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.