An overused (and even annoying) word or phrase I am used to hearing is “the culture.”
What is the culture? Really, what is it I wonder. I know what culture is. Culture, according to Merriam-Webster, is the set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic. Institutions and organizations like schools have “culture” or a culture. As an educator, I am intimately familiar with the sort of culture that exists in schools.
Culture also exists amongst groups of people according to one’s racial/ethnic designation. The phrase “the culture” is uttered in conversation, in private or for public consumption, by Black people. However, the culture primarily references Black entertainment. Lots of Black entertainers, either Hip-hop and R&B artists or even actors and actresses, mention that their art was done for the culture.
But what do they mean? Again, what is the culture? Who determines who’s included and what it encompasses?
This I know for sure… that Black people are largely speaking of themselves when they speak of the culture and they’re speaking largely of themselves in terms of their presence, style, swagger, and excellence seen in the values and social practices that highlight their genius in their craft or simply at being Black. Those very things are the basis of Hip-hop’s appeal—because Blackness as presence, style, swagger, and excellence is seen in the DJ, the Emcee, the Breaker, and the graffiti artist.
There is a conversation concerning who else (non-Black persons) is a part of the culture. Non-Black folks have a level of adjacency to the culture, for sure. But because Blackness is an integral part of the culture—if not the nucleus—there is a level of access or ownership of it that only Black people can claim. It’s because the values, norms, and even symbols of the culture stem from the aesthetics of Blackness; what’s cool, what’s fashion, what elevates us, and what frees us.
If one is not rooted in the Black freedom struggle; a struggle rooted in the physical, psychological, and spiritual liberation of African people, one cannot truly be part of the culture. The lack of understanding of that explains why folks misunderstand what the culture is; believing that the culture is something that it is not.
The culture is not simply the presence of baggy clothes, gaudy jewelry, and name brands. It isn’t the use of foul language, slang terms, or use of the African American Vernacular English. It is not Hennessey Cognac, Ciroc Vodka or Colt-45. The culture is not degrading women in our music, engaging in oppression Olympics, or making Black trauma and the victims of said trauma into an idol for idol worship.
Yet non-Black people misappropriate what they see in an attempt to make fun of or degrade Black people; a modern form of everyday minstrelsy committed without burnt cork, in spaces where Black folk frequent. One such place is the public school.
I’ve seen non-Black educators, particularly white educators, cosplaying Blackness during interactions with Black children who laugh not realizing they’re considered the joke. I’ve experienced those educators do it with me; when I was a student and an educator. It’s infuriating, and insulting, and is a display of one’s understanding of what the culture truly is.
They think the culture is Sambo, Zip Coon, and Jumpin’ Jim Crow in the form of Hip-hop artists. Their cosplay of the culture channels the spirit of Thomas “Daddy” Rice, George Washington Dixon, and D.W. Griffith. Certainly, their display of “history” written with lightning would get Woodrow Wilson’s approval. That’s something no teacher—of Black children—should seek after.
The culture is Negro History Week, Black Reconstruction, and the Crisis of the Negro Intellectual. The culture is Coltrane’s Alabama, Ray Charles’ Georgia on My Mind, and Nina’s Mississippi Goddamn. The culture is John Singleton, Ava DuVernay, and Ryan Coogler. The culture is When Things Fall Apart, The Low End Theory, and Fear of a Black Planet.
The culture is every experience of challenge, strivings, and triumph that manifests itself into the presence, style, swagger, and excellence that expresses itself in the genius sold and bought for a world beyond our borders to misappropriate, misconstrue, and misunderstand.
Some of those consumers become educators and they teach Black children. If any of these work in schools where you work or where your child attends school, when you hear any or if a child tells of any misappropriating or cosplaying of the culture, call it out… with grace or with firmness depending on the context. It’s possible that there was no malintent behind any gesturing by those educators. But you can bring the offense to their attention. They can’t do better without knowing better.
For Black educators and parents…
We must remember that the culture is more than what’s posed by Black entertainers. They may not mean any malintent. But we must be aware to share what the culture truly is so that our students are aware of who they are and what they’re not… so they can help add to the culture in healthy ways that continue our strivings as a people, not the misinterpretation of our heritage and cultural lineage.
Let’s make sure we are all aware of what the culture is before we display what it is not for our children to replicate wrong.
