What is 'real' Culture?

Photo from Notting Hill Carnival

Ishmael Reed and Boots Riley on the Document journal discuss ‘the art of cultural agitation’. In this interview, in regards to Hip Hop turning 50 Boots Riley suggests that this campaign was marketing and not culture. Popular media has a way of propelling blackness as something anyone can participate and buy into. Hip Hop turning 50 is an example of this. It made it look as though it meant something to everyone. However, this historical event is only significant to those who are Black and care about Hip Hop/ Black history. Hip hop was always going to turn 50. This is because Hip Hop culture is something that is lived every day by many Black people in the United States and the UK. It does not need to be marketed by huge cooperations that only see the consumer value in partnering with Hip Hop artists to be seen as a significant moment. 

What's interesting about this is that after this marketing campaign there were mass firings of black executives within music, slashing black music journalists and publications. Ultimately, this attempt to propel ‘real culture’ fell flat because those who live and love Hip Hop everyday were worse off economically and socially because of it. Hip Hop now seems to be moving away from the mainstream moving back into its ‘undeground’ nature. As now there seems to be less cultural value in buying into this shiny new black thing. That whitness has a habit of preying onto. In my opinion, this is good. This shift will allow it to go back to the essence of the art form. Perhaps now non black artists will no longer view this genre as a get rich quick scheme to gain validation from Black people and popular culture. Rather a genre that should be left alone, only to be upheld and pioneered by the people who created it. Black people. 

Sociologically, culture is defined as the whole way of life of a group of people. (Linton 1945). Culture encompasses beliefs, values and norms for people. It’s about language, customs and material objects that are symbolic to these individuals. Culture is learned, symbolic and transmitted through generations acting as a link between the individuals and wider society. 

Hegemonic culture is synonymous with whiteness. Whatever is important, glamorous and most of all good, Is white. But how the media began to love black culture was a glitch in the system. Meaning it was not supposed to happen. Because it brings light to a group of people and culture that was once considered low brow, and they should remain in this way. Race and gender are both social constructs that are not innate to human design but were created to cause segregation and oppression between individuals. Whoever controls the media controls the mind, so therefore whatever is propelled consistently on it is what the general public understands and believes. The gatekeepers and producers decide what is popular, and these people often align with white supremacist beliefs of blackness. But like I have said, Hip Hop was always going to turn 50, those who live and breathe it know it. It’s the media that changed the outcome. 

Cultivation theory suggests that the more a belief or imagery is exposed online to consume the easier it becomes to enter our psyche and therefore influence the consumer's perception of reality. For Black people within Britian black culture was real culture for a short while because that was what was marketed to us. But, the black culture that was being marketed to us was Black American. Though similar at times, it does not completely mirror the Black British experience. This type of cultural imperialism, creates a false sense of reality to Black Brits because it suggests our influence within this country is much larger than it actually is. It suggest’s that our language, livelihoods, and dress codes are the same as Black Americans. And it does not encourage us at Black Brits to look at our own reality and begin to preserve our own history and culture. It was good that we were exposed to a black utopia that made so many of us who may not have grown up around black people feel seen and represented. But long term, many have not found value and care for the customs that were beginning to brew here in the UK. 

The British media has always looked down on Black Caribbean, African and British culture. Racist news stories and tabloids have contributed to not only a culture that doesn’t love us. But black people not loving their own culture and recognising it as real. The ideal Black British person owns property and goes to the royal ascot. They do not stay on the blocks and go to Peckham market, this identity is low and is not marketed to us as good. The ‘good’ Black Brit, assimilates and cares about oppressing the working class further through alienating them in housing and food consumption. The media markets this to us the ‘right’ way to use your resources in Britian. But, assimilation is abandoning us and reminding us that this is not enough to survive and live healthily in this country. 

As Black British people it’s time we start accepting ourselves as such. Our refusal to accept this creates stagnation in ever evolving identity and culture. This identity  has existed for a long time. ‘Attack the block’, ‘Kidulthood’ and ‘Bullet boy’ are all films that represent the Black British identity all coming out during the early 2000s/2010s. 

