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Chapter 1

Black Male Culture

The earth is blanked by a multilayered atmosphere. Each layer contains a unique mix of gaseous elements and compounds. Thousands of years ago, humans migrated from the African continent to different parts of the world, all with the same basic DNA structure, and meeting the same basic human challenges: giving birth, raising and protecting children, preparing food, loving, and dealing with death—to name a few (Davis et al., 2006). Yet, they developed unique ways of meeting those challenges and addressing those needs. The human species’ diverse efforts to address common needs has resulted in a vast tapestry of languages, spiritual systems, systems of governance, family structures, artistic products, rituals, and other cultural products. The resulting collage of cultures blankets the earth’s surface like the atmosphere. Davis et al. (2006) calls this the ethnosphere. The purpose of this chapter is to describe Black males’ relationships with the ethnosphere, exploring the meaning of culture and the ways in which it is often misunderstood. Both deep and surface levels of Black male culture will be explored as situated within the context of African American and pre-colonial African cultures.

The Meaning of Culture

Culture takes us beyond the generic notion of human nature, toward the unique peoples and people we are. There are no hard lines separating cultures; they clearly overlap due to people generally having the same basic needs and experiencing many of the same human drives and life experiences. But the way people express needs and assign meaning to life experiences varies by culture. Moreover, within cultures, individuals accept or reject those patterns of thought and behavior to varying degrees. Culture is a group’s natural basis for power; supporting culture is one way of supporting collective well-being (Nobles, 2006). It is a force that synthesizes commonalities while resolving differences (Nobles, 2006).

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Imposing Hard Science Principles on Culture

Culture represents tendencies and patterns of thought and behavior, but it does not represent absolutes. There is a tendency to apply hard science principles to the study of culture, leading inquiry down a road of misunderstandings. Statements about culture are not like statements of scientific laws. In the hard sciences, laws apply under the same conditions without fail. In the social sciences, there are almost never absolutes because social science is the study of variation. Take, for example, the statement that African American males disproportionately identify themselves as religious or spiritual while being underrepresented as atheists, compared to American males of other racial groups. Interpreting a cultural statement through a hard science lens may prompt a response such as “So is that saying that all Black men are religious, because I know some Black men who are not?” Religiosity is a major component of African American culture. However, the fact some African Americans do not self-identify as religious does not mean that religiosity isn’t prevalent. This is because claims about culture are not claims of absolutes. Just because an African American is not religious doesn’t mean he or she is not a part of African American culture; atheism, although underrepresented, is still present among African Americans. Just as, a person who is Irish but doesn’t speak the Gaelic language, is still Irish. This also means that statements about cultural groups, in this work, are not claims about individual personalities.

Personalities are another level of variation within cultural groups. Personality is defined as individual-level patterns of thoughts and behaviors. Claims about culture relate to patterns of group-level behavior and thus cannot be applied to individuals—even though people are heavily influenced by cultural patterns. For example, one cannot identify a characteristic of Italian culture and assume that an individual who is Italian will embody that characteristic. The same is true for African American males. Individuals within cultural groups embrace difference characteristics of their cultural groups to varying levels.

Worldview and Performance

Too much focus on race as a biological or political category can take the focus away from culture’s shaping force. As a concept, culture is both simple and complex. We live our cultures on a daily basis, yet explaining how they work can be difficult and challenging. At its core, culture is made of patterns of thinking and acting. It involves deep-structural core aspects like values and beliefs as well as surface-structural aspects like material objects, expressions, and products that can be seen, touched, heard and tasted. As important as they are, focusing on objects and cultural expressions limits culture to the stylistic peculiarities and performances of a people. The process of examining worldview, the invisible elements of culture that people use to interpret the world and navigate through life, ushers us into a conversation about the deep structure of culture. According to Ani (1994) worldview or utamawazo represents culturally structured patterns of thinking or the most commonly held values, beliefs, concepts, and ethics possessed among a people. It is the organizational grid in our minds that we use to make sense out of what we observe or encounter.

Common tenets of the African worldview are summarized by Mbiti (1970) in the proverb, I am because we are; and because we are, therefore, I am. African societies had social structures that passed down basic dogma of their worldviews, often consisting of spirituality, communalism, rhythm, and orality. Spirituality represents African people’s belief in a spiritual vital force that empowers and enlivens all elements in the universe, making them inherently interrelated, mutually dependent, and complimentary. Communalism refers to African ethnic groups’ tendencies to place emphasis on mutual aid, collective survival, and well-being over individualism, competition, and materialism (White & Cones, 1999). Rhythm is a concept that represents African societies’ belief in the cyclical pace and harmony of the universe, also expressed culturally in the value placed on liveliness, intensity, and bodily rhythm ←2 | 3→in dance, song, spiritual expression, and gestures. Orality refers to African cultures’ emphasis on the bonding and empowering quality of the spoken word in the form of songs, epics, and poems.

African males generally emerged from cultures in which they did not have to justify their humanity; instead, their humanity was affirmed (White & Cones, 1999). African American males are an extension of this culture. Ultimately, cultures are not stagnant, but they shift and change slowly at their core. Cultural change and exchange happen much faster on the surface. For example, clothing styles (surface) change much faster than beliefs and values (core). In this way, African American culture represents the unfolding of African culture in the American context.

Culture and Conflict

Initially, the concept of culture may seem to be a neutral and harmless feature of humanity. But, why is it both an object of admiration and a target for destruction and exploitation? While cultures are distributed across the earth’s human groups evenly, political and economic power are not. Just as the biosphere is being compromised, so too is the ethnosphere. Just as rare plants and animals are disappearing due to climate change and human behavior, an acceleration in globalization and the loss of cultural diversity is taking place. Customs, rituals, beliefs, and practices are not being passed down from generation to generation. To cite an example, on average, every two weeks an elder person dies and carries with them the last known vestiges (syllables) of a dying language (Davis, Harrison, Howell, & National Geographic Society (U.S.), 2007).

Climate change is a natural phenomenon. The earth is currently in a warming phase, but certain human activities such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels unnecessarily increase the amount of change. Just like climate change, cultural change is a natural phenomenon—no culture is a frozen entity. But cultures are not disappearing or changing simply due to people choosing to assume and create better ones. Yes, cultures survive because they adapt. However, forces such as cultural suppression, cultural oppression, and annihilation very often push cultures out of existence via political decisions and social forces that people have no control over (Davis et al., 2007). Oftentimes these cultures are not suffering because of their failure to address modern challenges. Their failure is an inability to assimilate or imitate the characteristics of a more powerful ethnic group or social class (or both), or some other population with a disproportionate share of power.

Cultures can disappear due to cultural intolerance. Loss of food diversity and extreme weather are the costs of environmental degradation, and the costs of cultural imposition and homogeneity are the loss of human potential. One of the first steps in solving this problem is developing a newfound respect for human diversity and Black male culture in particular—to see it as a resource instead of something to fear or be blind to. Political leaders can use national identity to forge unity and social integration. But sometimes this is done by diminishing the importance of cultural uniqueness. To secure power and privilege, some ethnic groups project their own culture as a human standard by which all other thought and behavior should be judged. In the projection of power and domination, the same cultural diversity that people appreciate for its beauty is transformed into a detested enemy.

Many White people have viewed cultural differences as a threat to America’s imagined community and their racist efforts to maintain power. When uniqueness is seen as a threat, states respond with suppression because cultural differences can be corralled as a source of strength and resistance. Many African Americans are descendants of a people who did not arrive as immigrants seeking economic or political opportunity. They were enslaved and defined by their labor, while their cultures were not respected and sometimes purposefully suppressed. In the long run, this lack of openness can hold back progress and cross-cultural creativity. Culture is not always at the root of the conflicts that Black males face; however, ethnic/racial differences often intensify conflicts (UNDP, 2004). For example, conflict over neighborhood resources and voting rights are often divided over ethnic lines. Many times, conflict ←3 | 4→occurs due to unequal access to social services, employment, income, and political opportunities. Some research mistakenly focuses on the political and economic nature of conflict to the exclusion of the role of culture.

Globalization and Culture

The world is more economically and socially interconnected than at any other time in human history. The empowerment of people of African descent does not occur in a vacuum. Far from neutral, it is an act of war in that Black male culture undermines White power and privilege by shifting the basis of power away from Euro-American social norms. This is why Black male culture can be a source of conflict in the United States. At different places in the world and different points in human history, this kind of tension has been resolved through isolation, cultural oppression, war, and genocide. People of African descent in the U.S. have distinct socio-political and cultural experiences that have created unique social realities for them (Kambon, 1992). These distinctions bring them into conflict with dominant social norms. Culture is of central importance to a people’s well-being. Thus, culture can be a target or an object of warfare and conflict in global and local contests for power. According to Cummings (2008), the objective of cultural warfare is to disrupt a people’s stability by displacing their cultural nucleus at three levels: the individual, collective cultural consciousness, and raison d’etre. At the individual level, the sense of self is replaced by the need for external validation and approval. A people’s collective consciousness is attacked through efforts to replace their cultural point of reference with the cultural heritage of another population. Their raison d’etre is attacked by efforts to ensure that their vital needs are provided for by outside institutions. Once a group’s cultural reference point is replaced, new behavior is used to perpetuate foreign values like a virus using its host to spread itself.

