Black Culture Research Articles

From #Rona to #Omarion: Black Twitter’s hashtag activism and critical discourse of COVID-19 pandemic

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, social media was one of the key digital spaces for community and information. As cases and deaths rose within US Black communities, Black Twitter continued to serve as a counterpublic for humor, health commentary, and hashtag activism. This study will examine the techno discourses of Black Twitter’s usage of hashtag activism during the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that the hashtags and tweets used within the Black Twitter counterpublic addressed social justice issues and challenged health inequalities in the mainstream media. We found three main discourses: Black Popular Culture, Lack of Access, and Vaccination Awareness. Overall, these discourses allow Black communities to culturally advocate for themselves and create counterpublic spheres to present their lived experiences.

Risk Assessment of Metals in Black Fungus and Culture Substrates Based on Monte Carlo Simulation

Black fungus is the second-most consumed edible fungus in China. The establishment of a risk assessment mechanism for heavy metals in black fungus is particularly critical to the safety of edible fungi. To clarify a risk assessment mechanism of heavy metal pollution of edible fungi in northeast China, in this study, the contents of Pb, Cr, CD and As in 415 samples were determined, and a total of 1660 valid data were obtained. Then, based on Monte Carlo simulation, a non-parametric probability assessment system for heavy metals in black fungus was established and improved. The results showed that the residual amounts of As, Pb, Cd and Cr in black fungus were in the order of Cr > Pb > As > Cd. The background content of four heavy metals in the main raw materials was preliminarily clarified. Among them, the content of As is between 0.010–0.320 mg·kg−1, Pb is between 0.051–0.792 mg·kg−1, Cd is between 0.019–0.236 mg·kg−1, and Cr is between 0.06–3.41 mg·kg−1. These results indicate that the dietary exposure risk of heavy metals ingested by dried black fungus in Chinese minors and adults is basically safe, but at the high exposure levels of 97.5% sites and 99% sites, Cr is at the light pollution level, and the comprehensive pollution of four heavy metals is at the moderate pollution level. In addition, this study found that raw materials can cause heavy metal accumulation in black fungus, mainly from sawdust, followed by rice bran and wheat bran.

Go-Go Music and Racial Justice in Washington, DC

In 2019, a noise complaint from a new, white resident of Shaw, a historically Black neighborhood of Washington, DC, led a local MetroPCS store to mute the go-go music that the storefront had played on its outdoor speakers for decades. The cultural and social implications of muting go-go music, a DC-originated genre of music that has played a central role in DC Black culture, inspired a viral hashtag, #dontmutedc, on social media, as well as a series of high-profile public protests against the muting. The #dontmutedc protests highlighted the increasing impact of gentrification on DC’s Black communities, and connected gentrification to several other important social issues affecting Black DC residents. In the wake of the #dontmutedc incident, several DC-area activist organizations have integrated go-go music into major, public-facing racial justice projects. The first part of this article presents a brief history of go-go music and race in DC community life, mainstream media, and law enforcement in order to contextualize the work of go-go-centered activist work in the aftermath of the #dontmutedc protests. The second part of this article highlights the go-go-centered activist work of three organizations: the Don’t Mute DC movement, Long Live Go-Go, and the Go-Go Museum and Café. These movements’ projects will be used to categorize three distinct approaches to go-go-centered racial justice activism in the Washington, DC, area.

We BEEN Knowin: Black Women teachers (re)member that our language is a living legacy

ABSTRACT This paper explores how Black Women K-12 Teachers (BWTs) engage with Black Language, challenging prevailing narratives. Despite limited recognition, BWTs advocate for the authenticity of Black Language. The research centres on the 16-week Black Language Learning Series (BLLS), delving into the roots, rules, and ramifications of Black Language. Drawing from Black Feminist Thought (Collins 2000) and (Re)remembering praxis (C. B. Dillard 2016), the study employs the Double Dutch Methodology (Green 2014) to capture BWTs’ diverse experiences. Two pivotal themes emerge: Linguistic Push-Pull (Smitherman 2000) while (re)searching, highlighting the struggle to balance native Black Language with standardised English; and (re)presenting while (re)claiming Black Language through African American Women’s Language (AAWL). Thus, through the process of (re)membering, BWTs navigate cognitive dissonance, challenging harmful norms, resulting in greater awareness and a shift in perceptions of Black language, identity, and culture. The findings illuminate how exploring Black Language transforms BWTs’ self-perception and pedagogies, leading to a complex interplay of liberation and linguistic transformation. Ultimately, BWTs begin and emerge as agents of linguistic justice, poised to reshape education by centring Black language.

