illnesses through the use of spirituality and knowledge of the medicinal properties of whole plants, herbs, roots, barks, and animal substances (Roberts, 1989).
Many enslaved Africans believed in both Christianity and the power of the conjurer. The objective of the conjurer was to maintain communal harmony and well-being by helping people to heal the physical and spiritual aspects of their illnesses. They used their spiritual and practical wisdom to help people protect themselves from social and spiritual harm. In New Orleans, the exploits of the enslaved, African-born man, Bras Coupe, inspired legendary epics. Many attributed his success to that fact that Bras Coupe was a conjurer in addition to being a drummer and dancer. He escaped from his captor/owner and led a Maroon community of runaway Blacks and renegade Whites (Roberts, 1989). Despite ←16 | 17→having only one arm (lost in battle), he successfully terrorized Whites, and freed Blacks throughout the region (Roberts, 1989).
Christianity provided enslaved Black people with its own source of Biblical heroes. Many Black people rejected the White interpretations of Christianity as a religion of submissiveness. Instead, they created a Christian heroic tradition from it. They interpreted God as the force that would help to deliver them from oppression. Christian figures such as Daniel, who was delivered from a lion’s den, or Joshua, who won the epic battle of Jericho, each did so with their own spiritually driven heroism. These figures were considered soldiers of war against an oppression like the kind that Black people faced during enslavement and other forms of racial oppression (Roberts, 1989).
After slavery, non-trickster heroes emerged far more often. Trickster heroes were centered around their ability to be cunning and manipulative because of their lack of power. Instead, more heroes emerged after slavery who engaged in direct confrontation with their oppressors. They were known as badmen, moral, tough, and generally law-abiding (Roberts, 1989). They openly confronted Whites, without fear of retaliation. They refused to submit to inferiority in White society. Because of the role of police in the oppression of Blacks, Black people imagined subverting the law in their heroic traditions. Railroad Bill was a Black male outlaw hero of the 1890s. Some say he was real and others say he was mythical. Railroad Bill was a conjurer who began as a turpentine worker. After a White police officer unjustly demanded that Bill hand over his gun, a fight ensued, and the police officer was killed. After this, Railroad Bill became known as a Robin Hood figure who robbed rich, White trains for their cargo and shared the stolen goods with poor Black people (Williams, 2001). Given his conjuring background, Railroad Bill was believed to have the ability to turn himself into various animals, helping him escape from law enforcement on many occasions (Roberts, 1989). Railroad Bill was a part of a Black male heroic tradition that incorporated those who were accused of righteous acts of lawlessness.
John Henry was incorporated into the corpus of legendary figures in Black culture. He was the subject of many blues songs. Symbolic of the industrial revolution, John Henry, represented both the spirit of hard work, self-reliance, and the exploitation of the worker. Songs and stories were told of Henry’s legendary man vs. machine competition with a steel-powered hammer-drill. Henry defeated the machine but subsequently died of stress/physical exhaustion as a result. His legend represented the value of the Black worker, and workers in general, over the trend toward the industrial use of machines.
Different from the badman tradition was the bad nigger tradition. The bad nigger tradition incorporated Black men who aggressively acted in their own interests, harming Blacks or Whites. Unlike badmen, those who were of the bad nigger tradition were not considered behavioral models for Blacks, because they—just like law enforcement—represented threats to the well-being of the entire community. They did not engage in righteous indignation like those of the badman tradition. All Black men who broke the law were treated as bad niggers by Whites, but Black people distinguished between the two in their heroic traditions. These Black male heroic figures represent, in many ways, Black people’s values and their beliefs about ideal masculine behaviors. In hip-hop music, White (2011) argues that gangsta rap or some specific music groups, like NWA, continued the tradition of the bad nigger representation of Black masculinity because they are seen as a threat, upsetting the social order for both Blacks and Whites. Differently, the badman is seen as a hero who looks out for the entire Black community, even though he is seen as a threat to Whites. The legend of Stagga Lee (Also Stagolee or Stagger Lee) exemplifies the bad nigger type because he resists all forms of control and acts on his own self-interests. Like many similar figures in the Black folk tradition, he was believed to have been born with supernatural power, later enhanced selling his soul to the devil (Roberts, 1989).
A more contemporary Black folk hero is Muhammad Ali, who fits within the badman tradition because he stood up to White society while also identifying with Black culture and the oppression of the masses of Black people. However, the prizefighter, Jack Johnson, fit the stereotypical bad nigger ←17 | 18→model because of his resistance to White attempts to control his behavior, but caring little about the interests of Blacks in a collective sense (White, 2011). He upset Whites with his flashy clothes, fancy cars, White women, and his success in fighting. Similarly, White (2011) argues that hip-hop artists like Jay-Z fit more in the tradition of the bad nigger than badman because his focus is primarily on his own success and ambition, making it from the bottom to the top. However, this characterization is contradicted by Jay-Z’s philanthropic work and messages of racial uplift toward the latter half of his career. This contradiction sheds light on the fact that there are no hard distinctions between the two tropes.
More recent heroes extend and build upon the Black male hero tradition. For example, Milestone, Inc. is a Black-owned comic book publishing company (Brown, 1999). Different from newer comics that illustrate extremely masculine, excessively powerful and one-dimensional heroes, the Black male heroes of Milestone’s comics rely on wit and power to be successful in ways that are similar to the trickster-hero tradition. Milestone’s characters counter the stereotypes of Black males as being too hard, too physical, and too bodily (Brown, 1999). For example, one of Milestone’s characters is an electricity-wielding, teenaged superhero named Static (Brown, 1999). He is not a huge and imposing physical hero. Different from the trickster tradition, Static manipulates electricity to fight enemies. Although he is tough, he primarily uses his intellect and problem-solving skills to defeat larger foes. Milestone’s heroes mark both the evolution and continuity of the Black hero tradition.
Deep Structure and Black Male Culture
Beneath the surface of the cultural expressions that have been described are more central core or deep-structural elements. Cultural expressions are rooted in worldview but are time-based, shaped by social and other environmental factors. Deep structure spans across eras, and is inclusive of values, beliefs, and philosophical assumptions. Values represent the culture-based standards people use to evaluate themselves, others, and their environment—positively or negatively, good or bad, beautiful or ugly, appropriate or inappropriate. They reinforce beliefs or ideas that people hold to be true. Taken together, these values, beliefs, and philosophical assumptions make up the deep-structural worldview of Black male culture, including such elements as communalism, spirituality, time, improvisation, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance.
Communalism/Collectivism
Communalism represents loyalty and commitment to nurturing and advancing group well-being, connectedness, and social bonds over individual privileges and interests (Belgrave & Allison, 2006). As we have learned, cultural claims do not imply universalism. In communal cultures individualism is still present. Yet, in collectivist-leaning cultures, collectivism is the norm while individualism is limited (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005). Some distinction exists between communalism and collectivism in that collectivism can refer to a commitment to group interests over individual ones, whereas communalism is sometimes used to refer to the interests of more specific communities or ethnic groups. African Americans tend to be relatively high in both. Individualism is the belief in the primary importance of the individual; the interests of the individual should come first. Collectivist cultures are those in which the interests of the group prevail over those of