For my British Africans it did take some time for us to accept this. We come from parents who have affirmed to us that we are not like them. ‘Them’ being our white working class counterparts. We are African, which is true but the more time both our parents and ourselves spend in Britian the more distant we become to the cultures back home. What we now know as culture is more so entertainment and gossip. During the ‘Homegrown’ exhibition, presented by Smalls Gallery there were a lot of reflections of us younger generations accepting who we are becoming. What our shared culture is and how it is affecting us. This difficulty doesn’t come from no where. Over the last two years the UK has seen a spout of race riots and protests against immigrants, against black people, against Black British people. These facists ideologies are the underbelly of this country. Our hestitants to claim this empire is not only because we are confused but because this is the same land that produces  racism everyday. To us, to claim Britain is to openly say you are experiencing an identity crisis. But what I have learned is that , whether they (racist brits)  like it or not , they are in no position to tell us what to identify as. No one owns that. 

bell hooks writes in race and representation,  “in a white supremacist context loving blackness is rarely a political stance that is reflected in everyday life. When present it is deemed suspect, dangerous and threatening”. This can be applied to Black British people who are not accepting of this identity. To love and understand black British culture, which is real culture, is threatening because it brings life and attention to a cultural identity and world that needs to be suppressed in order for this country to function ‘well’. This country functions on it being suppressed and misreable, that is the hegemonic culture. But when one goes against this , it is threatening and dangerous. We have politicians like Kemi Bandenoch, a woman who’s parents gave birth to her in Britain. In her own right she is a Black Brit but at every chance she denies this aspect of herself because of white supremacy. This denial is not threatening to the Conservative Party or the beliefs that she wants to put forward. The self hatred grown from black peope who because of class seem distant, creates a false equilibrium. Their denial is anti black and therefore does not threaten their peers. But what is so threatening about real culture? Well when culture shifts it has the power to change policy and lives. The more we accept our Black Britishness, we are able to create resistance. Which no longer serves Britains racist cultural identity. 

In regards to the Black British identity Paul Gilroy states, “…the cultures of this group have been produced in a syncretic pattern in which the styles and forms of the Caribbean, the United States, and Africa have been reworked and reinscribed in the novel or context of modern Britain’s untidy ensemble or reginal contexts” . Gilroy suggests that Black Britishness is cumulative of multiple cultures at once. These lived experiences make up what real culture is.The food evolution, the language codes, the dress codes. There isn’t a shared context we all live in as Black Brits. The black people in Birmingham do not relate to those of us in London. But this doesn’t diminish what our culture is but rather expands and evolves what it could be.

“We need a culture that loves us”, we as black people need to respect and regard our culture highly. White media and white racists  want us as black brits to not care about our culture, our cultural exports like our fashion, food and music. To not care about the politics that affect us. Because it serves this growing facist state. When you are using surveillance systems like Digital ID to ensure immigrants are unable to sustain themselves. When facial recognition technology is used in Black celebrations like Carnival. An event born out of resistance and continues to expand every year. In an effort ‘to stop crime’ it implies that Black Brits are a threat. When carnival is at threat of being cancelled every year. It implies that it is not worth being celebrated and protected. But this is real. Despite what white media producers are feeding us, we need to love black culture. Enough to report on it, to write about it, and protect it.

To conclude, my question about what real culture is, is in response to how we define the ever evolving black British identity. How we understand and represent our culture is up to us, it is not up to the white people. Or the people who infaultrate black cultrue and assume it's theirs simply via proximity. Culture is our way of life, and like i mentioned earlier hip hop was always going to turn 50 regardless of whether cooperations recongnised this or not. Real culture is in our everyday life. 

References

bell hooks - Race and Representation

Paul Gilroy- The Black Atlantic

Legacy Russell - Glitch Feminism 

Ishmael Reed and Boots Riley- The Document Journal// https://www.documentjournal.com/2023/11/ishmael-reed-and-boots-riley-on-the-art-of-cultural-agitation/

George Gerbner- Cultivation Theory in Media and Communications