Cummings (2008) does not believe that a people’s culture can be completely replaced, although efforts to do so can cause disruption. According to Cummings, once a dominant group has imposed its cultural center on a population, that population will evaluate its own thoughts, behaviors, and expressions based on the dominant group’s cultural standards. The inconsistency between their own expressions and the dominant group’s standards will cause distress and destabilize them. According to Hilliard (1995), due to cultural oppression, African Americans have tended to accept certain dichotomies, such as (1) equating European culture with technology and African culture with the rejection of technology; (2) equating modernity with cultural progress and African and African American culture with regression or retrogression; (3) equating European culture with wealth and African and African American culture with poverty; (4) equating education with acquiring European cultural norms and African and African American culture with lack of education; (5) equating Black self-determination and pride with the hatred of others; (6) equating religion with European interpretations of Christianity and not African and African American religious forms, and; (7) generally failing to study and get to know African and African American culture. According to Hilliard, this is a kind of cultural genocide which is in some ways the ultimate tool for eliminating a people because, unlike physical genocide, its goals remain hidden.

Cultural Liberty

Globalization has been accompanied by increased trade between countries and the subsequent growth of economies. Many people across the world have enjoyed the benefits of globalization in the forms of increased access to information, increased access to goods, ease of movement, and ease of communication, etc. But people sometimes face a common dilemma. They want these benefits and their freedoms, and they also want to be able to choose their cultural identities without sacrificing their freedom and opportunity (UNDP, 2004). This book explores how Black males have resolved this dilemma. One part of the resolution is a concept called cultural liberty. Cultural liberty is about allowing people to choose their cultural identities, without being excluded from other lifestyle choices and opportunities, ←4 | 5→such as educational, health, and job opportunities (UNDP, 2004). Exclusion can happen via lack of recognizing the holidays of underrepresented populations or punishing their style of dress. In short, people want to express themselves culturally—to practice their religion, speak their languages, and celebrate their ethnic heritages without punishment and diminished opportunity (UNDP, 2004). When cultures are repressed, the consequences can include religious persecutions, ethnic cleansing, and institutional racism (UNDP, 2004).

Conservative, xenophobic political approaches attempt to forge national unity by forcing assimilation without choice. Respecting cultural differences can allow countries to benefit from the knowledge and skills of people who have diverse values and beliefs. Some countries have supported cultural diversity by giving tax breaks and subsidies to cultural industries. For example, Hungary diverts 6% of all television receipts to promote domestic films. This helps to preserve their unique culturally influenced filmmaking (instead of being enveloped by the U.S. film industry and the overwhelming global exposure to Western culture).

What will African Americans and Black men in particular do to preserve their cultural liberty? On a more domestic level, for example, African American music is generally accepted as a rich cultural tradition with African roots and evolution in the American context. It benefits society by enhancing African American cultural freedom, increasing the cultural options of all people, and enhancing the cultural landscape of the U.S. and the world. However, African American cultural liberty is suppressed in other ways, including discrimination against ethnic-sounding names, style of dress, and dialects and languages. Moreover, African Americans experience institutional racism. For example, their ethnic experiences and historical contributions are often excluded or diminished in public education curricula. Groups can be economically privileged and culturally marginalized.

Members of cultural groups should also be free to make choices that may divert from traditions as well. For example, some cultural traditions involve limiting the freedom of women to make their own cultural choices. Some members of underrepresented groups attempt to resolve cultural oppression by assimilating to the dominant culture. However, this is, in many cases, a result of suppressed cultural liberty. People should be able to make the cultural choices they want, even if those choices identify with the dominant culture. But, because power and wealth are unequally distributed in societies, groups with less income, wealth, and political influence choose to identify with the dominant culture because they have been forced to make the choice between their cultural heritage/identity and political and economic opportunity. Vulnerable populations are coerced to adopt dominant culture—and often don’t recognize what is occurring—because they are groomed in environments surrounded by the culture of dominant groups.

Cultural Revolution

Ani (1994) attributes the success of anti-colonial projects to the use culture as a weapon. Similarly, Sutherland (1997) argues that for people of African descent, whose culture has been attacked, cultural nationalism is a prerequisite for liberation. Some argue that cultural liberation goes beyond traditional Western notions of advancement. From this perspective, the belief that cultural suppression and exploitation can be solved by economic and political freedom is erroneous. For example, the Catalans in Spain and the Quebecois in Canada enjoy the same political and economic statuses and political freedoms as the majority, yet they suffer cultural marginalization because their languages and cultural traditions are marginalized by their central governments (UNDP, 2004). According to Hilliard (1995), people of African descent must engage in cultural replenishment by embracing African identity through cultural elements such as African and African American rituals, symbols, rites of passage, holidays, etc. Pan Africanist or Black Nationalist perspectives recognize that although Black people should have the cultural liberty to make choices about their identities, they often make these choices in ←5 | 6→a context of racial/ethnic power imbalance, institutionalized racism, and cultural oppression. Because cultural choices are not made on a level playing field, Black people are often influenced to make choices that do not serve their interests or reflect knowledge or pride in their heritage. Karenga (2010a) advocates for a cultural revolution, defined as “the ideological and practical struggle to rescue and reconstruct African culture, break the cultural hegemony of the oppressor over the people, transform persons so that they become self-conscious agents of their own liberation, and aid in the preparation and support of the larger struggle for liberation and a higher level of human life” (Karenga, 2010a, pp. 261–262). Similarly, in Ralph Ellison’s (1952) famous Invisible Man, the Black male protagonist learns he can only achieve his individual self-determination once he recovers his cultural identity and defines himself, instead of allowing others to impose their definitions onto him. However, Karenga is not suggesting a sort of unexamined traditionalism as old cultural practices may be oppressive or repressive in the present. This revolution requires African people to identify models of excellence in every area of human life, particularly in the seven fundamental areas of culture: history, ethics and spirituality or religion, social change organization, economic organization, political organization, creative production, and ethos (Karenga, 2010a).

Elements of the Surface of Culture

The surface structure of culture consists of material expressions that can be perceived by our external senses. It is similar to masculinity, the external expressions and manifestations of manhood. This section will cover Black masculine expressions of the surface structure of culture in the form of symbols, handwork, clothing, walking styles, facial expressions, dance styles, language, the dozens, music making, and heroes.

Symbols

Symbols are words, gestures, objects, or anything that carries meaning, usually best understood by those who share a culture (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005). Symbols are on the outermost layers or surface level of culture because they are subject to frequent change, and being copied, borrowed, or appropriated. Every day, people depend on symbols in the form of street signs and light colors to navigate the roads, while social media is filled with emoticons and memes that convey meaning in our daily communications; however, symbols in African American culture carry far more depth. Nobles (1986) assigns far greater meaning to symbols than is typical among cultural scholars. Nobles also cautions against the interpretation of symbols where signs are simply signifiers of objects. When interpreting the use of symbols among people of African descent, it is important to look into the use of symbols as representations of rational and/or spiritual meanings and other subjectivities.

Handwork

Black male handwork (hand movement), like handshaking, is a form of non-verbal behavior strongly associated with Black male non-verbal culture. Handwork can be highly political, like the Black fists defiantly raised in protest by 1968 Olympic medal winners Tommie Smith and John Carlos, or the Saint Louis Rams football players who, in 2014, raised their hands in solidarity with protesters challenging the police killing of Michael Brown, a young Black male. The Black fist has symbolized a great deal of meaning; during the Black Power movement in particular, it signaled Black consciousness. Black males have used handwork in unique cultural ways to express a range of meaning, including pride, identity, community, masculinity, greetings/farewells, approval, solidarity, etc. Ethnographic observations of male handshaking reveal a great deal about the ways they play out. Black male handwork stylings are distinct, but over time they are often absorbed into the mainstream and are practiced by many.

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African American organizations and social groups, from gangs to fraternities, have had and continue to create specialized handshakes (Majors & Billson, 1992). Some Black gangs engage in distinct types of stacking, creating symbols and letters to represent their affiliation (Sutherland, 2009). Research on sex differences in human touch behavior generally suggests that, due to socialization, females use touch for intimacy and friendship, while males use it for status and power. However, this is not true for Black males who also use handshakes in ways that place a great deal of emphasis on intimacy, brotherhood, and friendship. Many terms have been used by African Americans to refer to the handshake including giving dap, slapping five, giving skin, high fiving, and showing love (White, 2011).

Black male styles of handshaking have a long historical lineage, from the African continent to the present. During the turn of the century, when Jim Crow laws and lynching were at their worst, Black fraternal orders allowed Black male professionals to support one another, possibly in new or hostile territories. They made use of specialized handshakes to identify one another so they could get social and economic support while they were away from home (Kuyk, 1983). Like their predecessors, modern Black fraternity members continue to use their own secret handshakes, often involving a unique handshake or grip combined with a body embrace (Majors & Billson, 1992). Black male greetings in general (non-fraternity related) can involve handshakes and intense embraces. In greetings, Black males engage in more touch behavior, and for longer durations (measured in seconds), than is typical among males in the U.S. context (Andrews & Majors, 2004). Andrews and Majors (2004) explain one specific feature of Black male handshakes: the thumb grasp. The thumb grasp “involves the mutual encircling of thumbs, while hands are grasped together” (Andrews & Majors, 2004, p. 326). Many African American males perform these handshakes out of habit, without attaching any name to them. For instance, one of the more popular forms of handshaking is the three-point handshake, in which “two actors begin with the thumb grasp, and roll into a traditional handshake, and finally rolling into a tip of the finger clasp, where the fingers are bent at the knuckle and clasped or locked around the bent fingers of the other actor” (Andrews & Majors, 2004, p. 326). These shakes sometimes end with a snap sound created by the fingers pulling away from one another and the thumbs pressing against one another. Other times both actors maintain the hand grasp and pull one another into an embrace. Black South African males engage in a similar variation of the three-point shake and, similar to African American culture, it is in part an expression of communalist value (Sutherland, 2009). This handshake too will sometimes end with an accompanying gesture, such as a finger snap. In a different variation, some Black male athletes have been known to do an elbow bash, which may appear to be a high five, but instead, clinch their fist and crash forearms, locking at the bend of the elbow. In a non-handshake, LeBron James is known for sometimes celebrating by pushing both of his hands toward the floor, following by twice tapping his chest with the palm of his hand. New handshakes and variations of old ones are constantly being adopted.

