Black Ethnicity and the Persistence of Ethnogenesis

Abstract

Some scholars assume a radical discontinuity between the experiences of blacks in the United States and the experiences of immigrants ethnic groups in American cities. There is a tendency to see the situation of blacks in racial rather than in ethnic terms and to emphasize the conditions of racial oppresion and exploitation as exclusive sources of black sociocultural characteristics. This emphasis obscures the important role of migration, urbanization, and intergroup conflict in promoting a distinctive black ethnicity. Indeed, a review of the urban history of black populations in northern cities suggests that the phenomenon of black ethnogenesis was inspired by essentially the same structural conditions as the development of ethnic identities and communities among white ethnic populations in American cities.