In Media Res: Race, Identity, and Pop Culture in the Twenty-First Century

305 Pages·2014·4.55 MB·English

by  James Braxton Peterson (ed.)

In Media Res

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THE GRIOT PROJECT BOOK SERIES
Editor:
Carmen Gillespie, Bucknell University
The Griot is a central figure in many West African cultures. Historically,
the Griot held many functions, including as a community historian,
cultural critic, indigenous artist, and collective spokesperson. Borrow-
ing from this rich tradition, the Bucknell University Griot Institute for
Africana Studies and the Griot Project Book Series define the Griot as
a metaphor for the academic and creative interdisciplinary exploration
of the arts, literatures, and cultures of African America, Africa, and the
African diaspora.
The publications of the Griot Project Series consist of scholarly mono-
graphs and creative works devoted to the interdisciplinary exploration
of the aesthetic, artistic and cultural products and intellectual currents
of historical and contemporary African America and of the African di-
aspora using narrative as a thematic and theoretical framework for the
selection and execution of its projects. The series will be edited by the
Director of the Bucknell University Griot Insitute, Carmen Gillespie,
and considers potential publications in Africana studies from a wide
range of disciplines.
The series aims to produce three books during each three-year period,
beginning with the year 2011. Each book will be approximately 100– 300
manuscript pages in length and will generally have a minimum 500-book
print run. The audience for the books produced by the Griot Project Series
will be academics, artists, and will include a lay audience, as well. We ask
potential authors to submit for consideration works that have expansive
and inclusive appeal and significance.
Titles in the series
James Braxton Peterson, ed. In Media Res: Race, Identity, and Pop Culture
in the Twenty-First Century
Myron Hardy, Catastrophic Bliss
Carmen Gillespie, ed. The Clearing: Forty Years With Toni Morrison,
1970–2010

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In Media Res
Race, Identity, and Pop Culture
in the Twenty-First Century
Edited by James Braxton Peterson
BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
Lewisburg

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Published by Bucknell University Press
Copublished by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com
Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB
Copyright © 2014 by Rowman & Littlefield for edited collections
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval
systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer
who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
Cloth: 978-1-61148-649-0
Electronic: 978-1-61148-650-6
™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America

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This book is dedicated to my Mom
Barbara Josephine Delaney-Green Peterson
Thank you for bringing me into this world in medias res

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Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Into the Midst of Things 1
James Braxton Peterson
Part I: Head Matter: The Mind and the Mask 9
1 An Empire State of Mind 11
Imani Perry
2 Consolidating a Hip Hop Nation: Revisiting the Videotaped
Police Beating of Rodney King, Twenty Years Later 21
Tanji Gilliam
3 Head on Straight, Mask on Crooked: MF DOOM and the
Trope of the Mask 35
Nicholas James
4 Superhero Aesthetics in Hip Hop Culture 49
Will Boone

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viii Contents
Part II: Visual Matter 71
5 I Have a Meme: Photography, Interactive Memory, and
Digital Commemorations of the March on Washington 73
Paul M. Farber
6 How Deep? Skin Deep? A Case Study on Shameful
National Orientations 87
Emily Churilla
7 Faggoty/White/Uniform: Gays in the Military and
A Few Good Men 101
Scott St. Pierre
Part III: Global Flows 117
8 Selected Poems 119
Suheir Hammad
9 The Communal Womb in Haile Gerima’s Sankofa 125
Belinda Monique Waller-Peterson
10 S outh Asian Hip Hop Wannabes and the Chavs Who
Love Them: The Blackening of British Culture in
Gautam Malkani’s Londonstani 143
Delores B. Phillips
11 “A True and Faithful Account of Mr. Ota Benga the
Pygmy, written by M. Berman, Zookeeper,” 169
Adam Mansbach
Part IV: Culture of Personality 179
12 Richard Pryor’s Pain: From Stand-Up Comedy to
Hollywood Film 181
Sean Springer
13 You Are Now Tuned Into the . . . Greatest:
Jay-Z and the Spectacle of the Cool 201
Wilfredo Gomez
14 Disassembling the “Matrix of Domination”:
Janelle Monae’s Transformative Vision 215
Carrie Walker
15 “Dreams of the Drum”: A Keynote Address 239
Michael Eric Dyson
Bibliography 251
Index 273

About the Contributors 287
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List of Illustrations
3.1 “Born Like This Again,” Computer Image, art by
John Jennings 34
4.1 “Super G,” Computer Image, art by John Jennings 48
5.1 “I Have a Meme,” Computer Image, art by John Jennings 72
11.1 “Almost Native,” Computer Image, art by John Jennings 168
12.1 “Tears of a Clown,” Computer Image, art by John Jennings 180
14.1 “Metropolis Reduxxed,” Computer Image, art by
John Jennings 214

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