Pessimism is a negative mental attitude in which an undesirable outcome is anticipated from a given situation. Pessimists tend to focus on the negatives of life in general. A common question asked to test for pessimism is "Is the glass half empty or half full?"; in this situation, a pessimist is said to see the glass as half empty, or in extreme cases completely empty, while an optimist is said to see the glass as half full. Throughout history, the pessimistic disposition has had effects on all major areas of thinking.
The globalAfrican diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from Native Africans or people from Africa, predominantly in the Americas. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the native West and Central Africans who were enslaved and shipped to the Americas via the Atlantic slave trade between the 16th and 19th centuries, with their largest populations in the United States, Brazil, and Haiti. However, the term can also be used to refer to non native African descendants from North Africa who immigrated to other parts of the world. Some scholars identify "four circulatory phases" of this migration out of Africa. The phrase African diaspora gradually entered common usage at the turn of the 21st century. The term "diaspora" originates from the Greek διασπορά which gained popularity in English in reference to the Jewish diaspora before being more broadly applied to other populations.
Black studies, or Africana studies, is an interdisciplinary academic field that primarily focuses on the study of the history, culture, and politics of the peoples of the African diaspora and Africa. The field includes scholars of African-American, Afro-Canadian, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latino, Afro-European, Afro-Asian, African Australian, and African literature, history, politics, and religion as well as those from disciplines, such as sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, psychology, education, and many other disciplines within the humanities and social sciences. The field also uses various types of research methods.
Négritude is a framework of critique and literary theory, developed mainly by francophone intellectuals, writers, and politicians of the African diaspora during the 1930s, aimed at raising and cultivating "Black consciousness" across Africa and its diaspora. Négritude gathers writers such as sisters Paulette and Jeanne Nardal, Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, Abdoulaye Sadji, Léopold Sédar Senghor, and Léon Damas of French Guiana. Négritude intellectuals disavowed colonialism, racism and Eurocentrism. They promoted African culture within a framework of persistent Franco-African ties. The intellectuals employed Marxist political philosophy, in the Black radical tradition. The writers drew heavily on a surrealist literary style, and some say they were also influenced somewhat by the Surrealist stylistics, and in their work often explored the experience of diasporic being, asserting one's self and identity, and ideas of home, home-going and belonging.
Afro–Latin Americans or Black Latin Americans are Latin Americans of full or mainly sub-Saharan African ancestry.
The afro is a hair style created by combing out natural growth of afro-textured hair, or specifically styled with chemical curling products by individuals with naturally curly or straight hair. The hairstyle can be created by combing the hair away from the scalp, dispersing a distinctive curl pattern, and forming the hair into a rounded shape, much like a cloud or puff ball.
Afro-Cubans or Black Cubans are Cubans of sub-Saharan African ancestry. The term Afro-Cuban can also refer to historical or cultural elements in Cuba thought to emanate from this community and the combining of native African and other cultural elements found in Cuban society such as race, religion, music, language, the arts and class culture.
Afro-Asians, African Asians, Afrasians or simply Black Asians, often referred to as "Blasians", are persons of mixed Asian and African ancestry. Historically, Afro-Asian populations have been marginalised as a result of human migration and social conflict.
Afro-Caribbean people or African Caribbean are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the modern African-Caribbeans descend from Africans taken as slaves to colonial Caribbean via the trans-Atlantic slave trade between the 15th and 19th centuries to work primarily on various sugar plantations and in domestic households. Other names for the ethnic group include Black Caribbean, Afro or Black West Indian or Afro or Black Antillean. The term Afro-Caribbean was not coined by Caribbean people themselves but was first used by European Americans in the late 1960s.
African popular music, like African traditional music, is vast and varied. Most contemporary genres of African popular music build on cross-pollination with Western popular music. Many genres of popular music like blues, jazz, afrobeats, salsa, zouk, and rumba derive to varying degrees on musical traditions from Africa, taken to the Americas by enslaved Africans. These rhythms and sounds have subsequently been adapted by newer genres like rock, and rhythm and blues. Likewise, African popular music has adopted elements, particularly the musical instruments and recording studio techniques of the Western music industry. The term does not refer to a specific style or sound but is used as a general term for African popular music.
Afro-Germans or Black Germans are people of Sub-Saharan African descent who are citizens or residents of Germany.
Afro-Turks or Zenci are Turkish people of African Zanj descent, who trace their origin to the Ottoman slave trade like the Afro-Abkhazians. Afro-Turk population is estimated to be between 5,000 and 20,000 people. Afro-Turks are distinct from African immigrants in Turkey, who are around 100,000 individuals.
FIBA Africa is a zone within the FIBA basketball association which contains all 54 national African FIBA federations. It was founded in 1961. FIBA Africa maintains offices in Cairo and in Abidjan.
The AfroBasket is the men's basketball continental championship contested by the senior national teams of Africa, played once every four years.
Afro-Colombians or African-Colombians are Colombians of full or partial sub-Saharan African descent.
The Baltimore Afro-American, commonly known as The Afro or Afro News, is a weekly African-American newspaper published in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the flagship newspaper of the AFRO-American chain and the longest-running African-American family-owned newspaper in the United States, established in 1892.
Afro-pessimism is a critical framework that describes the ongoing effects of racism, colonialism, and historical processes of enslavement in the United States, including the trans-Atlantic slave trade and their impact on structural conditions as well as the personal, subjective, and lived experience and embodied reality of African Americans; it is particularly applicable to U.S. contexts.
The AfroCan is a men's basketball continental competition in Africa, which is played quadannually under the auspices of FIBA, basketball's international governing body, and the FIBA African zone thereof. Unlike the AfroBasket, AfroCan is only opened to all players who play for basketball clubs based in Africa.
Afro-pessimism, in African studies, refers to a view popularised in the 1980s and 1990s which expressed doubt about the possibility of sustainable peace, democratization, and economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa. According to the American policy analyist David Rieff, the view held that "while Africa's promise remained undeniable" in view of its natural resources, "the continent was seen as the one part of the world for which the future was likely to be far worse than the past" after the decline of initial optimism following decolonisation in the 1960s and the sharp fall in living standards in the 1970s.