Clothing

Clothes can simply represent style, but they can also be used to tell elaborate stories about culture and identity. African Americans have used clothing to symbolize attitudes, values, messages such as affiliation, pride, individuality, and overall identity (Andrews & Majors, 2004, p. 326). Zulu traditional dress for men includes a beaded belt tied over a goatskin apron in addition to other clothes for rituals and other special occasions (Davis et al., 2007). Masaai males of Kenya wear colorful, toga-like garments and sometimes carry spears as symbols of manhood. Swahili men and women believe that appearance can symbolize inner purity (Davis et al., 2007). From zoot suits to traditional African garments, African American men have developed unique ways of dressing to express and distinguish themselves (Franklin, 2004). During slavery, Black men used the clothes available to them to create their own styles. This was and is, in part, a way for Black men to express themselves on their own terms ←7 | 8→and enhance self-image all the while society attempts to make them invisible (Franklin, 2004; Majors & Billson, 1992). During the Black Power movement, African style print and designs were worn by African Americans to symbolize pride and identity.

Using clothing as symbols of masculinity is not something exclusive to males. Masculine Black lesbians often dress in ways similar to Black males, in addition to unique blended styles. For example, articles of clothing might include baggy pants, shirts, and Timberland boots (Lane-Steele, 2015). The fashion consciousness of Black men has set trends in men’s styles among manufacturers and designers for many years, as have Black women’s styles. Black male hip-hop entrepreneurs have created lucrative clothing lines such as Sean Jean, Roc-A-Wear, FUBU, Yeezy, and many others (White, 2011). Through hip-hop as a medium, they have been able to turn casual clothing items into exotic markers of cultural hipness (White, 2011). Black male clothing trendsetting has taken common items such as stocking caps (or doo-rags), bandanas, and plain white t-shirts to the point they have been commodified and transformed into mainstream symbols of style and masculinity. The hip-hop industry has garnered millions of dollars by transforming Black male clothing styles into designer apparel. Back male clothing styles are also associated with Black male bodies and how they move in their clothing. Based on experimental and observational research, Boykin and Cunningham (2002) identify one of the dimensions of African American culture: movement expressiveness. It is the interweaving of movement, rhythm, percussiveness, music, and dance with other social processes, including learning (Allen & Boykin, 1992; Boykin, 2000; Boykin & Cunningham, 2002). Kinesics or culturally informed styles of body movement is a part of movement expressiveness. One form of bodily expression is walking style.

Walking Styles

Walking styles for African American males can express self-esteem, pride, and power. These walking styles come in many forms, ranging from standard to highly rhythmic, sometimes referred to as a stroll. Sometimes they are done casually, other times, to impress, or even for fun. Notably, Levine and Norenzayan (1999), who measured the relationship between social values and walking speed, found that people in more individualistic cultural groups had faster paces of walking than those in collectivist ones. Johnson (1971) identified several walking styles that had been occasionally used by African American males. He described them as typically being slower (relative to White males), sometimes with the head elevated and tilted to one side, while one arm may be swinging at the side. Johnson (1971) also described a more exaggerated style, the gait, which he describes as a kind of walking dance in which all parts of the body move rhythmically. Hanna (1984) presents observed walking styles occasionally used by Black males in school settings. According to Hanna, some African American sixth grade boys engaged in a walk with a swagger that includes the head tilted to one side, with one arm swinging at the side, while the other is tucked in a pocket. Hanna describes another polyrhythmic walk that involves the dynamic movement of the torso, while the hips rotate or shift sideways and the upper torso is held upright. Neal, McCray, Webb-Johnson, and Bridgest (2003) described a more exaggerated non-standard African American male walking style or stroll as “a deliberately swaggered or bent posture, with the head held slightly tilted to the side, one foot dragging, and an exaggerated knee bend (dip).” Franklin (2004) describes Black male stylized walking as mechanisms for reinforcing self-confidence, readiness, rhythm, individuality, creativity, fun, and strength. According to White (2011), these Black male walking styles, from those of Barack Obama and Michael Jordan to Jay-Z, symbolize assuredness and the ability to handle oneself in any situation with coolness and sophistication.

Facial Expressions and Gaze

Facial expressions are a means by which people communicate a broad spectrum of emotions, including happiness, anger, surprise, fear, disgust, sadness, and interest (Ekman & Oster, 1979). According to Ekman and Oster (1979), while there may be a universal set of facial muscles that are triggered by ←8 | 9→certain emotions, other facial expression triggers vary by social learning and culture—things that trigger facial expressions of the same emotion can vary from culture to culture. Females generally exhibit more facial displays of emotion than males (Andrews & Majors, 2004). Smith’s (1983) investigation of gender difference among Black females’ and males’ smiling found no significant differences, though she concluded that females may smile more at opposite sex partners compared to their interactions with the same sex.

There is a lack of research on the eye movement component of African American expression, particularly on African American males. Hanna’s (1984) research does show that, as compared to Whites, African Americans were reluctant to maintain direct eye contact with persons who occupied positions of authority. Andrews and Majors (2004) explain that there are cultural differences in how African Americans interpret eye contact compared to some other racial/ethnic groups. African Americans are less likely than Whites to associate eye contact and length of gaze with attributes such as honesty, for example. Andrews and Majors (1995) explain racial, cultural and gender differences as they influence Black men’s views on when it is appropriate to maintain eye contact:

Research on eye contact across race generally shows that African Americans look at others while listening with less frequency than Whites (Smith, 1983; Harper et al., 1978; Hanna, 1984). White people tend to look at others more when listening than speaking, whereas Black people do the opposite (Hanna, 1984). It has been found that Black parents sometimes teach their children that looking at an adult in the eye is a sign of disrespect (Byers & Byers, 1972). In contrast, White children are socialized to do just the opposite: looking away from a speaker is seen as disrespectful. Overall, LaFrance & Mayo (1976) found that looking while listening occurred least for Black males and most for White females. The eye and visual literature shows that, overall, females use eye contact more frequently than males. (Smith, 1983, p. 43)

African American males use eye behaviors such as staring, eye-rolling, and cutting the eyes. Staring can be associated with tension, distrust, or anger—especially when directed at Whites given the current and historical racial dynamics of the country. Cutting the eyes and eye-rolling, visual movements more typically used by females than males, communicate displeasure or disapproval but also playfulness and flirtation. Rickford and Rickford (1976) describe eye cutting the following way:

The basic cut-eye gesture is initiated by directing a hostile look or glare in the other person’s direction. This may be delivered with the person directly facing, or slightly to one side. In the latter position, the person is seen out of the corners of the eyes, and some people deliberately turn their bodies sideways to achieve this effect. After the initial glare, the eyeballs are moved in a highly coordinated and controlled movement down or diagonally across the line of the person’s body. This “cut” with the eyes is the heart of the gesture and may involve the single downward movement described above, or several sharp up-and-down movements. Both are generally completed by a final glare, and then the entire head may be turned away contemptuously from the person to the accompaniment of a loud suck-teeth. (p. 296)

A male who attempts to flirt with a woman or whistle at a woman might be met with a cutting of the eyes as an expression of her disinterest. However, understanding the meaning of eye cutting is critical, because eye cutting can also be employed in a flirtatious manner. The eye-rolling technique is different in the sense that it involves moving the eyes from one side of the sockets to the other in an upward arch, accompanied by the lowering of the eyelids (Andrews & Majors, 2004). However, it similarly communicates a message of disapproval and playfulness or flirtatiousness. The facial expression referred to as mean mugging, the stern facial expression or grimace, is more associated with males. White (2011) explains it as a display of masculinity, hardness, and invulnerability and a rejection of the stereotype of the grinning and submissive, enslaved Black male.

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Black Males and Dance Styles

Rhythmic motion is a key feature of Black cultures (White & Cones, 1999). Dance is an additional aspect of Black male kinesics. Dance can also be an expression of masculinities, as it was used in African ethnic groups to facilitate and celebrate passage from boyhood to manhood (Nichols, 2014). African American dance is characterized by the expression of joy, sensuality, exuberance, freedom, creativity, and spontaneity (White & Cones, 1999). African American dance typically involves the mastering of basic steps while also encouraging individuals to improvise, create new steps and allow themselves to be moved by the spirit of their impulses. During slavery, at frolics, African Americans engaged in their own dances and dance competitions. Dancing allowed them mastery over their own bodies (Lussana, 2016). When the drum was outlawed, African Americans innovated other rhythmic devices such as patting juba, a form of rhythmic body percussion that enslaved Africans used to accompany song and dance. Juba involved hand clapping, foot stomping, and using the hands to strike the arms and legs creating rhythmic sounds. Africans also engaged in work songs that accompanied their labor activities, coordinating their movement, just as they did in Africa. These songs were often improvised on the spot and performed in call-and-response fashion. In addition, there were field hollers, short, improvised, call-and-response style songs sung by enslaved Blacks working in the fields. Eileen Southern cites a traveler’s diary describing them as follows:

Suddenly one [enslaved Black person] raised such a sound as I had never heard before, a long, 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 often told to not speak Ebonics and to code switch. Code switching means speaking one dialect or language in the home environment and another one considered to be more standard at school. Young states this is a racially biased charge that pushes Black students to stress themselves to do the impossible, i.e., separate their identities from their school experiences. It requires Black people to engage in a sort of passing (similar to the way Black people with light skin complexions have sometimes passed as racially White) in order to be successful (Young, 2007). Young (2007) asserts that code switching contributes to academic failure for underclass Blacks by forcing them to perform a kind of educational schizophrenia. Instead, Young is an advocate of code meshing, combining Ebonics with a school-based version of English to better align with how African Americans speak and write anyway. He rejects the notion that Ebonics is incompatible with so-called Standard English. For Young, forcing Black males to reject Ebonics is a surrender to prejudice, sending the message that high achievement requires males distance themselves from their own identity. It makes Black students commit cultural suicide while White students’ culture remains intact. In fact, White students receive the message that their culture is “standard” (Young, 2007, p. 117).

