Your Average Nigga

An engrossing autobiographical exploration of black masculinity as a mode of racial and verbal performance.

Examines how generations of African Americans perceive, proclaim, and name the combined performance of race and class across genres.

In the following work, there are three separate but related works. The first work focuses on the power of language, the specific example being that of the so-called "n" word. There are several key thoughts and questions worth keeping in mind as you read the first work, The Village of Nigger-Nigga. First, the more "forbidden" or "taboo" something is, the more powerful it becomes. In view of that, the question arises: "Who benefits from the negative power created by preserving the "n" word as a "taboo"?" Primarily, if not exclusively, so-called "white" or "non-black" people. In other words, those who would use it as a "weapon" to hurt others emotionally. And who suffers from the negative power created by preserving the "n" word as a "taboo"?" Primarily, if not exclusively, so-called "black" or "non-white" people. Conversely, who would benefit by neutralizing the negative meaning/use of the word "nigger" and/or giving it a new and positive meaning? Virtually, all of society in general, both here in America as well as the world at large. Although the first work, The Village of Nigger-Nigga, is a work of fiction in the strictest sense, there is a significant degree of linguistic truth in principle regarding the message of this short story. For example, unlikely as it may seem in terms of the feasibility of converting the "n" word from something negative to a positive, linguistically speaking, language is more than sufficiently capable of accommodating such a change. The second work, Corruption...a Precondition for Power, addresses the matter of power in general. In terms of the message in this essay, it can readily be applied to the other two works, The Village of Nigger-Nigga and Nigger Music.

The story of Dick Greagory, welfare case, star athelete, hit comedian, and front-line participant in the battle for Civil Rights.

Black or Right: Anti/Racist Campus Rhetorics explores notions of Blackness in white institutional—particularly educational—spaces. In it, Louis M. Maraj theorizes how Black identity operates with/against ideas of difference in the age of #BlackLivesMatter. Centering Blackness in frameworks for antiracist agency through interdisciplinary Black feminist lenses, Black or Right asks how those racially signifying “diversity” in US higher education (and beyond) make meaning in the everyday. Offering four Black rhetorics as antiracist means for rhetorical reclamation—autoethnography, hashtagging, inter(con)textual reading, and reconceptualized disruption—the book uses Black feminist relationality via an African indigenous approach. Maraj examines fluid, quotidian ways Black folk engage anti/racism at historically white institutions in the United States in response to violent campus spaces, educational structures, protest movements, and policy practice. Black or Right’s experimental, creative style strives to undiscipline knowledge from academic confinement. Exercising different vantage points in each chapter—autoethnographer, digital media scholar/pedagogue, cultural rhetorician, and critical discourse analyst—Maraj challenges readers to ecologically understand shifting, multiple meanings of Blackness in knowledge-making. Black or Right’s expressive form, organization, narratives, and poetics intimately interweave with its argument that Black folk must continuously invent “otherwise” in reiterative escape from oppressive white spaces. In centering Black experiences, Black theory, and diasporic Blackness, Black or Right mobilizes generative approaches to destabilizing institutional whiteness, as opposed to reparative attempts to “fix racism,” which often paradoxically center whiteness. It will be of interest to both academic and general readers and significant for specialists in cultural rhetorics, Black studies, and critical theory.

With a new Foreword by April Baker-Bell and a new Preface by Vershawn Ashanti Young and Y’Shanda Young-Rivera, Other People’s English: Code-Meshing, Code-Switching, and African American Literacy presents an empirically grounded argument for a new approach to teaching writing to diverse students in the English language arts classroom. Responding to advocates of the “code-switching” approach, four uniquely qualified authors make the case for “code-meshing”—allowing students to use standard English, African American English, and other Englishes in formal academic writing and classroom discussions. This practical resource translates theory into a concrete road map for pre- and inservice teachers who wish to use code-meshing in the classroom to extend students’ abilities as writers and thinkers and to foster inclusiveness and creativity. The text provides activities and examples from middle and high school as well as college and addresses the question of how to advocate for code-meshing with skeptical administrators, parents, and students. Other People’s English provides a rationale for the social and educational value of code-meshing, including answers to frequently asked questions about language variation. It also includes teaching tips and action plans for professional development workshops that address cultural prejudices.

"An anthology of writing addressing the most urgent issues facing the Black community in Canada. The killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012 by a white assailant inspired the Black Lives Matter movement, which quickly spread outside the borders of the United States. The movement's message found fertile ground in Canada, where Black activists speak of generations of injustice and continue the work of the Black liberators who have come before them. 'Until We Are Free' contains some of the very best African-Canadian writing on the hottest issues facing the Black community in Canada. It describes the latest developments in Canadian Black activism, organizing efforts through the use of social media, Black-Indigenous alliances, and more. Rodney Diverlus is a Port-au-Prince-born, Toronto-based dance artist, curator, and co-founder of Black Lives Matter-Toronto. Sandy Hudson is the founder of the Black Lives Matter movement presence in Canada and Black Lives Matter-Toronto and a co-founder of Black Liberation Collective Canada. Syrus Marcus Ware is a core team member of Black Lives Matter-Toronto, a Vanier Scholar, a facilitator and designer for the CulturalLeaders Lab, and an award-winning artist and educator. Contributors Silvia Argentina Arauz, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Patrisse Cullors, Giselle Dias, Omisoore Dryden, Paige Galette, Dana Inkster, Sarah Jama, El Jones, Anique Jordan, Dr. Naila Keleta Mae, Janaya Khan, Gilary Massa, Robyn Maynard, Leroi Newbold, QueenTite Opaleke, Randolph Riley, Camille Turner, Ravyn Wngz."--

Investigates a variety of texts in which the self-image of poor, urban black men in the U.S. is formed within, by, and against a culture of racial terror and state violence.