What Is This' In Black Popular Culture Analysis

In this book, Jeffrey Ogbar talks about the beginning of rap, where it started, some of the artists of this genre and some of the controversial topics the artists rap about. He also talks about the usage of the N word as well as men calling women the B word. In the first chapter of the book, Ogbar contextualizes the debate by talking about the history of the minstrel figure in American popular culture, relying mainly on the work of W. T. Lhamon and Patricia Hill Collins. He talks about how the earliest manifestations of hip-hop music in the 1970s came from the Black Power movement and often included direct rejections of minstrel tropes for example in the artist KRS-One’s song “My Philosophy”. Before going on a chronological study of the internal debates that many rappers have over their relationships with the minstrel trope, Ogbar finds the source of the debate in early twentieth-century black writers’, mainly W.E.B Du Bois, interest in elevating many portrayals of African Americans in the arts, versus Harlem Renaissance writers’ rejection of the emphasis on

The identity of the black man is the most crucial element attacked by black masculinity. Stemming from a limited variety of acceptable self expression, black masculinity emphasizes the need for an overly tough outer appearance while internally suppressing emotions of fear and sadness. These notions are particularly vivid in mainstream hip hop culture. In Byron Hurt’s Hip hop Beyond Beats and Rhymes, Hurt sits down with some of the industries most respected artist who attest that “anything nonhood will dilute [their] toughness.” Nonhood suggesting outwardly signs of affection, comfortability in the uprise of woman, and the dialogue and communication between Black brothers both verbal and nonverbal. These

Lauryn Hill is the queen of R&B. Michael Jordan is the king of basketball. It is widely known that throughout American history, African American talent has been extrusive. Would it be ‘narrow-minded’ to describe someone’s talent in these fields as ‘black?’ While it may seem these ascriptions are a simple compliment, they also serve as a developmental handicap. In William Raspberry’s essay, “The Handicap of Definition” he highlights the stereotype of what it actually means to be Black by definition. Raspberry uses multiple examples to help acknowledge the underlying fact that the definition of black is restrictive, and how much of a toll it takes on African-Americans.

In his memoir, Losing My Cool, Thomas Chatterton Williams describes how his identity was formed based on hip-hop culture and the ideologies surrounding it. Losing My Cool allows readers to look through a lens and see how popular culture shaped Williams’s identity, like it has for many black youths. Music, sports, and fashion have all had important roles in changing the way the author thinks. Although the subject matter is completely different from what I have experienced in my own life, I often found myself drawing parallels between Williams’s life and my own.

This paper addresses the identity that is constructed of African-Americans through Rock’s language use of racial speech and taboo language. It also attempts to portray Rock’s function of the skit and the controversial attitudes that arose, including my own.

Of the four panelists in the C-Span Panel Discussion on “Who is Black” I am going to focus on Tiya Miles and Deborah Grey White’s presentations on the topic. Tiya Miles is professor of African and Native American history at the University of Michigan, and a main point of her presentation is the idea that the African American community and culture share many similarities with the original inhabitants of the Americas. Miles gives detail to the significant historical interactions between Native Americans and the Africans brought to their lands, and how this allowed for the absorption of native culture and ethnicity into the African American population. For Miles, African American identity is fluid, sharing many ethnic, religious, and cultural

Inmy research paper I will be defining African American Culture and I also will be discussing things such as slavery, family relations, hairstyles, art forms, food, heath issues, symbolism, traditional beliefs and also why this topic is relevant to today culture and how this information can benefit Black American in today society. African American Culture in the United States refer to the cultural contributions of African ethnic groups to the culture of the United States, either as part of or distinct from American Culture.   African

Cross’ book Shades of black: diversity in African-American identity (1991) depicts a perceived metamorphous of black identity through five stages of development—his ideologies are now termed as the Nigrescence theory. In simple terms, this philosophy refers to the process of becoming Black. It also demonstrates daily struggles that the black community may have in developing a healthy personal identity. Over the years, many authors attempt to define what the word black means. Eventually, many came to begin using the politically acceptable term widely applied today to regard black people; that word is known as Negroes. As different historical events occurred, one being the black power revolution on the 1970’s the experience called for a fresh definition of the term negro. Blacks or Africans in America began to be more conscious of their identity and more aware of the differences separating them. This is the experience that Cross (1971) illustrates and is primarily referenced in his five-stage progress including: pre-encounter, encounter, immersion/emersion, internalization, and internalization-commitment. This book highlights some very vital topics relating to mental health, which has been carefully disregarded by other researchers. Nonetheless, it has strong affiliations to the black experience and can positively explain a more normal psychological behavior through logical and very thought provoking

Smith created space for the exploration of gender in his book “The Creolization of American Culture: William Sidney Mount and the Roots of Blackface Minstrelsy,” the author failed to follow through and discuss gender’s role in relationship to minstrelsy. This book centers around the works of painter William Sidney Mount and how they serve a way to analyze the world that birthed Blackface minstrelsy. In the section “Class, Race, and Gender: Visual Constructions” in Chapter 1 “Recovering the Creole Synthesis - The Roots of Blackface Minstrelsy”, Smith argues that Mount’s artwork is revealing about musical culture’s attitudes of musical culture about class, race, and gender (Smith 19). However, regardless of the section header noting gender, gender is omitted in the only designated space about gender in the entire book. Embarrassing for Smith, this serves as a powerful example of how gender and sexality serve as afterthoughts in typical male authored discourse about

All through history, the label that is associate with Black people have become a prevailing discourse that explicitly racialized black people, even today. There are specific characteristics that are related with being black and are disseminate to the public and are represented as truth. Williams Rose (2002) argues, “As the color white is associated with everything good … so Blacks has, through the ages, carried associations with all that is bad and low… the Negro is believed to be stupid immoral, diseased, lazy, incompetent, and dangerous to the white man’s virtue and social order “(p.181). Blackness have become objectified in public spaces, they are view as a threat on the street of Toronto, surrounding areas and even in the criminal

As the decade of the 1970’s came to an end, a new Black music emerged like much of the others - wrapped in social realities of an genuinely Black experience. Rap/Hip Hop bursted on the seams relating many of the same political messages and ideologies heard decades before. Echoing the Black Power movement and using the musical culture as a way to rebuild Black communities constantly under attack, rap brought real life stories of an urban, younger

What is Black Culture? How would you define it? I would define it as Oppression, Strength, Courage. When I say black culture, I meanly think about what its likes for a person of color in America, what its likes to know you may not get the justice you deserve, and to always be in fear that your voice or life won’t matter to someone who has the power to change that. Our race has been suppressed for centuries and it’s about time we stood mighty for who we are and what we have achieved in a system that only wants us to fail.

The United States has a way of inspiring our citizens reflect on their multiple identities whether institutional factors or association to one’s geographical area. Inside the Black community of the United States, citizens repeatedly debate about what does it means to be themselves and represent their race to the rest of the world. Some questions that always arise for Black citizens when discussing their identities are: ‘do I have to be the representative for my race’, ‘can just be an individual’, and ‘how do I fit into United States as an American. Black-ish presents many concerns Black citizens contemplate throughout their lives while living the United States. Black-ish is a television show airing on ABC channel, the show centers around the

When studying the black diaspora within the United States, the story typically starts with the classic slave narratives including those of Frederick Douglass and Mary Price and ends with the affirmative action decisions of the late 1990s. History tells the story of an internal racial identity struggle through the institutions of slavery and oppression, resistance and rebellion, cultural reawakening and civil rights which evokes the question: what does it mean to be African American? Aaron McGruder’s animated series The Boondocks creates a context to consider the question of what it means to be an African American today and discusses the institutions that are now molding the African American identity. McGruder criticizes the idea of a

Music is an important part of life. Its role as a form of art and entertainment is a significant one but more important is that it serves to reflect and reinforce societal norms and values. It is not only used to entertain but also serves as a form of social commentary (Baran, 2009). For instance, the emergence of Rhythm and Blues (R&B) in America after the Second World War was a means of advancing the black race and it helped blur the line between white and black as more young white people became aware of the distinctions that existed in the society. The Hip-hop and rap of the 1980s and 1990s had almost the same effect, awakening in Black Americans a sense of