Proponents of code-switching assert that it is an essential tool for Black males to be successful and resilient in multiple social contexts (Brewster, Stephenson, & Beard, 2014; White & Cones, 1999). Young (2007) argues that the reason so many Black males have not learned Standard English is precisely because it comes along with a rejection of Ebonics, creating within them a hostility toward Standard English. Wheeler (2008) advocates that teachers learn code switching and Black English grammatical patterns so they can teach students the differences between Standard English and Ebonics, how to consider the setting they are in, and choose the appropriate language style for that setting.

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The Dozens

A feature of the BML tradition is playing the dozens, also known as roastin’, ridin’, cappin’, jonesin’, clownin’, bussin’ and other names. A form of African American interactive speech, the dozens is a highly stylistic, entertaining, and competitive verbal ritual characterized by the exchange of insults accompanied by physical gestures, body stances, and tonalities (Majors & Billson, 1992; White & Cones, 1999). According to Majors and Billson (1992), while African American females sometimes play the dozens, African American males are the prime players. Nobles (2007) explains the dozens as a rite by which the power of the word is used to make the individual feel better. The practice is similar to rituals among peoples of African descent such as the Avogan and the Lobi Singi ceremonial traditions, where offended persons are given the opportunity to release suppressed emotions by ridiculing one another (Nobles, 2007). Majors and Billson (1992) theorize that the dozens may have originated from enslaved Africans who worked in the field; they created disguised insults targeted at higher status enslaved individuals who worked in the master’s house, or at Whites themselves. Verbal ability was valued as much as physical ability among the enslaved. Therefore, learning to strike without being physical was valued. According to Staples (2006), the dozens are a forerunner to rap, and more specifically, battle rap. In the ritual, insults may be directed toward any aspect of the target, including but not limited to the target’s family, character, intelligence, sexuality, clothing, and much more. During the dozens, the onlookers and listeners act as a catalyst, responding to witty and cunning insults and spurring on the exchange (Majors & Billson, 1992). Young men who practice the dozens learn:

1. To keep calm and courageous under the mounting pressure of insults (from individuals or larger society).

2. To think fast, and be witty, and cunning.

3. To control and redirect emotion and other energy to defend one’s self with clever offensive and defensive insults (Kunjufu, 1986; Majors & Billson, 1992).

Music Making

Music making is a process that is grounded in culture-specific meaning (Burnim & Maultsby, 2006). Any analysis of African American music must privilege the perspectives of the culture bearers (Burnim & Maultsby, 2006). The African American music-making process is part of a larger, dynamic cultural process of continuity and change, from African music-making practices and principles to modern-day music forms (Epstein & Sands, 2006). Starting in Africa, that process involved the transfer of values, ideals, and behaviors through synthesis and reinterpretation (Epstein & Sands, 2006). In spite of the creation of and institutionalized retelling of the myth that Blacks arrived in the New World culturally naked, African American music is indeed a part of an African cultural continuity (Epstein & Sands, 2006). Enslaved African Americans performed music for themselves and for their captors. Music was also a unique expression of African American humanity during slavery and a means of survival and resistance. Black music, in the American context, began on plantations in the rural South (Staples, 2006). According to Nketia (1974), African music often possesses characteristics such as multipart rhythmic structures, repetitive choruses with a lead singer, call-and-response styles of altering phrases juxtaposed or overlapping, and scales of four to seven steps. These elements continue to appear in African American music. Early on, European observers, through the lens of their own cultural chauvinism, typically described Black music as barbaric, wild, and nonsensical.

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Black men played a major role in musical entertainment for both Black and White audiences during slavery (Clarke-Hine & Jenkins, 1999). Within Black communities, both women and men were represented as musicians (Clarke-Hine & Jenkins, 1999). Within Black communities in the South, women engaged in more spiritual music making and performance. However, when Whites selected enslaved a Black person to work as a musician, that person was inevitably a male (Clarke-Hine & Jenkins, 1999). For Whites, the Black male musician was associated “solely with pleasure, revelry, and entertainment” (Clarke-Hine & Jenkins, 1999, p. 23). Cimbala (1995) explained that in the South, the musical occupation was regarded as lowly work, and thus White men refused the occupation. As a consequence, Black men became the primary musicians and instrumentalists in Black and White rural society. Black males also played major roles as ministers. In fact, Cimbala refers to Black musicians as the Black community’s secular ministers.

Music permeated all aspects of life in African societies (Roberts, 1995). Indeed, Cimbala (1995) explains that in many pre-colonial African societies there was very little conflict between sacred and secular life. The same held true in the communities of enslaved Blacks. Black people made music and danced in the evening, and the following morning they engaged in prayer and worship. Sunday, the day of rest, was one of the only days that Africans could dance, although many Whites saw it as a desecration of the Lord’s Day (Epstein & Sands, 2006). Musicians invigorated and strengthened the social and cultural life of Black people during the antebellum period and beyond. By amplifying the Black communal spirit, musicians were chief contributors of Black community and culture creation and maintaining (Cimbala, 1995). But in the eyes of Whites, Black musicians played a far more narrow and single-dimensional role, i.e., sources of entertainment at social events.

Being entertainers for Whites came with some benefits including increased freedom of travel, small amounts of income, and enhanced status (Cimbala, 1995). Frolics represented one of few instances where enslavers allowed enslaved Blacks to come from other plantations to socialize, sing, and dance. A formerly enslaved man, Andy McAdams, described the frolic as “the only time that the slaves ever had to get together” (WPWPA & Rawick, 1972, p. 2451). These events offered enslaved Black people rare moments to congregate and relate to one other at some distance from White supervision. A part of some frolics included contests between fiddlers. Sam Forge, a formerly enslaved Black man, described the event:

W’en de leader say ‘Go’, to de fiddlers, dey all start to fiddlin’ at once, dey play dey own tunes, an’ each one of dem pat his foot to keep time to dey music. Den dey all stop an’ let one of de fiddlers play by himself, he would flip his fiddle over his head, den behind his back an’ away on a hit, den he raise it over his head, den under his right, den his left leg, an’ keep right on a playin’ till de leader calls on him to ‘Halt’. Den dey all line up for dey contest. (WPWPA & Rawick, 1972, p. 1373–1374)

Each continued one-by-one for hours until the final vote, when first place was awarded.

Musicians were, in a sense, healers in that they used their roles as culture carriers and preservers to foster the collective identity of enslaved Black people. African American men and women created spirituals or religious music during slavery. They emerged from Black styles of worship which included call and response in the form of audience affirmations of the preacher’s messages, and physical expressiveness such as frequent handclapping, body movement, shouting and dance (Burnim & Maultsby, 2006)

Blues music, which originated in the 1890s, was the integration of features from spirituals, work songs, and field hollers with new musical ideas (Maultsby, 2000). Blues involves a great deal of improvisation and call-and-response. The singers, typically male, preferred to perform solo, with an instrument (piano, banjo, guitar, or harmonica) (Evans, 2006). The blues artist is likened to the African griots or djelis, members of a professional caste of entertainers/oral historians (Evans, 2006). Instruments in the blues not only provided supportive sounds but were used as a second voice to respond to the ←14 | 15→vocalist’s lines. The blues were (and often still are) distinguished by their form, the AAB format. The same line is repeated twice, followed by a third line which rhymes with the first two:

A:I’m a howlin’ wolf, and I been howlin’ all round yo door,

A:I’m a howlin’ wolf, and I been howlin’ all round yo door,

B:if you give me what I want little girl, and you won’t hear me howl no more.

The blues articulated the psychology of suffering and resilience (White & Cones, 1999). The same improvisation found in the blues is a hallmark of jazz. Jazz emerged from ragtime bands led by Black men such as Jelly Roll Morton, a pianist and composer crucial to the development of the art form. It is defined by a host of unique features including improvisation, syncopation, a rhythmic propulsiveness known as swing, blues feeling, and harmonic complexity (Monson, 2006). Unlike soul music and other African American art forms, early jazz typically placed emphasis on instrumentation instead of the human voice.

Two Black men are greatly responsible for the creation of gospel music, a form that emerged in the 1930s. Charles Tinley is considered the grandfather of gospel music via his performance and composition style, and his integration of the piano and organ into spirituals (Burnim, 2006). Thomas Dorsey is considered the father of gospel music (Burnim, 2006). His style was strongly influenced by jazz and the blues, incorporating the blues scale in Dorsey’s melodies and harmonies. Gospel was able to transform sorrow and despair into faith and joy in the form of vibrant rhythms, shouts, handclapping, swaying and dancing (White & Cones, 1999).

Rhythm & blues (R&B) borrows elements of the blues, jazz, spirituals, and gospel music. Originally there were four subgenres of rhythm and blues: solo artists, combos (seven or eight instrumentalists such as Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five), trios (the Nat King Cole Trio), and vocal harmony groups (the Delta Rhythm Boys) (Maultsby, 2006). Emerging during the Black Power movement, soul music borrows heavily from gospel music, sometimes only distinguished from gospel due to its lyrical content, focusing on themes of love, romance, and social-political protest and commentary (Maultsby, 2006). Many soul songs were secularized gospel songs and vice versa. Among its pioneers were Black men such as Ray Charles, James Brown, and Sam Cooke.

Emerging during the transition from segregation to integration in the 1970s, funk music was a Black dance music style. James Brown provided the foundation for funk music characterized, in part, by its focus on themes of partying, social commentary, Black nationalism, and romance (Maultsby, 2006). Funk emphasized being one’s own person and having a unique style, reflected in funk artists’ showmanship and flashiness.

