In this segment of Crunk Culture, Robin Boylorn breaks down Missing White Woman Syndrome, a phenomenon that results in an imbalance of attention from media and law enforcement for missing people of color.
Ocean waves crash and wood boards creak as a staggering number appears on screen: approximately 12 million Black men, women and children were kidnapped from Africa and brought across the Atlantic Ocean to be enslaved in the Americas. Nearly 2 million people didn’t survive the journey.
Crunk Culture is a commentary (opinion piece) about creative and sometimes cursory perspectives and responses to popular culture and representations of identity. Dr. Robin Boylorn defines "crunk" as resisting conformity and confronting injustice out loud. Getting crunk, in this space, is a way of engagement that seeks to hold people accountable by offering counternarratives or new perspectives on topics of public interest.Inherently southern and black, Crunk Culture is conscious, creative and intentional about amplifying perspectives that are often silenced or dismissed. The goal is to offer cultural critique that encourages folk to look at something differently and critically.Dr. Boylorn is a professor at The University of Alabama in the Communication Studies department, focusing her research in the areas of interpersonal and intercultural communication. http://robinboylorn.comProduced and edited by Brittany YoungTheme music: "Belvedere" by Rocki; YouTube - Offical
On this week’s episode of the Waves, Robin Boylorn and Allegra Frank talk about the end of an era, the series finale of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. The reality show airs its final episode on Thursday night, so the two discussed the women’s effect on celebrity culture, how they outgrew the need for TV, and how they catapulted to fame in part by appropriating Blackness. Boylorn and Frank also discussed whether the women have grown as we’ve seen them become mothers of Black children. A lightly edited transcript of one part of that conversation follows. Listen to the whole episode here: