The Niggarization of Black Bodies

Author

Joseph Leonard Smith, Southern Illinois University CarbondaleFollow

Date of Award

9-1-2020

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Philosophy

First Advisor

Stikkers, Kennith

Abstract

The overall goal of this project is to examine the niggarization of urban, Black, male bodies in the Unites States. We show how the niggarization of urban, Black, male bodies is the internalization of aspects of white-power structures by using a methodology that historically tracks and situates the nigga personality-type as related to and maintaining historical power structures that function as objectifying and internalizing mechanisms of the urban color-line, producing socially Black males as inferior “others.” Further, we provide a theoretical account of the historical emergence of the nigga personality-type within Black popular culture, in the 1970s, as a moment of the concealment and internalization of features of white-power structures. This project is important because objectifying and internalizing mechanisms of the “post-civil-rights” era urban color-line continue to produce socially Black males as inferior “others,” especially the disposability of lower-class, urban, Black men. Thus, we urgently need more effective strategies of resistance and struggle than that offered by the nigga personality-type in order to fight for a deeper American Democracy committed to racial justice and the dismantling of the urban color-line for the well-being of Black men.