The art forms discussed in this section set the foundation for newer musical innovations like techno and house music. These forms shifted emphasis away from the voice to electronic sounds, beats and the movement of the human body, pioneered by Black men including but not limited to Derrick May and Francis “Frankie Knuckles” Nicholls. Hip-hop music draws upon all these forms, from Jamaican and African American toasts and storytelling traditions, playing the dozens, field hollers, funk, techno, and the vocal styling of African American radio personalities.

Black Male Hero Traditions

Heroes are people or figures, real or imagined, who are highly valued within a culture, and thus serve as models for thinking and/or acting (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005). In addition to protest literature, African American manhood is also reflected in African American folk hero tradition. For example, African Americans created trickster tales that were an extension of African trickster tales. Trickster tales include narratives in which “clever animals acted as human” (p. 17). These trickster characters were usually males. They represent a unique window into models of Black manhood and masculinities ←15 | 16→during slavery. Signifying Monkey tales usually included several main characters: a monkey, a lion, and an elephant. In these stories, the monkey clearly cannot defeat the lion in a physical contest, although the elephant can. Therefore, the monkey’s objective is frequently to achieve his goals by using his intellect and verbal skills to manipulate the elephant into a fight with the lion (Gates, 1988). Roberts (1989) explains how African Americans identified with the trickster-hero characters because they occupied a disadvantaged position in their environment. In addition, they had to devise indirect methods of circumventing the master without directly challenging him. In this context, the monkey may appear to be individualistic, but this is because he is interacting with animals who are unlike him in that they are not disadvantaged.

However, individualism and self-centeredness were abhorred in the community of the enslaved. Like the animal tricksters in the tales, the enslaved relied on Whites’ perceptions of their inferiority and underestimating their intelligence. Similarly, African trickster tales primarily involved underdog animals (e.g., Ture, the sacred spider) manipulating, making bonds with and then terminating bonds with bigger, dim-witted animals. However, the objectives in trickster tales during slavery placed great emphasis on physical survival as the ultimate goal. For example, African tales often emphasized trickery with the objective of acquiring food, in a context of famine. African American trickster tales took place in a context where the natural environment was not the root cause of the problem. Indeed, there was material abundance, but Black people were systematically denied access to those resources. While African trickster tales emphasized traditional religious values, African American trickster tales complied with a more situational moral code allowing for otherwise amoral behaviors (stealing, lying, etc.) in the context of an unjust condition (Roberts, 1989). Although they were an extension of the African oral tradition, African American trickster tales represent a unique form of African diasporic cultural creation in a new environmental context.

Enslaved Africans also constructed stories of a human, a Black male trickster named John, and his interactions with the old master. John was a slave-driver. Drivers were expected to enforce the master’s rules and regulate the pace of work among the enslaved (Roberts, 1989). In return, the driver was given privileges in the form of better food, clothes, and living conditions. The unique position of the driver was defined by his need to satisfy the master by controlling the enslaved, which required their cooperation. To maintain the well-being of the enslaved community, the driver had to find ways to get the community better food and clothes, and allow them leisure time. This required him to manipulate and deceive the master using his wit and guile. The crux of John and old master tales was John, due to his primary advantage, successfully deceiving the master to benefit other enslaved people. John succeeds due to the owner’s erroneous view of him as subhuman and inferior (Roberts, 1989).

Another figure treated as a hero in the African American oral tradition was the conjurer. During slavery and beyond, conjurers, root-workers, and hoodooers were all incorporated into folk stories as heroes. Whites viewed conjurers as a threat to their authority and to Christianity (Roberts, 1989). Conjurers possessed many skills. Black people showed deference to the conjurers when Whites expected them to defer to their masters. The conjurer’s skills included curing illnesses through the use of spirituality and knowledge of the medicinal properties of whole plants, herbs, roots, barks, and animal substances (Roberts, 1989).

Many enslaved Africans believed in both Christianity and the power of the conjurer. The objective of the conjurer was to maintain communal harmony and well-being by helping people to heal the physical and spiritual aspects of their illnesses. They used their spiritual and practical wisdom to help people protect themselves from social and spiritual harm. In New Orleans, the exploits of the enslaved, African-born man, Bras Coupe, inspired legendary epics. Many attributed his success to that fact that Bras Coupe was a conjurer in addition to being a drummer and dancer. He escaped from his captor/owner and led a Maroon community of runaway Blacks and renegade Whites (Roberts, 1989). Despite ←16 | 17→having only one arm (lost in battle), he successfully terrorized Whites, and freed Blacks throughout the region (Roberts, 1989).

Christianity provided enslaved Black people with its own source of Biblical heroes. Many Black people rejected the White interpretations of Christianity as a religion of submissiveness. Instead, they created a Christian heroic tradition from it. They interpreted God as the force that would help to deliver them from oppression. Christian figures such as Daniel, who was delivered from a lion’s den, or Joshua, who won the epic battle of Jericho, each did so with their own spiritually driven heroism. These figures were considered soldiers of war against an oppression like the kind that Black people faced during enslavement and other forms of racial oppression (Roberts, 1989).

After slavery, non-trickster heroes emerged far more often. Trickster heroes were centered around their ability to be cunning and manipulative because of their lack of power. Instead, more heroes emerged after slavery who engaged in direct confrontation with their oppressors. They were known as badmen, moral, tough, and generally law-abiding (Roberts, 1989). They openly confronted Whites, without fear of retaliation. They refused to submit to inferiority in White society. Because of the role of police in the oppression of Blacks, Black people imagined subverting the law in their heroic traditions. Railroad Bill was a Black male outlaw hero of the 1890s. Some say he was real and others say he was mythical. Railroad Bill was a conjurer who began as a turpentine worker. After a White police officer unjustly demanded that Bill hand over his gun, a fight ensued, and the police officer was killed. After this, Railroad Bill became known as a Robin Hood figure who robbed rich, White trains for their cargo and shared the stolen goods with poor Black people (Williams, 2001). Given his conjuring background, Railroad Bill was believed to have the ability to turn himself into various animals, helping him escape from law enforcement on many occasions (Roberts, 1989). Railroad Bill was a part of a Black male heroic tradition that incorporated those who were accused of righteous acts of lawlessness.

John Henry was incorporated into the corpus of legendary figures in Black culture. He was the subject of many blues songs. Symbolic of the industrial revolution, John Henry, represented both the spirit of hard work, self-reliance, and the exploitation of the worker. Songs and stories were told of Henry’s legendary man vs. machine competition with a steel-powered hammer-drill. Henry defeated the machine but subsequently died of stress/physical exhaustion as a result. His legend represented the value of the Black worker, and workers in general, over the trend toward the industrial use of machines.

Different from the badman tradition was the bad nigger tradition. The bad nigger tradition incorporated Black men who aggressively acted in their own interests, harming Blacks or Whites. Unlike badmen, those who were of the bad nigger tradition were not considered behavioral models for Blacks, because they—just like law enforcement—represented threats to the well-being of the entire community. They did not engage in righteous indignation like those of the badman tradition. All Black men who broke the law were treated as bad niggers by Whites, but Black people distinguished between the two in their heroic traditions. These Black male heroic figures represent, in many ways, Black people’s values and their beliefs about ideal masculine behaviors. In hip-hop music, White (2011) argues that gangsta rap or some specific music groups, like NWA, continued the tradition of the bad nigger representation of Black masculinity because they are seen as a threat, upsetting the social order for both Blacks and Whites. Differently, the badman is seen as a hero who looks out for the entire Black community, even though he is seen as a threat to Whites. The legend of Stagga Lee (Also Stagolee or Stagger Lee) exemplifies the bad nigger type because he resists all forms of control and acts on his own self-interests. Like many similar figures in the Black folk tradition, he was believed to have been born with supernatural power, later enhanced selling his soul to the devil (Roberts, 1989).

A more contemporary Black folk hero is Muhammad Ali, who fits within the badman tradition because he stood up to White society while also identifying with Black culture and the oppression of the masses of Black people. However, the prizefighter, Jack Johnson, fit the stereotypical bad nigger ←17 | 18→model because of his resistance to White attempts to control his behavior, but caring little about the interests of Blacks in a collective sense (White, 2011). He upset Whites with his flashy clothes, fancy cars, White women, and his success in fighting. Similarly, White (2011) argues that hip-hop artists like Jay-Z fit more in the tradition of the bad nigger than badman because his focus is primarily on his own success and ambition, making it from the bottom to the top. However, this characterization is contradicted by Jay-Z’s philanthropic work and messages of racial uplift toward the latter half of his career. This contradiction sheds light on the fact that there are no hard distinctions between the two tropes.

More recent heroes extend and build upon the Black male hero tradition. For example, Milestone, Inc. is a Black-owned comic book publishing company (Brown, 1999). Different from newer comics that illustrate extremely masculine, excessively powerful and one-dimensional heroes, the Black male heroes of Milestone’s comics rely on wit and power to be successful in ways that are similar to the trickster-hero tradition. Milestone’s characters counter the stereotypes of Black males as being too hard, too physical, and too bodily (Brown, 1999). For example, one of Milestone’s characters is an electricity-wielding, teenaged superhero named Static (Brown, 1999). He is not a huge and imposing physical hero. Different from the trickster tradition, Static manipulates electricity to fight enemies. Although he is tough, he primarily uses his intellect and problem-solving skills to defeat larger foes. Milestone’s heroes mark both the evolution and continuity of the Black hero tradition.

