September 18, 2025 • 25 mins
Episode 36: Black American Culture
In this episode, I confront a claim I hear far too often—that African Americans “have no culture.” I take two full hours to break that lie apart and show the undeniable truth: our culture is everywhere, and it’s one of the most powerful forces in the world.
I walk through the values that ground us resilience, faith, respect for elders, collective uplift, justice. I break down the taboos that keep us whole like never disrespecting elders, never betraying your people, never letting the culture die. And I celebrate the traditions that make us who we are our music from jazz to hip hop, our dances from the Electric Slide to the Running Man, our soul food tables stacked with mac & cheese, collard greens, and barbecue, our HBCUs, our games, our faith.
This episode isn’t just a rebuttal to ignorance it’s a love letter to a culture forged in fire. I want you to hear the stories, feel the pride, and remember that Black American culture isn’t missing it’s so loud, so global, and so influential that the world consumes it daily.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:13):
Let's roll up as a new high good.
Laughs.
Some good vibes is a safe space to talk about all the dope things that's on our mind.
From word philosophies.
We stay stylish.
Coming rock with me is a good time.
We got the sauce to make champagne.
Which reality? Um, we do it for the culture.
Gotta show him what we can't be.
This is the high life.
Yeah, we also fancy keep it a GS.
(00:36):
We are family.
It's the hood debutante with London.
Bam.
On.
Debutante.
Yo.
Yo yo.
What's up? Rock stars.
Y'all know y'all, you guys knew.
You knew I was gonna make this, make it through the intro without putting my extra twist on it.
(00:58):
Any who? Um, welcome to another episode of the Hood Debutante podcast with.
Me your host, London Bambi, and I hope you guys are doing well.,
Here in America, a lot of crazy things have been happening.
We've had a lot of tragic things happen.
(01:19):
One being that a young man was found hanging from a tree on his college campus.
That was pretty disturbing.
Also, another man in the same state was found hanging from a tree.
Now I should say one, the young man that was hanging from a tree on his campus was black and the other man was white.
(01:40):
And I, they weren't in the same town, but I just find them equally as disturbing because why in 2025, we are still hearing about people hanging from trees like lynching.
I digress.
But I will say, uh, I was in a bit of a fog yesterday and kind of the day before when I heard out, heard about it.
(02:01):
But as Americans go, as, as as American, me being American as American apple pie, we hear about these tragedies and you know, we kinda sit with 'em and then it's like, okay, move on.
Um, and from my understanding, investigations are underway to figure out what happened to these men, but I.
Think we can kind of figure out an idea.
(02:25):
Anywho, I digress.
Today.
Episode is not about that, but it is about dealing with blackness.
All right.
Today we're stepping in one of the most misunderstood and most debatable topic about my people, and that is black American.
Culture.
Now, you may be saying why this topic, and it is because recently I came across a conversation where a man boldly claimed that African Americans don't have a culture.
(02:54):
He said that we don't have no value system, no taboos, no tradition.
Pretty much he was saying we just have scattered survival.
And a person that was engaging him, I don't know if it was an interview because I didn't.
Sit down and watch the whole video.
I just listened to what he had to say about Black American culture, but that person seems to be left stuttering and couldn't answer.
(03:16):
As a matter of fact, I'm just, I'm gonna play the, clip for you right now because I feel like that would be probably the only way you guys would understand what I'm trying to say and where I'm coming from.
So, hold on, let me find this clip here we go.
I found the video.
African Americans in this country are the only groups.
(03:38):
They have no culture.
It depends on who you meet, where you meet them.
But currently there's not an African American culture.
No.
Yes, there is.
What is it? Name two, value systems in the African American culture value system.
Name, yes.
Name two, taboos in the African American culture system.
(03:58):
Name two Traditions.
By the way, in the African American cultural system, there is no value for freedom.
If you don't understand what it is, the concept of free.
You have to have a foundation on which it would balance when you ask for it.
Civil right, they give it to you.
You have no culture.
Nancy, you've been here, born here.
(04:20):
Why would you be surprised if I say African Americans don't have a culture? Or twe.
So anything you, but we may, but I feel like African American culture has definitely, you, you, you say the mainstream? No, you say the word, the African American culture, what is it? Okay.
