Download or read book Your Average Nigga written by Vershawn Ashanti Young and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2007-03-01 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An engrossing autobiographical exploration of black masculinity as a mode of racial and verbal performance. In Your Average Nigga, Vershawn Ashanti Young disputes the belief that speaking Standard English and giving up Black English Vernacular helps black students succeed academically. Young argues that this assumption not only exaggerates the differences between two compatible varieties of English but forces black males to choose between an education and their masculinity, by choosing to act either white or black. As one would expect from a scholar who is subject to the very circumstances he studies, Young shares his own experiences as he exposes the factors that make black racial identity irreconcilable with literacy for blacks, especially black males. Drawing on a range of interdisciplinary scholarship in performance theory and African American literary and cultural studies, Young shows that the linguistic conflict that exists between black and white language styles harms black students from the inner city the most. If these students choose to speak Standard English they risk alienating themselves from their families and communities, and if they choose to retain their customary speech and behavior they may isolate themselves from mainstream society. Young argues that this conflict leaves blacks in the impossible position of either trying to be white or forever struggling to prove that they are black enough. For men, this also becomes an endless struggle to prove that they are masculine enough. Young calls this constant effort to display proper masculine and racial identity the burden of racial performance. Ultimately, Young argues that racial and verbal performances are a burden because they cannot reduce the causes or effects of racism, nor can they denaturalize supposedly fixed identity categories, as many theorists contend. On the contrary, racial and verbal performances only reinscribe the essentialism that they are believed to subvert. Scholars and teachers of rhetoric, performance studies, and African American studies will enjoy this insightful volume.
Download or read book Your Average Nigga written by Vershawn Ashanti Young and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An engrossing autobiographical exploration of black masculinity as a mode of racial and verbal performance.
Download or read book From Bourgeois to Boojie written by Vershawn Ashanti Young and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vershawn Ashanti Young and Bridget Harris Tsemo collect a diverse assortment of pieces that examine the generational shift in the perception of the black middle class, from the serious moniker of "bourgeois" to the more playful, sardonic "boojie." Including such senior cultural workers as Amiri Baraka and Houston Baker, as well as younger scholars like Damion Waymer and Candice Jenkins, this significant collection contains essays, poems, visual art, and short stories that examine the complex web of representations that define the contemporary black middle class.
Download or read book Other People s English written by Vershawn Ashanti Young and published by Parlor Press LLC. This book was released on 2018-11-21 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a new Foreword by April Baker-Bell and a new Preface by Vershawn Ashanti Young and Y’Shanda Young-Rivera, Other People’s English: Code-Meshing, Code-Switching, and African American Literacy presents an empirically grounded argument for a new approach to teaching writing to diverse students in the English language arts classroom. Responding to advocates of the “code-switching” approach, four uniquely qualified authors make the case for “code-meshing”—allowing students to use standard English, African American English, and other Englishes in formal academic writing and classroom discussions. This practical resource translates theory into a concrete road map for pre- and inservice teachers who wish to use code-meshing in the classroom to extend students’ abilities as writers and thinkers and to foster inclusiveness and creativity. The text provides activities and examples from middle and high school as well as college and addresses the question of how to advocate for code-meshing with skeptical administrators, parents, and students. Other People’s English provides a rationale for the social and educational value of code-meshing, including answers to frequently asked questions about language variation. It also includes teaching tips and action plans for professional development workshops that address cultural prejudices.
Download or read book Nigger written by Randall Kennedy and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2008-12-18 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Randall Kennedy takes on not just a word, but our laws, attitudes, and culture with bracing courage and intelligence—with a range of reference that extends from the Jim Crow south to Chris Rock routines and the O. J. Simpson trial. It’s “the nuclear bomb of racial epithets,” a word that whites have employed to wound and degrade African Americans for three centuries. Paradoxically, among many Black people it has become a term of affection and even empowerment. The word, of course, is nigger, and in this candid, lucidly argued book the distinguished legal scholar Randall Kennedy traces its origins, maps its multifarious connotations, and explores the controversies that rage around it. Should Blacks be able to use nigger in ways forbidden to others? Should the law treat it as a provocation that reduces the culpability of those who respond to it violently? Should it cost a person his job, or a book like Huckleberry Finn its place on library shelves?