Deep Structure and Black Male Culture

Beneath the surface of the cultural expressions that have been described are more central core or deep-structural elements. Cultural expressions are rooted in worldview but are time-based, shaped by social and other environmental factors. Deep structure spans across eras, and is inclusive of values, beliefs, and philosophical assumptions. Values represent the culture-based standards people use to evaluate themselves, others, and their environment—positively or negatively, good or bad, beautiful or ugly, appropriate or inappropriate. They reinforce beliefs or ideas that people hold to be true. Taken together, these values, beliefs, and philosophical assumptions make up the deep-structural worldview of Black male culture, including such elements as communalism, spirituality, time, improvisation, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance.

Communalism/Collectivism

Communalism represents loyalty and commitment to nurturing and advancing group well-being, connectedness, and social bonds over individual privileges and interests (Belgrave & Allison, 2006). As we have learned, cultural claims do not imply universalism. In communal cultures individualism is still present. Yet, in collectivist-leaning cultures, collectivism is the norm while individualism is limited (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005). Some distinction exists between communalism and collectivism in that collectivism can refer to a commitment to group interests over individual ones, whereas communalism is sometimes used to refer to the interests of more specific communities or ethnic groups. African Americans tend to be relatively high in both. Individualism is the belief in the primary importance of the individual; the interests of the individual should come first. Collectivist cultures are those in which the interests of the group prevail over those of the individual (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005). Assessments of communal values across race and ethnicity reveal that African Americans hold stronger communal values compared to European Americans (Belgrave & Allison, 2006; Constantine, Gainor, Ahluwalia, & Berkel, 2003). Obasi, Flores, and James-Myers (2009) find that, compared to European Americans, African Americans score higher in communalism based on scales that measure communal vs individualistic values.

In his study of college-aged African American males, Dancy (2012) found strong collectivist values among his participants. Swaidan, Rawwas, and Vitell (2008) studied values among African Americans ←18 | 19→and found African Americans possessing strong collectivist values, with male participants scoring higher in collectivism than females. Collectivist societies tend to form family ties with non-biologically related individuals who are socially integrated into the group. A good example of this is the African American tradition of extended family or fictive kinship in which non-biologically related individuals function like a family and are treated and referred to as such.

African American culture places emphasis on both collectivism and individuality (Allen & Boykin, 1992). But there is a difference between individualism and individuality. Individuality, which is highly valued in African American culture, refers to personal uniqueness. Individualism refers to placing the needs and desires of the individual over those of the group. Individuality is essential to collective identity (White & Cones, 1999). Majors and Billson (1992) explain that in different African cultures with a general leaning toward communalism, a compatible emphasis on expressive individualism or individuality does exist.

Spirituality

Spirituality is the belief in and expression of a sacred force in the universe, independent of any particular doctrine (Belgrave & Allison, 2006; Meraviglia, 1999). According to Jones (1991a), within African philosophy, it appears as a belief in non-material creation, and a force that resides in all beings, things, places/times, and modalities. Thus, all elements of the universe are believed to be interrelated. More than a preordained set of practices, spirituality in many pre-colonial African traditions was integrated into daily individual and communal life (Belgrave & Allison, 2006).

Religion is a set of beliefs and practices that help people assign meaning to life and nurture their relationship to spiritual force(s) (Belgrave & Allison, 2006). Because religion often involves a set of rituals and practices, many people express their spirituality through religion. Spirituality and religion are important to the health of the Black community because they are both associated with increased self-esteem and decreased drug and alcohol use, and levels of stress (Belgrave & Allison, 2006). Religion is community-focused, observable, formal, behavior-oriented, authoritarian, and driven by doctrine. Spirituality is more individual-focused, less visible and formal, more emotion-oriented, inwardly directed, less authoritarian, and less doctrine driven (Cook, 2010). However, the legacy of African and African American spirituality and religion does not fit within these dichotomous sets of characteristics (Cook, 2010).

African Spiritual Heritage During Enslavement

Many pre-colonial African cultures adopted a socio-spiritual view of human beingness. During slavery, Black people continued their traditions of traditional African spiritualists and healers. Enslaved African people’s understandings of health and healing were influenced by their African origins (Thornton, 1991). Although, it must be noted that some African people had converted to Christianity before the European “slave trade,” like those from the Kongo Kingdom who had adopted Christianity as early as 1491. Many others arrived having already adopted Islam. The majority arrived with traditional African spiritual traditions, whether or not they were already Christians or Muslims.

Yet others continued their traditional African spiritual traditions outside of the presence and knowledge of Whites. During slavery, some Black people practiced Santeria, Candomble, Voodoo/Vodun, Ifa and other traditions, and many continue today. Many individuals practiced these traditions simultaneously with Christianity and Islam. Most religious ceremonies during slavery were closely monitored by Whites. However, some enslaved Blacks would sneak away under the cover of night to meet and practice their religion in their own style and manner. The relief and satisfaction received from the religious ceremonies was worth the risk of being caught by “slave patrols” (Booker, 2000). Black Christian preachers delivered sermons and presided over baptisms, weddings, and funerals. They also ←19 | 20→delivered sermons outside the presence of Whites and served as advisors to Blacks, and as mediators between them and their enslavers (Roberts, 1989).

The Sacred Worldview

According to S. Floyd-Thomas, J. Floyd-Thomas, Duncan, Ray, and Westfield (2007), the Black theological tradition emerges from the Black sacred worldview comprised of three sources: sacred inheritance, experience, and scripture. Sacred inheritance refers to the African carryovers—religious wisdom, cultural norms, and practices that continue to manifest in African diasporic cultures throughout the Western hemisphere. Experience refers to racial oppression that Black people in the New World have lived with from slavery to segregation, cultural and economic racism, and so on. These negative aspects to life in the New World have positioned questions of mercy and justice at the center of African American theological interpretations (S. Floyd-Thomas et al., 2007). Scripture is the third and last source of the Black sacred worldview, and it refers to the unique ways in which Black people have engaged and interpreted scripture—ways that “validated both their humanity and their quest for freedom” (p. 79). The intersection of these three elements produces the sacred worldview that gives shape to the diversity and commonality in African American religion and culture.

Black Religious Style as Continuation of African Cultural Styles

The resulting Black church tradition included dance, emotional and physical expressiveness, as Black Americans created and improvised sermons and songs with messages of hope and freedom (Roberts, 1989). As Clarke-Hine and Jenkins (1999) explain, “Black Americans grafted Christianity onto African practices and beliefs, and the Black church became an amalgamation of traditional African religions, Islam, and European Christianity” (Clarke-Hine & Jenkins, 1999, p. 25). However, the Black church developed different characteristics compared to its pre-colonial African spiritual predecessors. For example, the church tradition developed the added quality of overtly focusing on the struggle for freedom and liberation from oppression (Becker, 1972). Enslaved Black Islamic communities engaged in resistance by maintaining their names, writing in Arabic, and continuing to practice their religion (Turner, 2004). Black people related to the African roots of major religions such as the Ethiopian roots of Christianity (Akbar, 1991).

A large majority of contemporary African Americans consider themselves religious or spiritual (Chatters, Taylor, Bullard, & Jackson, 2008). Taylor, Chatters, and Jayakody (1996) found that 80% of Blacks (compared to 51% of Whites) felt that religious beliefs were important. They are also more likely to report spending time in places of worship, report having religious beliefs, and use religion to cope with stressful events (Taylor et al., 1996). African American males have been found to hold spiritual beliefs at higher levels than White males (White & Cones, 1999). Moreover, African American males often associate the meaning of manhood with spirituality (Arrington, 2014). In fact, the majority of different pre-colonial African manhood ceremonies were spiritual in nature (Black, 1997). Even common Black male traditions, such as mourning celebrations, must be understood in the context of their spirituality (Exhibit 1.1).

Most Black males report that they pray or meditate daily. Merida & Washington Post Company (WPC) (2007) noted that two-thirds of Black men reported praying at least once per day, significantly more than White males. According to a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation-Harvard poll, 41% of the Black men who participated in the survey attended church at least once per week and 51% considered themselves born-again Christians.

Black men have practiced Islam since their arrival in the American colonies. There are approximately 1.5 million Black Muslims in the U.S. today (Merida & Washington Post Company, 2007).

Exhibit 1.1 Black Male Spiritual Expression in Celebrations of Life and Homegoing

African American funeral practices have adopted a celebration of life quality for two important reasons. First, they are extensions of elaborate African cultural funeral practices. Second, African Americans have a history of sudden and violent death stemming from oppression, and for many African Americans, passing on represents transitioning to a new existence free of pain and suffering (Bordere, 2008). In order to glean information that might helpful beyond the clinical setting, Bordere (2008) explored cultural rituals that might aid the grieving process for Black males. Young people who participate in funeral rituals are less likely to have symptoms associated with the grieving process.

Second-lining (New Orleans Jazz-style) funerals date back to slavery, when Black people celebrated the passage of their deceased in extravagant celebrations, building on West African funeral practices (Bordere, 2008). Second-line processions usually consist of a small band, family, friends, and passersby. The band plays upbeat music while the procession follows doing a dance-style strut, passing by the home and favorite places of the deceased (Bordere, 2008). But second-lines are not restricted to funerals. They are also done as celebrations for Mardi Gras, birthdays, and other events. Unlike so-called traditional funerals where women are the primary mourners, males have been identified as the primary mourners at second-lines (Bordere, 2008). Bordere (2008) found that at second-lines, Black males reported receiving messages that death is a celebration for remembrance and unification. The expression of emotion through dancing and a happy demeaner creates an emotional climate for viewing death another way. Dancing at second-lines is a way of unifying the physical and spiritual realms to remember those who have passed on. It is important to note that most of the males expressed their wish to have both “regular” funerals and second-lines.

Bordere (2008) also observed the way Black males communicated messages through clothing—suits, shorts, and other styles. However, Bordere found that Black teenage males mostly wore t-shirts as a cultural symbol of remembrance and honor, with the t-shirts featuring the faces of the deceased and/or their birthdate, a quote (such as “Gone but not forgotten”), or symbols of unification. Males may be participating in second-lining more than women because these events offer more ways for men to express a greater range of emotion (Bordere, 2008). At second-lines, people can become traveling monuments to the people who have passed on (Bordere, 2008).

