Black Popular Culture and Social Justice

This volume examines the use of Black popular culture to engage, reflect, and parse social justice, arguing that Black popular culture is more than merely entertainment. Moving beyond a focus on identifying and categorizing cultural forms, the authors examine Black popular culture to understand how it engages social justice, with attention to anti-Black racism. Black Popular Culture and Social Justice takes a systematic look at the role of music, comic books, literature, film, television, and public art in shaping attitudes and fighting oppression. Examining the ways in which artists, scholars, and activists have engaged, discussed, promoted, or supported social justice - on issues of criminal justice reform, racism, sexism, LGBTQIA rights, voting rights, and human rights - the book offers unique insights into the use of Black popular culture as an agent for change. This timely and insightful book will be of interest to students and scholars of race and media, popular culture, gender studies, sociology, political science, and social justice.

Dr. Lakeyta M. Bonnette-Bailey is Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Georgia State University, USA, and Co-Director for the Center for the Advancement of Students and Alumni (CASA). Her research includes Pulse of the People: Political Rap Music and Black Politics and For the Culture: Hip Hop and the Fight for Social Justice, with interests in popular culture, Black politics, and political psychology. Dr. Jonathan I. Gayles is Professor and Chair of the department of Africana Studies at Georgia State University, USA. He is an interdisciplinary researcher whose primary areas of interest include the anthropology of education, Black masculinity, and critical media studies. He wrote, directed, and produced the award-winning documentary, White Scripts and Black Supermen: Black Masculinities in Comic Books (2011, California Newsreel).

Introduction: Cultural Power; Section I: Black Television, Movies, and Social Justice; 1. Michaela Coel May Destroy You, But Also Help You Heal; 2. Two Percent: The Role of Popular Culture in Highlighting Social Justice Issues; 3. Lovecraft Country and the (Re)construction of Black Womanhood; 4. The Hate U Give: Police Brutality, Political Fantasies, and Black Popular Culture; Section II: Black Music and Social Justice; 5. Contributions of African American Anthems for Social Justice and Equity; 6. Cardi B: Raising Black Feminist Consciousness in Cyberspace; 7. "Out for Presidents to Represent Me": Hip-Hop, The Breakfast Club, and the 2020 Presidential Elections; 8. The Bigger Picture: Hip-Hop, Black Lives, and Social Justice; 9. The Wu Tang Clan, Politics, and Black Power; 10. Rappin' Black in a White World: The Watts Prophets and Democratic Futurity; Section III: Black Speculative Fiction, Comics, Protest Art, and Social Justice; 11. The Future is in Her Hands: Rewriting Black Girlhood Narratives and Experiences in Comics; 12. "Red, White, and Black": Falcon and the Winter Soldier's Dismantling of White American Heroism; 13. Outfoxing the Foxes: Revising Mammy as Subversive Social Justice in Frank Yerby's The Foxes of Harrow; 14. Writings on the Walls: A Study of Black Protest Street Art in the Wake of the Murder of George Floyd; Conclusion: Moving Beyond the Culture