Karen Hunter and Dr. Daniel Black Reveal the Hidden Architecture of Black American Culture
Zanu Project host Franck Zanu recently made headlines by making claims that Black Americans have no culture in an appearance on his podcast.
Earlier this week, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and host of the Karen Hunter show, Karen Hunter, invited author and Clark Atlanta University professor Dr. Daniel Black to discuss Zanu’s comments alongside Black culture and its differences from white culture in America.
Here are five things we learned from their conversation.
Culture is the way people imagine themselves in relation to the universe and to God. Per Dr. Black, the definition of culture relates to the way in which people interact with the invisible world around them. Overall, it is essentially the product of people’s attempts to become one with their environment. Through these interactions, individuals are trying to get closer to “figure out how God thinks.”
Quote: “For example, dance is really a way of trying to figure out how in the world things move in your ecosystem. Dance is doing the same thing the tree is doing when the wind blows.” — Dr. Daniel Black
A majority of people are ethnocentric. When people view culture around them, they tend to use their own culture as a frame of reference, limiting their ability to see beyond their perceived superiority and missing the genius of other cultures. Per Dr. Black, Black Americans learned that the best way to protect their culture was to “hide the culture” in what cannot be seen. He pointed to Tulsa as a contributor to this. In a two-day massacre considered to be one of the most violent instances of racial violence in the U.S., the Tulsa Massacre led to the murder of up to 300 people and the destruction of over 1,000 homes, businesses, and churches, destroying one of the most well-developed Black communities of the 20th century. Through hiding their culture, Black Americans learned that they can protect it from others and prevent them from taking it themselves. Over the years, it has developed to create genius out of pieces that were not the same on their own.
Quote: “We were talking about the quilts our grandmothers made. See, they didn’t go to fabric stores and get cloth to make cute things that matched. They took Grandaddy’s old overalls and Grandma’s old house dresses. They took a patch from a pair of jeans that they were wearing as kids and they pieced these things together. No two quilts were ever alike. The metaphor is, if you put all those pieces together, they create something that none of the pieces were by themselves.” — Dr. Daniel Black
An entire generation of people cannot be dismissed. In the interview, Hunter spoke about the importance of checking people such as Zanu. She spoke of an earlier clip of his that she played on her show and how she used his vocabulary to turn a conversation about maintenance into one that acknowledged abundance. In response, Dr. Black highlighted how, through checking Xanu, the entire generation is being held accountable for their thinking.
Quote: “The reason it’s important to check him lovingly is because we’re really checking an entire generation. We’re not just checking him. See, we can’t dismiss a whole generation of people. That’s too many people to lose if we’re going to win this war.” — Dr. Daniel Black
Most people do not have the eyes to see the genius of Black culture. Per Dr. Black, people do not have the vision to view culture the way it should be, particularly when it comes to Black culture. In the interview, he highlighted how people often have a limited conception of Black culture because of the consistent comparison to white culture, closing their eyes to the genius in front of them.
Quote: “People have made this error a million times. People keep looking for Black versions of the white thing as evidence that Black people have culture. In other words, the problem is the eyes you’re coming with are limited to even seeing the genius of Black culture. In fact, you’re staring at it and you can’t see it.” — Dr. Daniel Black
Spirituality is wider than religion. In the interview, Hunter and Dr. Black discussed the art of conjuring. Per Dr. Black, the concept of conjuring relates back to a prayer call in church. The act of conjuring is a key part of Black American culture and in spirituality itself, which, according to Dr. Black, is bigger than religion.
Quote: “You come to Black America for the art of conjuring. Half of us are alive because our grandmothers conjured on behalf of us while we were out in the world clowning.” — Dr. Daniel Black