In other cases, African American males and females engage in certain non-verbal cultural forms of mourning death. In her study, For All the Brothas Who Ain’t Here, Flagg (2013) investigated African American roadside memorials as material culture. Family and friends of victims use plush toys, flowers, balloons, written messages, and other items to mourn, commemorate, and honor persons who have died. Flagg’s (2013) work demonstrates how the analysis of material culture, among people of African descent, very often includes the spiritual meaning attached to such materials.

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Time

Time is a key element of African philosophy (Mbuvi, 2009b). African conceptualizations of time are human-centered, and not a thing that is separate from the human experience or dictates the human experience. Tishken (2000) explains that across African cultures, time is something to be lived, not measured. As Tishken (2000) explains, “In most African societies, a period of rest occurred around ←21 | 22→midday when the sun was directly overhead. Whether the sun reached its apex at 12 noon, 1 p.m. or precisely at 12:08 and 30 seconds was of no importance. What was of importance, was that the sun reached its apex and when it did, one rested” (p. 76). Mbiti (1970) explains African conceptualizations of time as cyclical and not linear, based on the cycles of life. Somewhat differently, yet building on Mbiti’s understanding, Tishken (2000) explains that African ideas of time are actually more of a spiral due to the fact that they combine linearity and circularity. For example, in many African societies, great importance was placed on the ability to recall the names of succession in lineage—grandfather was preceded by another ancestor, and so on. However, many African people understand that the same people who have died are still alive and active in the present as ancestors, thus reflecting a circular conceptualization of time. Nobles (2006) explains that even African calendars were based on significant natural and human experiences (seasons/harvest) instead of purely mathematical moments.

African American males have been found by social scientists to be present/past time oriented (Jones, 1991b; White & Cones, 1999). Among African Americans, the cliché, “colored people’s time,” is often used to refer to this phenomenon. This social orientation of time speaks to a reality where it is acceptable for events to begin when people arrive and end when they leave, instead of being rigidly based on precise mathematic times. Rubin and Belgrave (1999) conducted an investigation measuring differences between African American and European American college students in relative and mathematical time orientations. They found African Americans to use time in a more flexible way compared to European Americans. In the study, research participants gave responses about when they were more likely to arrive at events such as a meeting with a professor, a job interview, or a social dinner. African American participants were more likely to respond with descriptive and approximate times (very early, early, late, very late) instead of mathematical times (i.e., 15 minutes late, five minutes early, etc.), for formal and informal events.

Improvisation

Jones (1991a) identifies improvisation as a distinguishing characteristic of African and African American cultures. It is defined as “expressive creativity under pressure of immediacy” (Jones, 1991a, p. 623). Improvisation is both expressive and instrumental. It is expressive because it allows people to demonstrate their unique character or style, and it is instrumental because it also involves using one’s presence of mind and knowledge and skills to achieve the desired goal, meet a challenge, or solve a problem. Jones (1991a) explains that African American male improvisation is often celebrated in music and athletics but is by no means limited to just those social spheres. Because traditional routes to achievement have been unavailable, limited, or made difficult due to discrimination in the U.S., improvisation has been a necessary approach to achievement in general, including education, family, and religion-related pursuits. According to White and Cones (1999), African American males have been taught to be resourceful and innovative due to a limited range of life options. Successful improvisation requires imagining possibilities that are not entirely apparent, devising a plan to make them a reality, being willing to risk failure, learning from setbacks, and maintaining motivation (White & Cones, 1999).

African Americans have placed high value and praise on the ability to perform skillfully and stylishly in situations where the demands are not known in advance, whether it involves starting a business, becoming a president, a professor or a preacher. However, it could also involve creating off the dribble in a basketball game, freestyling, or dancing partiality for individuality should not be read as individualism. Gifford and Kochman (1989) explain it as an African American cultural value that says, “tell me what to do, but not how to do it.” (p. 297)

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Power Distance

Power distance refers to the extent to which the less powerful members of a society, institution, or organization expect and accept that power is distributed unequally (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005). High power distance environments are associated with authoritarian values in parenting, work environment, and education. Moreover, collectivist cultures tend to have higher power distance values. In low or small power distance business environments, employers engage in a more consultative style of decision making with their employees. In low power distance classrooms, teachers address their students as equals, there is less deference to teachers as authority figures, and students are expected to ask questions and find their own intellectual path. In low power distance cultures, parents are more permissive and treat their children more like equals, children are less dependent on parents, and have less deference for their parents compared to those in high power distance cultures.

In high power distance business environments, employees expect to be directed or guided by their employers. In high power distance schools, classrooms are more teacher-centered, with specific expectations of students, and teachers outlining the learning paths to be followed. In high power distance cultures, within families, parents are more strict, and children are expected to be obedient and respect their elders.

Although African countries (where power distance has been measured) tend to be on the higher end of the global spectrum of power distance values, African Americans that have been sampled score lower than average, yet higher than the U.S. national average (Hofstede, 2005; Swaidan et al., 2008). This may be due to African Americans’ legacy of fighting against race-based unequal distributions of power. Compared to Black females, Black males have been found to have higher power distance values (Swaidan et al., 2008).

Cultural Relevance

Knowing the cultural identities of Black males, and human groups in general, can improve human interaction on many levels. Knowing the cultural distinctions of Black males can help service providers engage in introspection to identify any held stereotypes or biases, and question why they have them. Knowing the variations in ways of thinking and style characteristics of Black males can be used to improve the delivery of basic human services—healthcare, education, faith-based initiatives, and the formulation of public policy. Teaching and learning can be improved through making use of African American music, Black male behavioral styles, intellectual heritage, and the learning styles that prove most effective with Black males compared to other demographics. Knowing the cultural rituals, values, and spiritual beliefs of Black males can help mental health professionals integrate cultural practices into their therapy modalities or seek resources that may benefit more Black males.

Although some service providers are culturally sensitive, others struggle to construct culturally congruent practices that are aligned with the culture of the people they serve (Nobles, 2015). Knowledge of Black male cultural characteristics helps in constructing culturally relevant teaching practices, intervention strategies, and other services.

Culturally Determined Definitional Systems and Cultural Misperception

The cultural norms that have primarily been institutionalized in the U.S. context are those reflecting a worldview characterized by materialism, individualism, control, aggression, opposition-dichotomous thinking, linear-order ranking, anti-Blackness, and White superiority (Kambon, 2003). The dominant values in the African worldview (spirituality, synthesis, collectivism, and inclusiveness) are in direct conflict with many core values in this European-derived dominant value system, according to Kambon (2003). Eurocentric history, culture, ideas and social philosophy, beliefs, and values have been so thoroughly institutionalized that they are taken for granted. But they are a driving societal force ←23 | 24→(Kambon, 2003). Kambon (1985, 2003) explains that the European worldview has shaped the basic ideological-philosophical character of American social reality. The European worldview is reflected in standard American approaches to education, saturated with Eurocentric values, history, and behavioral priorities and preference; standard psychological assessments are derived from Eurocentric cultural assumptions; and, entertainment is saturated with projections of Eurocentric standards of visual and performing arts and beauty.

Due to European Americans disproportionate share of power and influence, Kambon (1985) argues that the imposition of White American cultural norms has resulted in varying levels of psychological misorientation among African Americans. Therefore, there is very little in American society that would problematize an African American man who evaluated his features as unattractive, African American musical traditions as low-class, African American styles of worship as uncivilized, African American linguistic styles as signals of lack of intelligence, African religions as barbaric, and African American values as unsuited for modern society. People of African descent who embrace the legitimacy of their own cultural realities can anticipate facing social punishment for their deviation from the norm. According to Kambon (1985), this state of mind represents a state of psychological misorientation that must be remedied by the reconstruction and re-institutionalization of values and norms that affirm the cultural and social realities of people of African descent.

In many cases, without cultural understanding and appreciation, Black male culture can be perceived as off-putting and deviant (Johnson & Cuyjet, 2009). Specifically, this may occur in settings where Black men are expected to assimilate the behaviors and characteristics of dominant society’s cultural norms. This is, in part, because dominant society rarely imagines Black male identities outside of radical dichotomies (Neal, 2013). Black males in school settings face negative reactions from teachers in response to their culturally conditioned behaviors, from their movement styles to linguistic styles. For example, experimental research has demonstrated that teachers associate Black male cultural walking styles with lower academic achievement, higher levels of aggression, and a need for special education services (Beasley, Miller, & Cokely, 2014). Black male cultural liberty is reduced when teachers make judgments about abilities and mental capacities based on cultural styles.

Similar judgments may be made about Black males in work settings. Youth cultural styles come in and out of vogue over time. However, according to Whiting (2014), the stakes are much higher for Black and Brown males who face criminalization, incarceration, and murder (e.g., the killing of Trayvon Martin) for their cultural styles. According to Bonner (2014), some high-achieving Black students go unidentified and therefore miss out on advanced placement opportunities because they are culturally out of sync with teachers. Majors and Gordon (1994) make the point that some Black males in school settings face being suspended for culturally influenced behaviors such as playing the dozens, their clothing styles, rapping, and using slang. Many people associate Black males and their non-verbal and verbal cultural styles with criminality, violence, and aggressiveness (Sutherland & Carrone, 2009). Due to these stereotypes, Black males risk being profiled by police officers as criminal, just as they risk being profiled by teachers as unintelligent. Black male cultural styles play a role in police judgments; any number of police killings of unarmed Black males demonstrate this reality. Young (2007) points out that when the cultural styles of Black males are assigned to a negative profile, educators can be led to believe that African American culture is a problem that must change while White children’s cultures may remain intact.