Download or read book From Jim Crow to Jay Z written by Miles White and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2011-11-14 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This multilayered study of the representation of black masculinity in musical and cultural performance takes aim at the reduction of African American male culture to stereotypes of deviance, misogyny, and excess. Broadening the significance of hip-hop culture by linking it to other expressive forms within popular culture, Miles White examines how these representations have both encouraged the demonization of young black males in the United States and abroad and contributed to the construction of their identities. From Jim Crow to Jay-Z traces black male representations to chattel slavery and American minstrelsy as early examples of fetishization and commodification of black male subjectivity. Continuing with diverse discussions including black action films, heavyweight prizefighting, Elvis Presley's performance of blackness, and white rappers such as Vanilla Ice and Eminem, White establishes a sophisticated framework for interpreting and critiquing black masculinity in hip-hop music and culture. Arguing that black music has undeniably shaped American popular culture and that hip-hop tropes have exerted a defining influence on young male aspirations and behavior, White draws a critical link between the body, musical sound, and the construction of identity.
Download or read book The Village of Nigger Nigga written by Harold L. Price and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2015-11-17 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the following work, there are three separate but related works. The first work focuses on the power of language, the specific example being that of the so-called "n" word. There are several key thoughts and questions worth keeping in mind as you read the first work, The Village of Nigger-Nigga. First, the more "forbidden" or "taboo" something is, the more powerful it becomes. In view of that, the question arises: "Who benefits from the negative power created by preserving the "n" word as a "taboo"?" Primarily, if not exclusively, so-called "white" or "non-black" people. In other words, those who would use it as a "weapon" to hurt others emotionally. And who suffers from the negative power created by preserving the "n" word as a "taboo"?" Primarily, if not exclusively, so-called "black" or "non-white" people. Conversely, who would benefit by neutralizing the negative meaning/use of the word "nigger" and/or giving it a new and positive meaning? Virtually, all of society in general, both here in America as well as the world at large. Although the first work, The Village of Nigger-Nigga, is a work of fiction in the strictest sense, there is a significant degree of linguistic truth in principle regarding the message of this short story. For example, unlikely as it may seem in terms of the feasibility of converting the "n" word from something negative to a positive, linguistically speaking, language is more than sufficiently capable of accommodating such a change. The second work, Corruption...a Precondition for Power, addresses the matter of power in general. In terms of the message in this essay, it can readily be applied to the other two works, The Village of Nigger-Nigga and Nigger Music.
Download or read book Why I m No Longer Talking to White People About Race written by Reni Eddo-Lodge and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-12 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Every voice raised against racism chips away at its power. We can't afford to stay silent. This book is an attempt to speak' The book that sparked a national conversation. Exploring everything from eradicated black history to the inextricable link between class and race, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race is the essential handbook for anyone who wants to understand race relations in Britain today. THE NO.1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS NON-FICTION NARRATIVE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018 FOYLES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR BLACKWELL'S NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER OF THE JHALAK PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR A BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS AWARD
Download or read book Capitalist Nigger written by Chika Onyeani and published by Jonathan Ball Publishers. This book was released on 2012-03-27 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capitalist Nigger is an explosive and jarring indictment of the black race. The book asserts that the Negroid race, as naturally endowed as any other, is culpably a non-productive race, a consumer race that depends on other communities for its culture, its language, its feeding and its clothing. Despite enormous natural resources, blacks are economic slaves because they lack the 'devil-may-care' attitude and the 'killer instinct' of the Caucasian, as well as the spider web mentality of the Asian. A Capitalist Nigger must embody ruthlessness in pursuit of excellence in his drive towards achieving the goal of becoming an economic warrior. In putting forward the idea of the Capitalist Nigger, Chika Onyeani charts a road to success whereby black economic warriors employ the 'Spider Web Doctrine' – discipline, self-reliance, ruthlessness – to escape from their victim mentality. Born in Nigeria, Chika Onyeani is a journalist, editor and former diplomat.