Fine.
Fine.
Like, like hip hop.
Oh, not hip hop.
I mean, I don't wanna look.
(04:42):
Yes.
I feel like you, Christ, he don't even wanna acknowledge hip hop as a part of culture.
I feel like she was pulling that thread there.
You should know you were born and raised.
Yes, but I have a Haitian.
Are you African American? I'm Haitian American.
That's correct.
Do you see why you are being specific with that? Because anybody who encounters you already knows you before.
(05:05):
If they know you are Haitian, at least two things comes to their mind.
What is that? If they've been to Haiti, they can look at work ethics and they say, yes, Haitians, I know them.
Service industry, they know where they do well food, they can say yes.
And even language Creole.
Right.
And they can say, oh, I love Haitians.
(05:27):
Mm-hmm.
Because they saw the culture in abstract Before they encountered, yeah.
Before they encountered you.
Mm-hmm.
So people go over the bridge of your culture, your tradition, your customs, and that helps them to know how to, to address it Exactly.
Saying.
Any people who ask for these things, which are abstract freedom, for example.
Mm-hmm.
Independence, for example.
Mm-hmm.
(05:47):
And civil rights, for example, voting right.
For example.
You must have a foundation on which these things are going to balance because the people there have to uniformly agree with consensus.
This is our way of life.
The dos and the don'ts involved in our culture.
Even you have to create an artificial culture.
(06:08):
Is that why the civil rights movement? It's considered dead.
It dead and useless.
They got it, but they could not balance it on any foundation.
African American.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
I mean, that just gave me a damn headache trying to even listen to that clip again.
So that clip is what inspired this podcast because I don't think people have a true understanding what is Black American culture or African American culture.
(06:36):
Mind you.
If he's living over here in the United States, he don't understand that, uh, black American culture is the reason he was able to integrate into our society.
But I'm going to get into that, um, further down in this podcast.
Now, obviously I went through the comments and you know, people are saying, dude, what are you talking about? Those people that are knowledgeable, knowledgeable about Black American culture was trying to educate him.
(07:04):
There have been a couple of people that made videos trying to point him in a direction of African American culture, and I am, I'm not gonna say anything nude.
'cause if you know, you know, and so I'm pretty much just gonna build on what's already out there and because I'm part of African American culture, I just feel like for those that have that same misunderstanding that black Americans don't have a culture, I would just put out this podcast so you guys could understand or try to understand what it is if you are really, really curious.
(07:39):
Okay, so let me let, so let me just say this.
If any, if you ever hear someone else say, African Americans have no culture, I want you to stop them right there after you listen to this podcast because not only is it false, it's disrespectful, and today I'm going to show you exactly why.
So we are going to start with the basics, right? And that is what is culture? So let's start with culture.
(08:05):
Culture by definition is the shared values, beliefs, customs, behaviors, and traditions that people pass down through generations.
It's not just the obvious food, dance, music, rituals, but it's also unwritten rules.
The taboos, the way people protect one another.
I agree.
Culture is how you know people live, survive, imagine themselves.
(08:28):
It's like their story, their practices, their celebration, and their boundaries.
It is the map of how people say, this is who we are.
Quintessentially.
Okay.
So when people say African Americans don't have a culture, they're not just wrong, they're ignoring the evidence that's been screaming at the world for centuries.
I want to address this claim head on.
(08:50):
The argument usually goes something like this, the African Americans had their land language and lineage stripped away during slavery.
Because of that, we supposedly have no cultural foundation to stand on.
But here's the truth.
Culture is not frozen in the past.
It's not only what you inherit, it's also what you create.
(09:10):
And us Black Americans, we created a culture in the belly of oppression.
I mean, it is, our culture is so loud that it's powerful, it's undeniable, and the world consumes it daily.
You guys, I'm pretty sure, see.
We didn't just lose, we remixed, we reinvented, we took broken pieces and built something whole.
(09:31):
We built a culture forged into fire.
Alright, and let me show you exactly what that looks like.
So he said that we had no values system and I wanna start there with the value systems.
And it was a creator named, lazy Black man who had the perfect rebuttal for him.
(09:54):
And I'm going to just.