Cultural Appropriation

Many non-Blacks adopt not only the social and political messages that accompany Black Male forms of cultural expression (i.e., hip-hop), but also a fetishized kind of commodity racism that reduces Black male culture to stereotypical images—for profit. Even in mainstream culture, African American males ←24 | 25→are fetishized, often in stereotypical ways. Alexander (2006) defines fetishism as a “performative act of looking, an unreasonable excessive attention bordering on violation of one’s personal sense of comfort and place, when the confluence of difference and desirous curiosity collides” (p. 6). Many of the cultural elements that have been described in this text qualify as cultural performance, which Alexander (2006) defines as “practical behaviors, signifiers of social membership, and markers of familiarity that are negotiated as bonds of affiliation and recognition, in particular, social, cultural, and racial communities” (p. 34).

This phenomenon of co-opting Black male cultural performance is known as cultural exploitation or anti-Black cultural appropriation. It is defined as the adopting of cultural elements of a people of African descent by interlopers, typically outside of context, without understanding or respect for cultural meaning, or acknowledgment of its originators, and/or in a context in which the cultural insiders are relatively disempowered. Appropriation of Black culture is a problem primarily because it displaces or disconnects Black cultural forms or manifestations from their local, social, cultural contexts (White, 2011). White males, for example, who may have had little contact with Black males outside of commodified images of them, don caricature types of Black masculinity and act out reductive fantasies of Black masculine culture in ways that objectify Black males.

Globally, the surface level of Black masculine culture is adopted by many different ethnic groups in efforts to construct local masculinities. In many cases, but not always, it is done in ways that reinforce highly stereotypical or exaggerated imaginations of Black maleness; therein lies another critical layer of the problem. These reductive fantasies of Black masculine culture generate real social and political consequences, from lynching and the underdevelopment of neighborhoods, to present-day police abuses. Black males themselves resist White stereotyping and appropriation of their culture by crafting new identities through cultural products like hip-hop (Brown, 2006).

Like Black culture in general, Black male culture influences mainstream American culture and popular culture around the world. Mainstream culture would be impossible to imagine without the transformative force of Black culture (White, 2011). In the media, Black male culture has been reduced to visible evidence, or what has been described as surface-level culture (Alexander, 2006). Hip-hop in general and hardcore hip-hop specifically has typically privileged the male body and the performance of masculinity (White, 2011). In many instances, Blackness has been reduced to exaggerations of surface-level cultural manifestations, reducing it to a spectacle or parody for many non-Blacks.

When Blackness is reduced to an aesthetic act it becomes disconnected from values such as social responsibility and political struggle (White, 2011). White and Cones (1999) draw two conclusions from the White appropriation of Black culture (Black males in particular). First, African Americans can achieve a standard of excellence with skill, drive and inventiveness. Second, White America and many others look at Black men without even seeing them. This means that they can dance to Black music, watch Black athletes, and consume other Black cultural products without ever acknowledging the contributions of the Black way of being to American life and thought (White & Cones, 1999).

The Absent Presence of Black Males

According to White (2011), the Black physical body was an indispensable part of Black musical performance until the arrival of sound recording in the early 20th century. At that point, social enjoyment of music no longer required the presence of a body. This technology allowed Black music, like other forms of Black culture, to be distanced from its social-cultural origins, in a way that allowed it to become the cultural property of others.

Minstrel shows are one of the earliest examples of Whites appropriating and depicting exaggerated aspects of Black culture. White (2011) refers to this phenomenon of Blacks being rendered invisible as an absent presence. Depictions of Black males at the time were exaggerated and stereotypical, illustrating ←25 | 26→the Black male body with wild and crazy eyes, red lips, oversized hands, and undersized clothes. These White false depictions of Black maleness were ways that Whites could play out their fears, resentments, hostilities, and even desires. Today, commercial hip-hop, along with other forms of media, make the Black male body available for mainstream consumption—often tailored for middle-class Whites’ and others’ tastes for exaggerated carnivalesque images by Black masculinity (White, 2011).

The appropriation of Black music is a long-established tradition of exploitation. Basu (2005) describes a cycle of castigation, commodification, crossover, and counter-crossover in the appropriation of Black music and style: the current version of this cycle perhaps starting with Nick LaRocca, on to Elvis Presley and continued by Eminem, Justin Timberlake, and Macklemore. Cultural appropriation of Blackness usually begins with castigation. European Americans originally referred to the music of enslaved Africans as barbaric, uncivilized, wild, unsophisticated, and nonsensical (Burnim & Maultsby, 2006). Blues music was described similarly, and so was hip-hop, and certain genres within it. Although blues originated in the late 1800s, White people did not take an interest in the art form in large numbers until the 1960s (Burnim & Maultsby, 2006).

Blues music contributed the twelve-bar three-line form, blue notes and blues scales, blues imagery and themes, improvisational style, and tonal techniques to popular music genres. Country music adopted the blues form (manifested in the blue yodel) by the 1920s. In the 1950s, early rock and roll performers adopted blues styles blended with country music (Evans, 2006). However, as musical forms like the blues are adopted broadly, they become reinterpreted through values that differ, in varying degrees, from the artists who originated them. In particular, themes of cultural values and experiences such as social protest and racial identity become diminished when interpreted through color-blind lenses. Evans (2006) explains how Whites monitored Black cultural expressions during slavery and interpreted them through Eurocentric cultural standards. As Whites became more attracted to the music, some Black artists would cross over, or adapt their performance styles to the tastes of White audiences. Consistent with the theme of appropriation, White adaptations of Black music were viewed as authentic White creations without Black influence. This was the customary White denial of the impact of Black creativity on White-identified culture (Evans, 2006). Because of this denial, White appropriation of Black music has largely gone unacknowledged (e.g., White artists like Led Zeppelin) (Evans, 2006). In general, White performers of blues-influenced music have been able to achieve counter-crossover success easier than Black artists because they can market and appeal to White middle-class consumers a product stripped of cultural context.

The history of the blues reveals that White appropriation was an attempt to control Black cultural production and its economic value (Evans, 2006). Whites objected to ragtime music and deemed it low brow, a consistent theme in White castigation of Black music before it is eventually commodified. However, some elitist Blacks objected to ragtime for different reasons, including their critique that it was stereotypical. When R&B emerged in the 1930s and 1940s, it was found exclusively in Black communities (Maultsby, 2006). However, by the 1950s, major record labels were signing White artists who performed R&B covers described as having a Black feel. Initially, labels refused to sign Black artists. Many Southern Whites blamed the deteriorating values and rebelliousness of White youth on their attraction to R&B music. In the 1950s as soul music emerged, the term soul was a signifier of Black culture (Maultsby, 2006). Whites didn’t start using the language of soul until Billboard adopted the term as an official category.

Rhoden (2006) explains that soul (Black style) had a counterpart in sports. He describes Willie Mays basket catch which made catching a fly ball look easy and goes on to describe how Negro League Players (Black baseball players) integrated style into their performance. Black athletes have integrated style into sports in ways that again have influenced White youth, from slapping palms, to wearing baggy pants, executing creative dunks, to elaborate end-zone dances in football (Rhoden, ←26 | 27→2006). Whites having less ability to capitalize on Black style in the post-integration era, combined with an increased mainstream appetite for it, has generated a familiar cultural tension. In baseball, Willie Mays’ style was criticized as showboating. R.C. Owens, adopted the alley-oop play from basketball into football with similar criticism. It is important to note that the in 1966 the National Basketball Association (NBA) outlawed the dunk to neutralize Lew Alcindor, a Black, quick, and agile seven-foot-two-inch center (White & Cones, 1999). According to Beasley et al. (2014), African American males are pop-culture icons honored as athletes and entertainers, while simultaneously depicted as societal villains who are maligned for poor academic achievement, criminality, and violence. Black athletes’ stylistic behaviors continue to be castigated as unsportsmanlike, unfair, and thuggish, until which time they become popular and are marketed to the mainstream. Yet Black people are seldom the primary financial beneficiaries.

Cultural Over-Attribution

According to Howard, (2014), social scientists sometimes place too much focus on culture, especially in explaining negative life outcomes and behaviors. As a consequence of this cultural over-attribution, focus is taken off of opportunity structures, institutional racism, economic instability, inferior schooling, drugs, crime, and violence as factors that help explain some Black males’ life outcomes. Noguera (2014) explains the use of both structural and cultural factors to explain Black male behavior. Structural factors include the economic/political factors such as accessibility and availability of economic opportunity (i.e., jobs, resources, services).

Sometimes those who use the deficit model to view Black males promote the idea that change must come not through changing societies’ institutions, but via change in people’s cultures (i.e., academic underachievement is a product of a student’s home and neighborhood culture, and not one of faulty educational structures). According to Noguera (2014), what is missed by placing too much emphasis on culture or structure is the fact that individuals’ identities and behaviors are shaped by the complex interaction between both structural and cultural factors (Noguera, 2014).

Conclusion

Black males have unique cultural patterns that contribute positively to human civilization. Recognizing this is essential to seeing the humanity and personhood of Black men and boys. Their cultural patterns represent the unfolding of their African heritage and their creativity in the diaspora. Recognizing their cultures is a critical step for Black males in the process of realizing their own power. Moreover, knowledge of Black male culture is essential for the cultural competency of providers of services to Black males. Understanding Black male culture is the only way to begin to properly interpret and make sense of attitudes and behaviors of Black males in ways that do not revert back to popular anti-Black male stereotypes. Due to cultural oppression, Black males must contend with tremendous social pressure to abandon their cultures or read their cultures as marks of inferiority. Black male culture is highly subject to cultural appropriation and other forms of cultural exploitation. However, intentional, systematic approaches in cultural affirmation or cultural revolution will better position Black males to realize their potential and enhance their understanding of themselves and their possibilities.

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