Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Research on the public sphere tends to characterize counterpublics as spaces for marginalized groups to freely express counterdiscourses, yet few studies examine precisely how and why individuals navigate between ‘enclaves’ and wider forums. This qualitative study aims to shed light on these processes by assessing the role of racial context in structuring discourse in predominately black and predominately white poetry venues. Since the mid 1980s, spoken word poetry has emerged as a popular form of cultural (and often political) expression, primarily due to the wide diffusion of ‘poetry slams’ and ‘open-mics’. Through in-depth interviews with poets and participant observation at performances, I show that racial context structured public discourse through the mechanism of double consciousness. Perceptions of white attitudes compelled some poets to engage in audience segregation by limiting certain discourses to predominately black (or racially mixed) settings while others consciously challenged white expectations through intentional subversion. Significantly, very few African-Americans expressed discomfort with critiquing whites and racism in predominately white settings. Blacks most often explained self censorship in wider forums as an effort to maintain positive group representations of African-Americans —not as the product of being unable to critique dominant discourses.