Download or read book White Nationalism Black Interests written by Ronald W. Walters and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the most racially conscious aspect of the Conservative movement and its impact on politics and current public policy. The rise of the Conservative movement in the United States over the last two decades is evident in current public policy, including the passage of the Welfare Reform Act, the weakening of affirmative action, and the approval of educational vouchers for private schooling. At the same time, new rules on congressional redistricting prohibit legislators from constructing majority black congressional districts, and blacks continue to suffer disproportionate rates of incarceration and death-penalty sentencing. In this significant new study, the distinguished political scientist Ronald W. Walters argues that the Conservative movement during this period has had an inordinate impact on American governing institutions and that a strong, though very often unstated, racial hostility drives the public policies put forth by Conservative politicians. Walters traces the emergence of what he calls a new White Nationalism, showing how it fuels the Conservative movement, invades the public discourse, and generates policies that protect the interests of white voters at the expense of blacks and other nonwhites. Using historical and contemporary examples of White Nationalist policy, as well as empirical public opinion data, Walters demonstrates the degree to which this ideology exists among white voters and the negative impact of its policies on the black community. White Nationalism, Black Interests terms the current period a "second Reconstruction," comparing the racial dynamics in the post-Civil Rights era to those of the first Reconstruction following the end of the Civil War. Walters's analysis of contemporary racial politics is uniquely valuable to scholars and lay readers alike and is sure to spark further public debate.
Download or read book Black or Right written by Louis M. Maraj and published by Utah State University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-01 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Black or Right: Anti/Racist Campus Rhetorics explores notions of Blackness in white institutional—particularly educational—spaces. In it, Louis M. Maraj theorizes how Black identity operates with/against ideas of difference in the age of #BlackLivesMatter. Centering Blackness in frameworks for antiracist agency through interdisciplinary Black feminist lenses, Black or Right asks how those racially signifying “diversity” in US higher education (and beyond) make meaning in the everyday. Offering four Black rhetorics as antiracist means for rhetorical reclamation—autoethnography, hashtagging, inter(con)textual reading, and reconceptualized disruption—the book uses Black feminist relationality via an African indigenous approach. Maraj examines fluid, quotidian ways Black folk engage anti/racism at historically white institutions in the United States in response to violent campus spaces, educational structures, protest movements, and policy practice. Black or Right’s experimental, creative style strives to undiscipline knowledge from academic confinement. Exercising different vantage points in each chapter—autoethnographer, digital media scholar/pedagogue, cultural rhetorician, and critical discourse analyst—Maraj challenges readers to ecologically understand shifting, multiple meanings of Blackness in knowledge-making. Black or Right’s expressive form, organization, narratives, and poetics intimately interweave with its argument that Black folk must continuously invent “otherwise” in reiterative escape from oppressive white spaces. In centering Black experiences, Black theory, and diasporic Blackness, Black or Right mobilizes generative approaches to destabilizing institutional whiteness, as opposed to reparative attempts to “fix racism,” which often paradoxically center whiteness. It will be of interest to both academic and general readers and significant for specialists in cultural rhetorics, Black studies, and critical theory.
Download or read book Redevelopment and Race written by June Manning Thomas and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the decades following World War II, professional city planners in Detroit made a concerted effort to halt the city's physical and economic decline. Their successes included an award-winning master plan, a number of laudable redevelopment projects, and exemplary planning leadership in the city and the nation. Yet despite their efforts, Detroit was rapidly transforming into a notorious symbol of urban decay. In Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit, June Manning Thomas takes a look at what went wrong, demonstrating how and why government programs were ineffective and even destructive to community needs. In confronting issues like housing shortages, blight in older areas, and changing economic conditions, Detroit's city planners worked during the urban renewal era without much consideration for low-income and African American residents, and their efforts to stabilize racially mixed neighborhoods faltered as well. Steady declines in industrial prowess and the constant decentralization of white residents counteracted planners' efforts to rebuild the city. Among the issues Thomas discusses in this volume are the harmful impacts of Detroit's highways, the mixed record of urban renewal projects like Lafayette Park, the effects of the 1967 riots on Detroit's ability to plan, the city-building strategies of Coleman Young (the city's first black mayor) and his mayoral successors, and the evolution of Detroit's federally designated Empowerment Zone. Examining the city she knew first as an undergraduate student at Michigan State University and later as a scholar and planner, Thomas ultimately argues for a different approach to traditional planning that places social justice, equity, and community ahead of purely physical and economic objectives. Redevelopment and Race was originally published in 1997 and was given the Paul Davidoff Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning in 1999. Students and teachers of urban planning will be grateful for this re-release. A new postscript offers insights into changes since 1997.