Declarations and Independents: How Chicago DJ Al Benson Brought Black Cultural Production to 1940s Commercial Radio

ABSTRACT Al Benson’s legacy as one of the first Black DJs on commercial radio is widely acknowledged in Black radio studies. However, his achievements and contributions warrant inclusion in more interdisciplinary scholarship, particularly in popular music and media histories. This article analyzes a surviving Benson aircheck, first contextualizing his role during the mid-century boom in independent record labels and local radio, then showing how he refashioned popular music narratives as Black-mediated sites of cultural production. Additionally, the modest scope of primary sources available for this study brings critical attention to the need to preserve Black radio voices.

“My Playlist is Too (Damn) Long”: The Impact of Black Men’s Favorite Sex Songs on Sexual Socialization

Abstract: Music has historically and culturally served as a tool for Black men to express themselves and tell their stories. Further, music is an integral part of Black culture that provides unique insight into Black men’s ideal sexualities, sexual practices, and their conceptualizations of sex. Thus, this content analysis analyzed the lyrics of Black men’s favorite sex songs from a strength-based, sex-positive perspective to better conceptualize Black men’s sexualities and sexual practices. One hundred six men answered the short-form survey question, “What is your favorite sex song?” Analysis of the song content determined Black men’s favorite sex songs were focused on mutual (29%) and their partner’s pleasure (28%). Black men’s favorite sex songs focused on attentiveness and admiration of partner, fulfilling fantasy, lust and yearning, vocal affirmation and reassurance, risky sex, and desire for intimacy. These findings suggest Black men desire reciprocity, intimacy, and vulnerability during sex.

Resisting Colonialism, Reclaiming Identity: The Role of Negritude and Pan-Africanism

This article explores Negritude and Pan-Africanism, two pivotal movements that emerged as responses to colonial oppression and the marginalization of African identity. Negritude, originating in the early 20th century, celebrated black culture and heritage as a form of resistance against colonial assimilation. Pan-Africanism, with its broader political scope, sought to unify people of African descent across the globe, advocating for collective self-reliance, cultural pride, and political independence. Through a comparative analysis, the article examines these movements' historical contexts, key figures, and philosophical underpinnings, highlighting their contributions to the assertion of African identity and resistance against imperialism. The enduring impact of Negritude and Pan-Africanism on contemporary African socio-political landscapes is also discussed, demonstrating their shortcomings and relevance in ongoing struggles for equality and empowerment. This study underscores the importance of these movements in shaping a cohesive narrative of resistance and self-assertion within the African diaspora.

Incorporating Hip-hop and Black Popular Culture in Korean Primary School English Teacher Training

This study illustrates how hip-hop and black popular culture can be integrated into primary school English teacher education and explores Korean teachers’ reactions to these elements. Within an intensive teacher training program where hip-hop and black popular culture were introduced and adapted for Korean ELT, the study analyzed Korean primary school English teachers’ responses to the pedagogical values of these elements within Korean context. The findings reveal mixed attitudes toward the inclusion of hip-hop and black popular culture. From the perspective of “teacher as learner,” there were positive responses in terms of interest in African American English features and the value of hip-hop and black popular culture as educational resources and their trendiness in literacy education. However, their practicality was viewed negatively. Within the “discourse of schooling” in Korea, the positive aspects included the value of teaching American culture through hip-hop and black popular culture, while doubts about their effectiveness in Korean ELT prompted a negative response. Regarding “teaching activities,” positive reactions emerged when teachers contextualized racial issues in the U.S. in relation to Korean multiculturalism, but concerns arose about the appropriateness of the language and imagery in hip-hop. This study encourages further discussion on this topic.

The Reversal of Negro’s Stereotype Image in Audre Lorde’s Selected Poems: A Poststructuralist Study

The present study tackles the linguistic creative ability of Audre Lorde’s poetic language to change the concepts and perceptions of Negro image signification. It is a sensitive issue that is affecting the life of African American community, namely the Blacks. The researcher in this study aims for seeking vicissitude and reverse the black image signification to indicate it as a graceful one. Besides, the researcher aims to document the black’s agony out of the dominant conceptions by the harsh white society over them during 1960 and 1970. This is done through selecting poems from Audre Lorde’s ‘’Coal’’ volume as a Data analysis under approaching the poststructuralist Susan K. Langer and her book entitled ‘’ Philosophy in a new key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite and Art’’ (1954). Therefore, the paper discusses a rooted and renewed problem, which is judging on skin color. The researcher applies in his investigation a quantitative descriptive methodology that starts with an introduction, literature view, Theoretical background and concepts that are affecting language and black culture in addition to Lorde’s poetic language quality. The study concludes that the signifier is not a must to represent the signified. This is true with Lorde’s call of the black ‘’Coal’, which is a source of fortune and energy, despite being black. Thus, it shows the importance of the self and the black identity.

Preaching Outside the Temple: On the Literary Witness of James Baldwin as the Word Made Public

It was the late Bishop Ithiel Conrad Clemmons, former minister of the First Church of God in Christ of Brooklyn, New York, who said of the late famed novelist/essayist James Baldwin that “he was America’s inside eye on the Black Holiness and Pentecostal Churches”. Though Baldwin admitted that the culture and ethos of the African-American Pentecostal church were “highly significant and indelibly imprinted upon him”, according to Baldwin, his faith community’s “naiveté about life appalled him and drove him away”. While Baldwin left behind the church of his youth, never to return, for the remainder of his writing career, the “backslidden” minister’s literary musings continued to be informed (in both style and content) by the formative religious tradition that he left behind. Though several studies have been undertaken that examine Baldwin’s significance to various aspects of the study of African-American religion and culture, precious little has been written regarding Baldwin’s continuing engagement of the idiom of African-American preaching, the idiom which cultural critic Michael Eric Dyson has nominated as the “jewel in the crown of Black Sacred Rhetoric”. While many studies of Baldwin include the fact that Baldwin was a preacher’s son and that Baldwin himself preached for a time during his youth, the account is yet to be given of how Baldwin’s writings continued to employ the rhythms, grammar, tones, and textures of the Black sacred rhetorical tradition, especially from beyond the borders of the African-American church. This essay seeks to expose not only how Baldwin self-consciously continued to stand in the rhetorical trajectory of the African-American preaching tradition, but the attempt is also to reveal how the writer secularizes the idiom, providing the Black Holiness preacher a hearing from beyond the church. Through a focus on Baldwin as a Black sacred rhetorician, sermonizing from beyond the church, this essay participates in the nearly 100-year-old conversation instigated by the early African-American literary and cultural critic James Weldon Johnson in God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (1927), regarding the neglected significance of the sermon and the preacher in African-American literature and Black expressive cultures. Baldwin’s sermonic is here examined as a highly distinctive mode of Black public theologizing.

Criar uma unidade africana através da história: a questão da origem dos antigos egípcios na historiografia pan-africanista de Cheikh Anta Diop

Este artigo aborda a proposta historiográfica de Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-1986) de cimentar a unidade africana por meio da construção ideacional de um passado comum, que remontaria ao Egito Antigo, e de um conjunto de fatores culturais que seriam partilhados pelas civilizações africanas existentes desde a Antiguidade até a contemporaneidade. Entre as fontes analisadas estão Origem dos antigos egípcios, texto apresentado por Diop em 1974 em colóquio da Unesco, e Nações negras e cultura, livro publicado em 1955. Em ambos estes trabalhos, Diop defende a tese de que os antigos egípcios eram negros. Exploraremos o contexto de produção da obra de Diop, fazendo referência ao ambiente intelectual em que formulou as suas ideias, à sua atuação política e à conjuntura internacional em que viveu. Discutiremos o impacto da sua obra e que inspiração podemos retirar dela, para além das críticas que também se podem fazer.

