Understanding Black Culture Through the Eyes of non-Black POC Communities
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2024
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Haverford College. Department of Sociology
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Award
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eng
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Open access
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Abstract
For non-Black communities, navigating Blackness can be similar to traversing a playground, with forms of expression and cultural values frequently toyed with and manipulated for the benefit of non-Black people—and to the detriment of Black communities. To understand recurrent themes and modes of Black cultural appropriation, scholarly writing primarily analyzes this dynamic through the relationship between Black and white communities in the United States. These dialogues typically concern cases where a white individual achieves notoriety in the media through adopting Black speech or even identities, which benefit them financially or socially. But in less direct cases of what we might call “identity theft,” it can be difficult to pinpoint what Black culture consists of and to whom, as well as to what, appropriation looks like; Black communities and their values are not monolithic. Yet it appears that despite some ambiguity in defining these cultural attributes, there exists an unspoken understanding that there is an inherent opposition between white and Black communities that cannot allow for a comfortable cultural exchange — according to scholars, and Black individuals who are most reluctant to share their culture. But what happens when we ask these questions outside of the Black-white binary? Identifying and addressing instances of Black cultural appropriation becomes more difficult when considering other minority communities, in part because they may have similar histories of being “othered” and there is not the same level of systemic domination between these groups. As a result, cases of Black cultural appropriation enacted by non-Black communities of color typically do not attract the same amount of attention or scrutiny in the media and interpersonal conversations. How, then, do non- Black American people of color (POC) engage with Black American culture through language, and to what degree is their comfort level with Black English usage? This paper aims to break down the implications of what Black cultural appropriation by POC would mean in terms of harming Black communities as compared to examples of white appropriation and to explore the differing intersectional positions of the POC that engage with Black culture. By doing this, I establish the differences between how POC appropriation of Black American culture is perceived by Black individuals as opposed to white appropriation. Further, I question whether the same terminology can even be used due to these historic and racially stratified differences.