Download or read book Until We are Free written by Rodney Diverlus and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An anthology of writing addressing the most urgent issues facing the Black community in Canada. The killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012 by a white assailant inspired the Black Lives Matter movement, which quickly spread outside the borders of the United States. The movement's message found fertile ground in Canada, where Black activists speak of generations of injustice and continue the work of the Black liberators who have come before them. 'Until We Are Free' contains some of the very best African-Canadian writing on the hottest issues facing the Black community in Canada. It describes the latest developments in Canadian Black activism, organizing efforts through the use of social media, Black-Indigenous alliances, and more. Rodney Diverlus is a Port-au-Prince-born, Toronto-based dance artist, curator, and co-founder of Black Lives Matter-Toronto. Sandy Hudson is the founder of the Black Lives Matter movement presence in Canada and Black Lives Matter-Toronto and a co-founder of Black Liberation Collective Canada. Syrus Marcus Ware is a core team member of Black Lives Matter-Toronto, a Vanier Scholar, a facilitator and designer for the CulturalLeaders Lab, and an award-winning artist and educator. Contributors Silvia Argentina Arauz, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Patrisse Cullors, Giselle Dias, Omisoore Dryden, Paige Galette, Dana Inkster, Sarah Jama, El Jones, Anique Jordan, Dr. Naila Keleta Mae, Janaya Khan, Gilary Massa, Robyn Maynard, Leroi Newbold, QueenTite Opaleke, Randolph Riley, Camille Turner, Ravyn Wngz."--
Download or read book Antebellum written by R. Kayeen Thomas and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-03-25 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When rapper Da Nigga is sent back in time, he finds himself a slave forced to live the life of his ancestors. A rapper in the present day, Da Nigga must confront the reality of the African-American experience as slavery challenges everything he holds dear: from his fellow rappers and their lyrics, to the executives and their motives. Antebellum is the hard-hitting, gritty story of Da Nigga and his firsthand experiences. An illuminating examination of African-American history, Antebellum is a powerful addition to today's discourse on race and culture.
Download or read book Letter from Birmingham Jail written by Martin Luther King and published by HarperOne. This book was released on 2025-01-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A beautiful commemorative edition of Dr. Martin Luther King's essay "Letter from Birmingham Jail," part of Dr. King's archives published exclusively by HarperCollins. With an afterword by Reginald Dwayne Betts On April 16, 1923, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., responded to an open letter written and published by eight white clergyman admonishing the civil rights demonstrations happening in Birmingham, Alabama. Dr. King drafted his seminal response on scraps of paper smuggled into jail. King criticizes his detractors for caring more about order than justice, defends nonviolent protests, and argues for the moral responsibility to obey just laws while disobeying unjust ones. "Letter from Birmingham Jail" proclaims a message - confronting any injustice is an acceptable and righteous reason for civil disobedience. This beautifully designed edition presents Dr. King's speech in its entirety, paying tribute to this extraordinary leader and his immeasurable contribution, and inspiring a new generation of activists dedicated to carrying on the fight for justice and equality.
Download or read book I Say a Little Prayer written by E. Lynn Harris and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2007-08-21 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A USA Today, New York Times, Washington Post BestsellerChauncey Greer, the suave and successful owner of the Cute Boy Greeting Card Company, never wants for the attention of guys just as hot as he is. After a couple of bad dates Chauncey finds himself in church, where the minister’s message inspires him to return to the singing career he had launched as a teenager. Things heat up when Chauncey’s rediscovered singing talent lands him in the middle of a protest over homophobia in the black church, and Chauncey’s old singing partner–and former lover–makes a dramatic and unexpected entrance.
Download or read book Nigger written by Dick Gregory and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1964 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Dick Greagory, welfare case, star athelete, hit comedian, and front-line participant in the battle for Civil Rights.
