Scripts of blackness. Race, cultural nationalism, and U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico.

The geopolitical influence of the United States informs the processes of racialization in Puerto Rico, including the construction of black places. In Scripts of Blackness, Isar P. Godreau explores how Puerto Rican national discourses about race—created to overcome U.S. colonial power—simultaneously privilege whiteness, typecast blackness, and silence charges of racism. Based on an ethnographic study of the barrio of San Antón in the city of Ponce, Scripts of Blackness examines institutional and local representations of blackness as developing from a power-laden process that is inherently selective and political, not neutral or natural. Godreau traces the presumed benevolence or triviality of slavery in Puerto Rico, the favoring of a Spanish colonial whiteness (under a hispanophile discourse), and the insistence on a harmonious race mixture as discourses that thrive on a presumed contrast with the United States that also characterize Puerto Rico as morally superior. In so doing, she outlines the debates, social hierarchies, and colonial discourses that inform the racialization of San Antón and its residents as black. Mining ethnographic materials and anthropological and historical research, Scripts of Blackness provides powerful insights into the critical political, economic, and historical context behind the strategic deployment of blackness, whiteness, and racial mixture.| Cover Title page Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Place, Race, and the Housing Debate Part I. Benevolent Slavery: Docile Slaves or Free People of Color? 2. Slavery and the Politics of Erasure 3. Unfolkloric Slavery: Alternative Histories of San Antón Part II. Hispanicity: Shades of "Whiteness" between Empires 4. Hispanophile Zones of Whiteness 5. His-Panic / My Panic: Hispanophobia and the Reviles Whiteness of Spain Part III. Race Mixutre: In the Blood or in the Making 6. Flowing through My Veins: Populism and the Hierarchies of Race Mixture 7. Irresolute Blackness: Struggles and Maneuvers over the Representation of Community Conclusion Notes References Index | Co-winner of the Frank Bonilla Book Award, Puerto Rican Studies Association, 2016. — Puerto Rican Studies Association | Isar P. Godreau is a researcher at and former director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey. "The geopolitical influence of the United States informs the processes of racialization in Puerto Rico, including the construction of black places. In Scripts of Blackness, Isar P. Godreau explores how Puerto Rican national discourses about race--created to overcome U.S. colonial power--simultaneously privilege whiteness, typecast blackness, and silence charges of racism. Based on an ethnographic study of the barrio of San Antón in the city of Ponce, Scripts of Blackness examines how institutional and local representations of blackness developed from a power-laden process that is inherently selective and political, not neutral or natural. Godreau traces the presumed benevolence or triviality of slavery in Puerto Rico, the favoring of a Spanish colonial whiteness (under a hispanophile discourse), and the insistence on a harmonious race mixture as discourses that thrive on a presumed contrast with the United States that also characterize Puerto Rico as morally superior. In so doing, she outlines the debates and social hierarchies that inform the racialization of San Antón and its residents as black. Mining ethnographic materials and anthropological and historical research, Scripts of Blackness provides powerful insights into the critical political, economic, and historical context behind the strategic deployment of blackness, whiteness, and racial mixture"-- Provided by publisher The geopolitical influence of the United States informs the processes of racialization in Puerto Rico, including the construction of black places. This book explores how Puerto Rican national discourses about race—created to overcome U.S. colonial power—simultaneously privilege whiteness, typecast blackness, and silence charges of racism. Based on an ethnographic study of the barrio of San Antón in the city of Ponce, the book examines institutional and local representations of blackness as developing from a power-laden process that is inherently selective and political, not neutral or natural. The book traces the presumed benevolence or triviality of slavery in Puerto Rico, the favoring of a Spanish colonial whiteness (under a hispanophile discourse), and the insistence on a harmonious race mixture as discourses that thrive on a presumed contrast with the United States that also characterize Puerto Rico as morally superior. In so doing, the book outlines the debates, social hierarchies, and colonial discourses that inform the racialization of San Antón and its residents as black. Mining ethnographic materials and anthropological and historical research, the book provides powerful insights into the critical political, economic, and historical context behind the strategic deployment of blackness, whiteness, and racial mixture. The geopolitical influence of the United States informs the processes of racialization in Puerto Rico, including the construction of black places. In this book, Isar P. Godreau explores how Puerto Rican national discourses about race - created to overcome U.S. colonial power - simultaneously privilege whiteness, typecast blackness, and silence charges of racism. Based on an ethnographic study of the barrio of San Anton in the city of Ponce, Scripts of Blackness examines institutional and local representations of blackness as developing from a power-laden process that is inherently selective and political, not neutral or natural. Godreau traces the presumed benevolence or triviality of slavery in Puerto Rico, the favoring of a Spanish colonial whiteness (under a hispanophile discourse), and the insistence on a harmonious race mixture as discourses that thrive on a presumed contrast with the United States that also characterize Puerto Rico as morally superior. In so doing, she outlines the debates, social hierarchies, and colonial discourses that inform the racialization of San Anton and its residents as black.0