Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in the U.S.

Barack Obama is widely considered one of the most powerful and charismatic speakers of our age. Without missing a beat, he often moves between Washington insider talk and culturally Black ways of speaking--as shown in a famous YouTube clip, where Obama declined the change offered to him by a Black cashier in a Washington, D.C. restaurant with the phrase, "Nah, we straight." In Articulate While Black, two renowned scholars of Black Language address language and racial politics in the U.S. through an insightful examination of President Barack Obama's language use--and America's response to it. In this eloquently written and powerfully argued book, H. Samy Alim and Geneva Smitherman provide new insights about President Obama and the relationship between language and race in contemporary society. Throughout, they analyze several racially loaded, cultural-linguistic controversies involving the President--from his use of Black Language and his "articulateness" to his "Race Speech," the so-called "fist-bump," and his relationship to Hip Hop Culture. Using their analysis of Barack Obama as a point of departure, Alim and Smitherman reveal how major debates about language, race, and educational inequality erupt into moments of racial crisis in America. In challenging American ideas about language, race, education, and power, they help take the national dialogue on race to the next level. In much the same way that Cornel West revealed nearly two decades ago that "race matters," Alim and Smitherman in this groundbreaking book show how deeply "language matters" to the national conversation on race--and in our daily lives.

Reference

Alim, H. Samy

Smitherman, Geneva

Words, Language & Grammar

Oxford University Press

Barack Obama is widely considered one of the most powerful and charismatic speakers of our age. Without missing a beat, he often moves between Washington insider talk and culturally Black ways of speaking-as shown in a famous YouTube clip, where Obama declined the change offered to him by a Black cashier in a Washington, D.C. restaurant with the phrase, "Nah, we straight." In Articulate While Black, two renowned scholars of Black Language address language and racial politics in the U.S. through an insightful examination of President Barack Obama's language use-and America's response to it. In this eloquently written and powerfully argued book, H. Samy Alim and Geneva Smitherman provide new insights about President Obama and the relationship between language and race in contemporary society. Throughout, they analyze several racially loaded, cultural-linguistic controversies involving the President-from his use of Black Language and his "articulateness" to his "Race Speech," the so-called "fist-bump," and his relationship to Hip Hop Culture. Using their analysis of Barack Obama as a point of departure, Alim and Smitherman reveal how major debates about language, race, and educational inequality erupt into moments of racial crisis in America. In challenging American ideas about language, race, education, and power, they help take the national dialogue on race to the next level. In much the same way that Cornel West revealed nearly two decades ago that "race matters," Alim and Smitherman in this groundbreaking book show how deeply "language matters" to the national conversation on race-and in our daily lives.

Critical Youth Research in Education

Critical studies of youth play an increasingly important role in educational research. This volume adds to that ongoing conversation by addressing the methodological lessons learned from key scholars in the field. With a focus on "the doing" of critical youth studies in ways that center praxis and relational care in work with youth and their communities, the volume showcases scholars discussing their research and reflecting on the practical strategies they have used to operationalize their conceptions of knowledge in youth-centered research projects. Each chapter addresses the research features, challenges, tensions, and debates of the project; engagement with communities; and relationality, reciprocity, and responsibility to participants. The focus throughout is on qualitative approaches that are humanizing, anti-colonial, and transformative.

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

Routledge

This expansive collection sets the stage for the next generation of Hip Hop scholarship as we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the movement's origins. &nbsp; Celebrating 50 years of Hip Hop cultural history, Freedom Moves travels across generations and beyond borders to understand Hip Hop's transformative power as one of the most important arts movements of our time. This book gathers critically acclaimed scholars, artists, activists, and youth organizers in a wide-ranging exploration of Hip Hop as a musical movement, a powerful catalyst for activism, and a culture that offers us new ways of thinking and doing freedom. &nbsp; Rooting Hip Hop in Black freedom culture, this state-of-the-art collection presents a globally diverse group of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American, Arab, European, North African, and South Asian artists, activists, and thinkers. The "knowledges" cultivated by Hip Hop and spoken word communities represent emerging ways of being in the world. Freedom Moves examines how educators, artists, and activists use these knowledges to inform and expand how we understand our communities, our histories, and our futures.

Freedom Moves: Hip Hop Knowledges, Pedagogies, and Futures (California Series in Hip Hop Studies) (Volume 3)

Arts & Photography

CHANG, Jeff

Wong, Casey

Music

University of California Press

The 2004 Publication of the American Dialect Society, You Know My Steez is the culmination of nearly four years of direct study and hands-on experience by a teacher-researcher and active community member in the working-class suburb of Sunnyside, California. Focusing on the language and linguistic practices of students at Haven High School, an ethnically and linguistically diverse school, the author examines both the internal linguistic constraints and the external social constraints (race, gender, and cultural literacy, among others) that shape speech styles, particularly among Black male and female hiphoppers. Contributing to the development of a more refined methodological approach to the study of linguistic styleshifting, the author integrates the study of sociolinguistic variation, interactional analysis (the use of discourse analysis to examine the implicit rules and roles that govern social interaction), and ethnographic fieldwork to develop a deeper understanding of how, when, and why speakers shift their styles.

You Know My Steez: An Ethnographic and Sociolinguistic Study of Styleshifting in a Black American Speech Community (Publication of the American Dialect Society)

History & Criticism

Duke University Press Books

Street Conscious Rap is the third volume in the first and only hip hop trilogy of its kind. This book includes brand new essays, illustrations, rare photos, and interviews with a wide range of hip hop artists including: Grandmaster Flash, Tupac, Canibus, LL Cool J, Queen Latifah, Method Man, Busta Rhymes, Kool Herc, Xzibit, Eve, Scarface, Big Daddy Kane, Big Pun, Puff Daddy, Ice Cube, Ice T, Salt N Pepa, DJ Cash Money, RZA, Onyx, Kurupt, Bahamadia, Common, Chuck D, 2 Live Crew, Killarmy, Tha Alkaholiks, E-40, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Schoolly D, Cold Crush Brothers, DJ Pooh, Luke, George Clinton, and more! 
From the Old School with Chuck D and Grandmaster Flash to the New School of Hard Knocks with Jay-Z and DMX, Street Conscious Rap is a comprehensive look into the thoughts, feelings, hopes, fears, and lives of many of today's hottest hip hop artists. The book discusses topics such as: the business, emerging technologies, and creative processes of hip hop; AfroAmerican youth on the internet; family values and relations; moral and ethical development; educational institutions and theory; AfroAmerican, Latino, Caribbean, and Native American youth culture; violence in urban and suburban societies; hip hop history and hip hop as an art form, and more. The book takes us on a journey with rappers in the studio, backstage, hotel suites, music conferences, clubs, or just hanging out. Yo - in short - this is the one hip hop book that no hip hop head should be without!

Street Conscious Rap

Spady, James G.

Lee, Charles G.

Black History Museum Pub

Roc the MIC Right: The Language of Hip Hop Culture

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