Partyin’ with a Purpose: Black Respectability Politics and the Tom Joyner Morning Show

Abstract

We often imagine black respectability politics as a suffocating hegemon, opposed only by small, usually youthful, groups of artists, intellectuals, and activists. But for more than the last two decades, the most popular syndicated black American radio show, The Tom Joyner Morning Show, has openly dissented from respectability politics—while simultaneously “flying under the radar” of both black and mainstream public sphere attention. This invisibility may be due to the show’s commercial status and mixed format—but most importantly, because of its low-status medium, radio, combined with the “unsexy” nature of its huge audience: middle aged and definitely working class.