This study explores some ways young black women negotiate stereotypical and hegemonic representations of black men and women as sexual savages in mass media, especially as they appear in rap music videos. The objective of the article is to examine how young black women make meaning of these images, in short, how they read rap texts in relation to their experiences of the world as black women. The article aims to: (1) add to the extant research literature on black discourse practices and African American female literacies; (2) demonstrate the complex language, literacy and knowledge-making capacity that exists among young black women who participate in hip hop youth culture, to inform the approaches to the resolution of these complex issues by concerned educators, community activists, and policy makers. I begin by briefly outlining relevant literature in black gender and race studies, and studies of discourse and literacy that will serve my analysis of the young women's discourse practices.
Alim, S.H. (2004) You KnoW My Steez: An Ethnographic and Sociolinguistic Study of Styleshifting in a Black American Speech Community. Durham, NC: American Dialect Society, Duke University Press.
2.
Celious, A.K. (2002) `Blaxploitation Blues: How Black Women Identify With and are Empowered by Female Performers of Hip Hop Music', PhD dissertation , University of Michigan.
3.
Cooper, C. (2004) Sound Clash: Jamaican Dancehall Culture at Large . New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
4.
Davis, T. (2004, March 17—23) `The Height of Disrespect: New Study on “Hip-hop” Sexuality finds Anti-Woman Strain — Even Among Young Women', available at: http://www.villagevoice.com (accessed 9 October 2005).
5.
Eckert, P. and McConnell-Ginet, S. (2003) Language and Gender. New York: Cambridge University Press.
6.
Fairclough, N. (2001) `Critical Discourse Analysis as a Method in Social Scientific Research', in R. Wodak and M. Meyer (eds) Methods of Critical DiscourseAnalysis, pp. 121—38. London : SAGE.
7.
Fordham, S. (1996) Blacked Out: Dilemmas of Race, Identity, and Success at Capital High. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
8.
Gee, J.P. (1996) Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourses. London: Taylor & Francis.
9.
Gee, J.P. (1999) `The New Literacy Studies and the “Social Turn” ED 442 118', available at: www.schools.ash.org.au/litweb/page300.html (accessed 19 May 2006).
10.
Gee, J.P. (2000) `Teenagers in New Times: A New Literacy Studies Perspective', Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy43(5): 412—20.
11.
Hill Collins, P. (1991) Black Feminist Thought: KnoWledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of EmpoWerment. New York: Routledge.
12.
Hill Collins, P. (2004) Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the NeW Racism. New York: Routledge .
13.
Hobbs, P. (2004) `In Their Own Voices: Codeswitching and Code Choice in the Print and Online Versions of An African American Women's Magazine', Women andLanguage27(1): 1—12.
14.
hooks, b. (1981) Ain't I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism. Boston: South End Press.
15.
hooks, b. (1992) Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press.
16.
Hope, D. (2006) Inna Di Dancehall: Popular Culture and the Politics of Identity in Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press.
17.
Houston, M. (1985) `Language and Black Woman's Place: Evidence from the Black Middle Class', in P.A. Treichler , C. Kramarae and B. Stafford (eds) For Alma Mater: Theory and Practice in Feminist Scholarship, 177—93. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
18.
Kress, G. and Van Leeuwen, T. (1996) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge.
19.
Morgan, J. (1999) When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My Life as a Hip-Hop Feminist. New York: Simon & Schuster.
20.
Morgan, M. (2002) Language, Discourse and PoWer in African American Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
21.
Morgan, M. (2005) `Hip-Hop Women Shredding the Veil: Race and Class in Popular Feminist Identity', The Southern Atlantic Quarterly104(3): 425—44.
22.
Page, K. (2003) `Dancehall Feminisms: Jamaican Female Deejays and the Politics of the Big Ninja Bike', Paper presented at the conference Borders, Boundaries and the Global in Caribbean Studies , Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine , 11—13 April.
23.
Perry, I. (2004) Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
24.
Pough, G. (2004) Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture and the Public Sphere. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
25.
Richardson, E. (2003) African American Literacies. New York: Routledge.
26.
Richardson, E. (2006) Hip Hop Literacies. New York : Routledge.
27.
Rose, T. (1994) Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.
28.
Scott, K.D. (2000) `Crossing Cultural Borders: “Girl” and “Look” as Markers of Identity in Black Women's Language Use ', Discourse & Society11(2): 237—48.
29.
Skelton, T. (1995) `“I Sing Dirty Reality, I am Out there for the Ladies”, Lady Saw: Women and Jamaican Ragga Music, Resisting Patriarchy ', Phoebe7(1—2): 86—104.
30.
Troutman, D. (1995) `The Tongue or the Sword: Which is Master?', in G. Smitherman (ed.) African American Women Speak Out on Anita Hill-ClarenceThomas. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.
31.
Troutman, D. (2001) `African American Women: Talking that Talk', in S. Lanehart (ed.) Sociocultural and Historical Contexts of African American English. Philadelphia : Benjamins.
32.
Van Dijk, T.A. (1993) Elite Discourse and Racism. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.
33.
Van Dijk, T.A., Ting-Toomey, S., Smitherman, G. and Troutman, D. (1997) `Discourse, Ethnicity, Culture and Racism', in T. van Dijk (ed.) Discourse as Social Interaction. London: SAGE .
34.
Williamson, N.L. (1990) `Code-Switching in the Oral Life Narratives of African American Women: Challenges to Linguistic Hegemony', Journal of Education172(3): 142—55.
