Rituals of Blood: The Consequences of Slavery in Two American Centuries

by Orlando Patterson

Book Overview

In the first essay, Patterson analyzes the very latest survey data to delineate the different attitudes, behaviors, and circumstances of Afro-American men and women, dissecting both the external and internal causes for the great disparities he finds.In the second essay, Patterson focuses on the lynching of Afro-American boys and men during the decades after Reconstruction, particularly on the substantial number of cases that constituted apparent ritual...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 158243039X
• ISBN13: 9781582430393
• Release Date: December 1999
• Publisher: Civitas Book Publisher
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.16 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Extraordinary and Unique

Patterson has successfully taken on so many "big" issues in his lifetime that to recommend him for his contemporary social analysis might seem like damning him with faint praise. That is hardly my intent, but I would like to suggest to readers unfamiliar with his work and perhaps not up to the challenge of his cosmically-dimensioned books on Freedom, Slavery, and Social Death that he is a one-of-a-kind social commentator and provacateur as well. His singular profession as a historical sociologist (or sociological historian)allow him access to statistics that illuminate America's racial history in a way nobody else I know has ever accomplished. Of course, he CHOSE those statistics, an act of genius in itself, but the questions he asks of them and his analysis of the answers makes him, in my opinion, indispensable reading. He has somewhere in this book or another (I've read nearly all)cited the statistic that, when asked what percentage of the American population is African American, both white and black Americans over-estimate the actuality by a multiple of between 3 and 4. That is an astounding stat, and explains so much about our recent world, much of which Patterson takes on, but the balance of which should give food-for-thought to the rest of us. And that is only one, relatively incidental, issue the man takes on. Bravo to Patterson for ALL his work!

Outstanding analysis

Rituals of Blood traces the impact of slavery on modern-day Black Americans in such an incisive way as to be required reading for anyone who wants to speak on the subject of the past, as it impacts on the prospects of Black Americans. It's main thesis: the degradation of Africans from the day they entered this country until now, has been constant and devastating. The conclusions Professor Patterson opine are supported by unimpeachable resources from some of the best sociological minds, past and present and hard data. This is must reading for Blacks and Whites. Henry William Sands, Esq. (Ret.)

A Dazzling Display of Sociological Prowess

This is sociological analysis of a very high order. However, the best review of these three analytic essays, appear in the introduction to the book. Nothing I, or anyone, could say can improve on that. However it is important to note a few things about the book. Professor Patterson, an ex-Marxist turned Harvard Sociology Professor is nothing if not daring, brave, almost intrepid. He is fearless in choosing as his topic one of sociology's most pressing and most difficult problems: getting at the roots of the problem of race in America. He performs a dangerous high-wire act (without a net) in this three-ring sociological circus and does so with commitment, grace and aplomb. This book is an obvious labor of love for a professional whose job is to advance the frontiers and boundaries of his profession, and in order to do that one must be prepared to take some risks, and in this volume, Dr. Patterson does so in scads. He takes methodological risks, logical risks, political risks, professional risks, and most of all theoretical risks. That he does not always succeed - and indeed at times crashes and burns - is almost beside the point. In the end you know that you have been on an exhilarating ride that is worth far more than the few flaws in the book. In fact it is almost embarrassing to attempt to critique such elegant analyses because they are such good examples of what is needed; because there are just too many sociological trails that need blazing; because the boundaries of sociological analysis needs more of this kind of testing; and because all of the social sciences need more pioneers of Dr. Patterson's caliber. Having said that it must also be said that the author has committed at least one category one error in the first essay. In it he uses as his interpretive database, the anecdotal evidence (mostly hearsay) of Black feminist writers and victims, (almost always one and the same) of alleged black male perfidy as the foundation of his analysis. Then this theme is repeated and propagated throughout the various pieces. Doing this is of course a methodologically elementary "no-no," especially when such data is not balanced or offset by an equal an opposite amount of similar data from the black male side of the equation. Black feminist views are taken as givens and as ground truth, and thus go unexamined and unchallenged. Used in this way they become a great foil in relieving pressures of having to implicate the larger culture of any responsibility for racism. (In this restricted way America's racism reduces to a kind of intramural sport, an intra-black thing.) The problem with relying on such a questionable data source is that all biases remain in complete alignment with those of the larger black male hating American society. When coupled with the hidden and unacknowledged variable of "white normality" which serves, de facto, as the sole context for these analyses, the results are predictable and all but self-fulfilling. For

Rituals of Blood a sterling contribution to the debate

This is the second book in a trilogy.It satarts from where the first book Paradox of integration ends.It is essentially divided into 3 essays The first essay is entitled broken bloodlines and discusses present day gender conflicts in the African American community.Emphasis is laid on issues such as Increasing divorce rates and singles also declining remarriage rates.These are traced back to the days of Slavery and sharecropping till he gets to the present day.The educational disparity between males and females is also discussed. The second essay Feast of blood deals with the heinous practise of Lynching and the macabre postcard industry it spawned also discussed is the role of clergy and the African American response. The third essay American Dionysus discusses the image of African Americans today with various examples.This is related to Greek mythology. In conclusion i recommend this book.It indeed has illustrative charts and pictures which are quite nice for a better understanding of the issues at stake.

All Americans should read this book, for it speaks of us

"Rituals", is the most disturbing and open writings on ethinicity and religion that I can recall. I am shocked but not surprise at the review ratings. "Rituals", Strips down everyone who has ever stepped foot on American soil, and only those who are willing to humble themselves can truly learn from these essays, and will earnestly understand that,this nation's history has been an exercise in duplicity, upon all of it's citizens. From the true reason these colonies were established and not the promulgated belief of freedom of religion. America has come a long way due to the law and the education of it's citizens. But we, as Americans, don't know why we hate most of the time, and this book shows that not only does religion repress the innate hate the man has, but can also conjure and cause riotous and rapacious behavior. Mr. Patterson's essays are truths that we don't want to know. FIVE STARS AND BRAVO. Payton Jones,Jr.