholic beverages, firearms,
and the like, which ravaged Africans in both Africa and in the Americas.”xlvi It is at this point that
Semmes purposes the family as the force for correcting these negativities. He insists that with a new
look at nutrition, exercise and health maintenance within the African American family, the denigrating
affects of the Europeans can be counteracted. And in conclusion, Semmes takes a quick review of The
Limits of Medicine and Market Forces where he challenges African Americans to take responsibility for
their own health, negate the myths keeping them from good health, and demand the requirement
services resulting in the propagation of good health, both physically and mentally.
In chapter 8, Revitalization Tendencies, Semmes looks at the movements in years past that
began the revitalization of the African American community. A major movement of influence was the
Harlem Renaissance and its successes in promoting African culture, improving African American life, and
determining a collective direction for their own lives. His final push in the chapter is an examination of
ways of promoting the revitalization of the African American community. From holistic and naturalistic
ways of life to self-transformation, self-examination, and self-direction, Semmes purposes
empowerment of African American people regardless of their oppressive situations. His final statement
of this chapter should be a motivating statement for all oppressed people, “The struggle to transcend
this process of negation necessarily involves the struggle to define, create, sustain, and institutionalize
progressive cultural change. The objective is not simply to reform oppression and those who oppress
but to create the ability to survive and prosper in spite of oppressive forces.”xlvii
Semmes uses his final chapter, A Concluding Comment, to take one last look at the
metaproblem of cultural hegemony in relation to the intellectual institutions. He calls for “African
American intellectuals to actively maintain a rigorous independent research agenda and to preserve and
cultivate an Afrocentric intellectual tradition. A Black business and leadership stratum must also
support and draw sustenance from such scholars.”xlviii He also calls for mainstream America to convert
its hegemonic inclinations and prearranged inequities, integrate the foundations of nonmainstream
ideas and become open to critical review and productive change. In addition, he gives as a solution,
“Equality must involve justice, the deconstruction of myths of superiority, shared power, and respect for
difference, and not simply conformity, which, in this social context, is translated into cultural negation,
political impotence, and economic dislocation.”xlix
In the first sentence of his introduction, Semmes stated, “The purpose of this work is to provide
a way of seeing and understanding the intellectual tradition and body of knowledge called Black, African
American, or Africana studies.”l He went on to say that Black, African American, or Africana studies “is
tied to explicating social and historical processes that affect the status and development of people of
African descent on a global scale.”li It is my belief that with Cultural Hegemony & African American
Development, Clovis E. Semmes has produced the seminal script for the examination of the conceptual
and theoretical foundations of African American studies. With his in depth analysis of cultural
hegemony and its relationship to every aspect of African American life, he has given the reader a solid
foundation upon which to build a detailed understanding of African-centered intellectual traditions, as
well as, historical , contextual and sociology dimensions of the same group. In regards to my own
research, Semmes has filled my perspective with not only new terminology, but new and greater
understandings of cultural hegemony as it relates to African and African American Art History.
i Semmes, pg. ix. ii Ibid.
iii Ibid.
iv Semmes, pg. 1.
v Ibid.
vi Semmes, pg. 24.
vii Semmes, pg. 30.
viii Semmes, pg. 31-32.
ix Semmes, pg. 41.
x Semmes, pg. 66.
xi Semmes, pg. 72-73.
xii Semmes, pg. 73.
xiii Semmes, pg. 73.
xiv Semmes, pg. 74.
xv Semmes, pg. 76.
xvi Semmes, pg. 81.
xvii Semmes, pg. 86.
xviii Semmes, pg. 90.
xix Semmes, pg. 93.
xx Semmes, pg. 99.
xxi Semmes, pg. 105.
xxii Semmes, pg. 107.
xxiii Semmes, pg. 111.
xxiv
Semmes, pg. 115. xxv
Ibid. xxvi
Semmes, pg. 116. xxvii
Ibid. xxviii
Semmes, pg. 117. xxix
Semmes, pg. 118. xxx
Semmes, pg. 119. xxxi
Semmes, pg. 134. xxxii
Semmes, pg. 139. xxxiii
Semmes, pg. 140. xxxiv
Semmes, pg. 142. xxxv
Semmes, pg. 143. xxxvi
Semmes, pg. 143. xxxvii
Semmes, pg. 145. xxxviii
Semmes, pg. 148. xxxix
Semmes, pg. 149. xl Semmes, pg. 159.
xli Semmes, pg. 171.
xlii Semmes, pg. 172.
xliii Semmes, pg. 173.
xliv Ibid.
xlv Semmes, pg. 176.
xlvi Semmes, pg. 175.
xlvii Semmes, pg. 243.
xlviii Semmes, pg. 252.
xlix Semmes, pg. 253.
l Semmes, pg. ix. li Ibid.