Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2xdlg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-19T21:30:29.206Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - “Black Rage” and the Architecture of Racial Oppression

from Part IV - Protests

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2022

Gregory S. Parks
Affiliation:
Wake Forest University, North Carolina
Frank Rudy Cooper
Affiliation:
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Get access

Summary

Deborah Archer employs Lauryn Hill’s 2012 song “Black Rage” as a lens through which the reader can understand the 2014 uprisings based on the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. By flipping the popular American song “My Favorite Things” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music to describe the racism at the nation’s heart and the Black rage it evokes, Lauryn Hill offers a haunting and powerful ode to Black America in “Black Rage.” This chapter will include a close textual analysis of the song and discuss the ways it evokes Black America’s experience of racism and the Black rage which gives fuel to Black resistance. As “Black Rage” was dedicated to the residents of Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, the chapter will discuss the systems of racial oppression exposed in the months following the murder of Michael Brown and connect it to the broader architecture of racial oppression in America. By adapting the Rodgers and Hammerstein song, Lauryn Hill is saying that racism, and the Black rage it engenders, are also quintessentially American.

Type
Chapter
Information
Fight the Power
Law and Policy through Hip-Hop Songs
, pp. 231 - 250
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×