Black Mens Studies. Serie McDougal III
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loud musical shout, rising and falling, and breaking into falsetto, his voice ringing through the woods in the clear frosty night air, like a bugle call. As he finished, the melody was caught up by another, and then, another, and then by several in chorus. (Southern, 1997, p. 157)
Despite slave codes, men would sneak away from their plantations to attend gatherings at other plantations to party and dance (Lussana, 2016). In the 1950s and 1960s, popular dances in the Black community were the Cool Jerk and the Twist. In the early 1990s it was the Cabbage Patch and the Butt and also, breakdancing. Breakdancing involved fast movement, spinning, and the use of centripetal force (Majors & Billson, 1992). For inner-city Black males in particular, it was a way of channeling energy while promoting brotherhood and individuality.
Historically, many different African American dances have emphasized different body parts and movements. Dances like the Charleston, the Jitterbug, the Hucklebuck, the Hully Gully, the Watusi, the Freak, the Electric Slide, and the Bounce emphasize twisting, jerking, quick foot movements, and pelvic movement (White & Cones, 1999). African American male styles of dance vary geographically, from the Chicago-based dance styles that emphasize footwork and lower body movements to Atlanta-based styles like the Shoulder Lean and the Bankhead Bounce placing more emphasis on upper body movement, and shoulder movement in particular (Nichols, 2014). What can be said of what these dances represent? Nichols (2014) explains, that in the African American dance tradition, dance is an expression of different interpretations of masculinity, from coolness to bravado, romance, and any number of other expressions.
Orality
Orality refers to oral/aural modalities of cultural communication. Orality indicates a preference for receiving stimuli and information about the external world orally (Allen & Boykin, 1992; Belgrave & Allison, 2006). Orality is a core element of African culture used when information and knowledge are passed down from generation to generation by elders (Belgrave & Allison, 2006). The oral tradition played a key role in the identity formation of males in many African ethnic groups. The Mende people were one of the ethnic groups in the great empire of Mali, founded by the renowned leader Sundiata in the 13th century. Among the Mende, a griot, or praise poet, told legends of heroic Mende men, ←10 | 11→popularizing heroic behavior among Mende males (Clarke-Hine & Jenkins, 1999). In Mende culture, praise singing was typically a male form of cultural expression in which male poets often sang about the feats of great men (Clarke-Hine & Jenkins, 1999). Poets played a key role in passing on cultural and historical memory from each successive generation to the next. For males, it provided an ideal to meet or perhaps exceed.
African American orality is an extension of African oral traditions which include oral discourse in the form of “verbal and spoken art created for the purpose of remembering that past based on the people’s ideas, beliefs, symbols, assumptions, attitude, and sentiments” (Alkebulan, 2005, p. 391). During slavery, when Africans were not allowed to read or write, the oral tradition in large allowed African people to retain their culture, passing it down from generation to generation (Belgrave & Allison, 2006).
Black church ministers have developed unique rhetorical skills that have given shape to oral delivery in musical art forms like soul music and hip-hop. According to Dyson (2001), the Black church has contributed a great deal of Black culture, style, and music. Black male songs of romance in Rhythm & Blues and Soul music contain common spiritual references (Chaney, 2009). Most importantly, the purpose of orality is not mere entertainment but to “enlighten and stir the audience into some productive action or initiate or facilitate spiritual action” (Alkebulan, 2005, p. 392). A component of African oral traditions is represented in the concept of nommo: the productive power of the spoken word. According to Mazama (2005), the spoken word gives human beings the power to direct the spirit or life force of everything. Mazama (2005) asserts that human beings can be brought to action by the power of the spoken word. Thus orality is also embedded in languages.
Black Male Language
A language is a system of symbols that help us communicate with one another. There are nearly 7,000 languages that allow people to express themselves in many different ways and pass culture down from one generation to the next. Since arrival in the Americas, successive generations of African Americans have passed down language and other general aspects of African cultures. African-language speakers were influenced by English-language speakers. According to Williams (1997), during the Englishization process, Africans in America engaged in language creation, maintaining features of African communication styles, lexical items, and code-switching ability as they began speaking Standard English. Although African languages were not completely retained, African languages (such as Twi, Igbo, Yoruba, and Wolof) contributed to the creation of a linguistic system that would become known as Ebonics (African American Vernacular English or Black English) (Charity, 2008). Due to the development of Black language systems during enslavement, these systems were used to both express intentions and meaning and conceal at the same time (White, 1972). Therefore, Black language is filled with hidden meaning, misdirection, metaphor, and nuance (White, 1972).
There are some gender variations in the use of Ebonics. Young African American male speakers have been found to use the features of Ebonics more frequently than females, particularly the more stigmatized features of Ebonics, such as the zero-copula (i.e., he crazy instead of he is crazy or he see the dog instead of he sees the dog) and consonant cluster reduction (i.e., wit’ instead of with or bes’ instead of best) (Hudley, 2009). Males in general, across racial and other social groups, are more likely than females to deviate from Standard English vernacular. This may be due to males ascribing less social capital to standard forms of language (Hudley, 2009).
Black male language (BML) is defined as communicative practices that are more or less associated with Black male identities (Kirkland, 2015). BML can both challenge dominant society’s prejudices and sometimes embody them. It represents gender-influenced dialect associated with Black maleness. Like Black language in general, BML is ever-changing and resistant to efforts of standardized meanings because African American culture applies great pressure to invent and create new forms (Holt, 1975). ←11 | 12→According to Kirkland (2015), in BML, pejorative terms and their meanings are transformed. For example, the word nigga is the result of transfixing the—er of nigger and replacing it with—a, inverting the meaning. Using the linguistic rules of Ebonics to vernacularize the word, its meaning is then changed to denote endearment instead of racial inferiority (to some), while to others the dehumanizing spirit of the word will never change. The term, brother, also undergoes a similar transformation in BML, replacing the—er with—a. Its meaning is also transformed in BML. Instead of just meaning male sibling, brotha can refer to close friendship or something closer than friendship. The meaning of the word dog may be inverted to mean acceptance, loyalty, and camaraderie. Terms like homie signal positions within the Black masculine identity in human and stylish ways. Like brotha, it can signify endearment. But, because it is adaptation of the word home, it also acts as a metaphor that identifies familiarity and relatedness. Terms like playa, typically gendered as male although increasing applied to women, can describe anyone at the top of their game (profession, business, or undertaking). BML influences have now made their way into pop-culture usage as many others have embraced them.
According to Kirkland (2015), although BML grew out of Black English Vernacular (BEV) or Ebonics, BML is distinct due to what it emphasizes. According to Kirkland, Black male speakers place more emphasis on certain features of Ebonics compared to their female counterparts. One such feature is the use of the invariant be represented in phrases found in hip-hop such as “I be the king supreme” which has undertones of boasting and exaggerating presentations of one’s self. Kirkland (2015) also points to Black male speakers’ use of alliteratives in grammatically inverted structures, such as in the phrase, real recognize real. Moreover, Black male speakers may omit or delete the “like” or “as” in phrases like “I gotta put that patch over my eye third eye, Slick Rick.” Instead of saying “like Slick Rick,” like is implied (Kirkland, 2015). This and other language features in BML serve some common functions: (1) They are strategies for navigating the world; (2) They are systems for expressing Black manhood/masculinity; (3) They are forms of resistance, and; (4) They are presentations of assertiveness, strength, and power (Kirkland, 2015).
According to Young (2007), Black youth are