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This book interrogates John Singleton s 1995 Black cult classic film Higher Learning, set on a fictitious American college campus, as a harbinger of Donald Trump s successful 2016 and 2024 presidential campaigns, the 2017 Unite the Right Rally, reenergized protests by Blacks denouncing public monuments to the Confederacy, the #MeToo Movement, the Black Lives Matter Movement, and student protests erupting after the 2023 Israel-Hamas Gaza War. Contributors use Higher Learning as a fulcrum to explore how racial antagonisms, attitudes of college students, socio-economic disparities, and interpersonal relationships in America have changed and remained the same since the 1990s. From debates over free speech, affirmative action, hip hop music, and K-16 curriculum content, to protests condemning police brutality, this book examines why American college campuses continue to be sites of physical, visual, and epistemological conflicts over the meaning of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. This book also provides recommendations for how Americans might unite to address today s divisive issues and strengthen American democracy.
List of contents
Chapter 1: Introduction.- Section 1: The Damage Wrought by Weaponizing Culture.- Chapter 2: Racial Resentment.- Chapter 3: Black Music.- Chapter 4: Policing and Black Bodies.- Section 2: The Making and Meaning of Campus as Contested Space.- Chapter 5: Black Educators and Uplift.- Chapter 6: Black and Queer Women as Superheroes.- Chapter 7: Black Women and Economic Mobility.- Chapter 8: Invisibility, Intersectionality, and Racial Antagonisms.- Chapter 9: Clothing and Racial Communication.- Section 3: Learning and Applying Intersectionality.- Chapter 10: Lessons on Allyship.- Chapter 11: Being Woke.- Chapter 12: Racial Reconciliation and Community.- Chapter 13: Conclusion.
About the author
Tyson D. King-Meadows Tyson D. King-Meadows is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Norfolk State University.
Shahara’Tova V. Dente is Associate Professor of English & Women’s Studies and Graduate Director of Women’s Leadership in the Department of Languages, Literature and Philosophy at the Mississippi University for Women.
Summary
This book interrogates John Singleton’s 1995 Black cult classic film Higher Learning, set on a fictitious American college campus, as a harbinger of Donald Trump’s successful 2016 and 2024 presidential campaigns, the 2017 Unite the Right Rally, reenergized protests by Blacks denouncing public monuments to the Confederacy, the #MeToo Movement, the Black Lives Matter Movement, and student protests erupting after the 2023 Israel-Hamas Gaza War. Contributors use Higher Learning as a fulcrum to explore how racial antagonisms, attitudes of college students, socio-economic disparities, and interpersonal relationships in America have changed and remained the same since the 1990s. From debates over free speech, affirmative action, hip hop music, and K-16 curriculum content, to protests condemning police brutality, this book examines why American college campuses continue to be sites of physical, visual, and epistemological conflicts over the meaning of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. This book also provides recommendations for how Americans might unite to address today’s divisive issues and strengthen American democracy.