Special Issue: Black Popular Culture in America

Special Issue: Black Popular Culture in America

Preparing Educators of Gifted and Talented Students to Decolonize Children’s Literature

As we write this paper in late 2023, Advanced Placement (AP) Black history, psychology courses and the use of diverse literature written for children and young adults is being banned by many school districts across the United States. Educators are being threatened, sanctioned, reprimanded, and fired. Despite this, some teachers stand steadfast in their commitment to pedagogies that use authentic literature about and by diverse historians, authors, social activists, and researchers, to name a few. In this article, we discuss the importance of gifted and talented (GATE) being taught Black history and culture that centers diverse literature that recognizes, respects, and celebrates similarities and differences within and across cultures including ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, geographic location, language, and religion, and physical, cognitive, and emotional ability. We do this within the frameworks of children’s literature as a site for decolonization and Bishop’s metaphor of “mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors” (Bishop, 1990). While acknowledging that many GATE students are avid readers, we maintain that all children benefit from education that includes diverse literature and share recommendations for change.

Two Birds with One Stone? Using a Critical Digital Collection to Engage Students in Scholarly Communication Skill Development: Successes and Reflections for the Future

Collection development decisions at the library level often have the consequence of ignoring the histories of marginalized communities. This session focused on how the Indiana University Bloomington’s (IU) Scholarly Communication Department in the Herman B. Wells Library, the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center Library, and the Lilly Library collaboratively designed and launched a digital resource including the voice of student workers. This project, “Land, Wealth, Liberation: The Making & Unmaking of Black Wealth in the United States,” includes a timeline and toolkit for public access to marginalized histories. Focusing on the project planning and lived experiences of student workers, this session provides a roadmap for project planning and reflection.

Who Is They?

At the heart of this project is an intergenerational dialogue, an elliptical tracing of languages and communities in their acts of reclaiming and renaming. In this dialogue the authors ask how does a linguistic archive of Black queer/trans culture, in particular the grammars of they, kiki/Ky-Ky, and fem and stud travel within and shape language and expressive culture? If the Black queer and Black vernacular overlap, how do we look to the creative influences of Black queer and Black trans historical symmetries and exchanges? Reexamining historical continuities and shared socialities of Black gender genealogies, the authors refuse the scholarly impetus to discover “new” nonbinary and transgender frontiers when Black working-class vernacular culture has always structured and enabled radical linguistic expression and gendered possibilities. Writing together, the authors transfigure intergenerational knowledges into a critical theory repositioning the terms of the debate and enabling possibilities for connections where there have only been closures. Talking Black to talk back to this current moment of ever-expanding gender narratives, the authors look toward Black epistemologies conveniently forgotten in current discourses of pluralized gender subjectivities.

Din as Discourse in the Anglophone Caribbean

This essay discusses Belinda Edmondson’s Creole Noise: Early Caribbean Dialect Literature and Performance (2022). The author shows how Edmondson challenges Standard English dismissals of anglophone Caribbean vernaculars as an inferior form of English and reorients the historical legacy of Anglo-Creoles by pushing against the assumption that these Creoles are a lingua franca restricted to Black folk cultures in the Caribbean. Beginning with European migration to the Caribbean, Creole Noise charts the colonial and postcolonial emergence of robust, creative vernaculars in the anglophone context. The lively, well-written book reveals how multiple constituencies have contributed culturally to the unique Caribbean language variants that refashioned the English language and enriched global literature.

It's Not Only About Selling; It's About Passing on Black Culture: A Study with Afro-Entrepreneurs in Espirito Santo-Brazil

We seek to analyze how Afro-entrepreneurs from Espírito Santo undertake to understand some relationships between race and entrepreneurship. Methodologically, we used a descriptive qualitative approach. The data was produced together with six Afro-entrepreneurs living in Espírito Santo, based on participant observations and interviews. For data analysis, we used interpretative narrative analysis. The main research results show that Afro-entrepreneurs can be configured as social entrepreneurs, disseminate knowledge linked to their ancestry, encourage black pride and are preferred by their clients, who choose them for identification. Afro-entrepreneurship has become a space for valuing black workers, moving from a hard area to a black area in the theory of social spaces. From this study, it was possible to perceive the relevance of actions that promote the insertion and retention of black men and women in schools, universities and the job market.

Light Can Induce Accumulation of Nutritional Antioxidants in Black Chokeberry Cell Suspension Culture

Cultivation of plant cells under controlled conditions is a highly effective and fast developing technology that recently was considered as a branch of cellular agriculture. Cellular agriculture is a multidisciplinary approach for sustainable and renewable production of agricultural goods and raw materials at cellular, rather than organismal, level. However, in contrast to the rapid advance in development of cultured meat and precision fermentation, the production of nutritional supplements from plant cells is still in its infancy. One of the limiting factors, striating commercialization of plant cells for food production, is the low yields of target bioactive metabolites. In this work, the changes in phenolics, anthocyanins and exopolysaccharides accumulation during cultivation of Aronia melanocarpa (Michx.) Elliott cell suspension cultures in darknessor under illumination (16 light and 8 dark) were investigated. The data showed that the highest contents of total phenolics (8.17 ± 0.39 mg GAE/g DW), total anthocyanins (0.011 ± 0.001 mg cyanidin-3-glucoside equivalents/g DW) and antioxidant activities (DPPH—21.36 ± 0.29 µM TE/g DW; TEAC—10.08 ± 0.07 µM TE/g DW; FRAP—34.85 ± 1.47 µM TE/g DW; and CUPRAC—126.74 ± 9.15 µM TE/g DW) were achieved when the cells were grown under illumination (16 light and 8 dark). In contrast, when the culture was grown indarkness, the highest amounts of accumulated dry biomass (8.68 ± 0.35 g/L) and exopolysaccharides production (2.10 ± 0.07 g/L) were reached. The results demonstrated that light can be used as an affordable and highly effective factor to control the production of valuable antioxidants by black chokeberry cell suspension culture.

White Stripes, White Rock: The Uncontested Blues Appropriations of the White Stripes

ABSTRACT Despite the prevalence of the cultural appropriation debate in popular music discourse, white, popular rock band, the White Stripes, appropriated African-American Delta blues culture, particularly from Son House and his song “Death Letter Blues,” without causing contestation. Appropriation of Black culture has occurred ubiquitously throughout recent music history, causing widespread contestation due to power disparity and misrepresentation. Through reviewing literature regarding cultural appropriation, and semiotically analyzing the band’s 2003 performance of “Death Letter” at Sydney’s Livid Festival, we find that the White Stripes’ intentional methods of respectful representation and stylistic disguise mitigated the perception of cultural appropriation in their performance. We posit that the band emulated a pre-established process of transculturation whereby Delta blues traits were absorbed into the 20th century evolution of rock music.

Acceptance of Black Culture Through Afro-American Folktales: The Voice of Enslaved Folk

Every culture has its own beauty, truth, customs, laws, and history and sometimes most of them are expressed through folktales. This is a short, precise, and aphoristic article about the cultural and social worlds of Afro-Americans which I will examine through the lens of Afro-American folktales. These tales are not human beings and yet they are alive for they contain the most unforgettable memories, emotions, and feelings of mankind. Zora Neale Hurston was one of the most gifted authors of twentieth-century Afro-American Literature who empowered and acknowledged black arts by giving it a unique identity. The best thing about Hurston’s literary works is that she allows her readers to visualize and investigate the true meaning of their individuality and personality. Hurston was like a true preacher who taught Afro-Americans that it is better to play with words than with the emotions and feelings of people. Through her writings, she unveiled White Americans who believed in controlling the lives of Black folk through slavery. She protests this propaganda in her literary works which have the essence of folktales.