Add on to what he said about the other Black Americans value system because the guy asked for two, so we are gonna give him a few.
All right.
All right, so let's start off with resilience first.
If there's one value that defines us, It, it, I would say it's resilience because we don't just survive, we transform.
(10:15):
We went from slavery to Jim Crow to mass incarceration.
Resilience is not just a buzzword for, for us, you hear it's a lived reality.
Think about your grandma house on a Sunday when everybody used to come over and she would feed everyone, or everyone would bring something and you'll talk about the week ahead or the week behind you, or the elders coming in.
(10:37):
From their work just to still be able to teach, one of the youngins how to fix a bike or how to go fishing or even how to pray.
Resilience.
It's coated in our DNA.
It's the way we like just stand with each other for protection when every car is stacked against us.
(10:57):
We still made jazz, we still made hip hop.
We still put together looks and styles that the world copy amongst all the things that we are going to.
We still have that resilience to be creative and to live.
Alright, collective uplift number two.
Don't believe the whole crime in a ER theory.
(11:18):
They say, oh, you know, you see one person making you try to pull it down.
No, we don't leave our people behind.
The principal truly is each one teach one, and it has been around since.
Enslaved folks taught other enslaved folks how to read and secrets from the church pulpit to neighborhood mentorship programs.
There's always been a push that if I rise.
(11:39):
I'm bringing my brothers with me.
You see it in a way that when we talk to each other, we say, I got you.
You see it in a way.
Black businesses try to shop each other.
Keep the black dollar circulating in a community to see you see it.
In a way we support HBCUs the way that we march together when one of us is cut down unjustly, like that's culture, believe it or not.
(12:03):
Alright, three.
Self-determination.
Even when we were in change, we had the instincts to self govern.
When we were pushed out, like literally everything was against us.
So when slavery ended, we were heavily uneducated, no money, but out out of slavery, we still was able to build Black Wall Street and Tulsa, Oklahoma.
(12:28):
Look at Marcus Garvey.
Look at Malcolm X.
Look at, Harriet Tubman.
We are.
Self-determined people.
The desire to build our own schools, our own towns, our own businesses.
That's not Randall.
That is culture.
That is the drumbeat of self-determination.
That still echoes in today's black entrepreneurs, black school, black price, and grassroots activism.
(12:52):
Okay.
Number four in our value system, respect for the elders, like hands down.
That means we was raised to say, at least my generation was raised to say, yes ma'am.
No sir.
Or, you know, you call your dad's best friend, uncle, you know your mama's best friend, auntie.
(13:15):
We was raised with the respects for those that was older than us.
We used to always say you, you couldn't talk back.
In my generation, you could not talk back and we honor our elders, not because it's polite, but because they are the keeper of our wisdoms.
They are the glue to keep our neighborhoods together.
Even when systems broke families apart, we built respect into culture and disrespecting a elder.
(13:40):
That is a culture taboo speaking.
When he said, we don't have any taboos, that itself is a cultural taboo, but we'll get to that later.
I don't want to digress.
Number five.
Faith and spiritual power.
Faith is the oxygen of the black community, believe it or not, whether it's Christianity, whether you're Muslim, whether you're practicing ancestral practices like DU or Voodoo Faith has always been our confi.
(14:08):
The black church was not just a place of worship, it was the headquarters for the Civil Rights Movement as he spoke onto that, but.
I'm not gonna get into that right now.
Um, faith carried the songs that coded messages for some of the enslaved folks back in the day.
It, it coded messages to help them escape.
(14:29):
We had prayer circles that became protest circles, like Faith is not just a religion for us, it's a belief that we can make a way out of no way.
And that in itself is a value we live by.
Right.
Now creativity as resistance.
We turned sorrow into songs.
(14:50):
We've turned rhythm into a rebellion.
Spirituality became blues.
Blues became jazz.
Jazz became hip hop.
We turned everyday speech into poetry.
We turn dance into defiance.
Creativity is not entertainment for us.
It is survival.
It is the way we turn pain into beauty and oppression into art.
(15:10):
That is culture in itself.
Alright, now let's talk about kinship in a value system.
Kinship Beyond Blood In, in our culture, family doesn't stop at bloodlines.
We have play cousins.
Again, like I said, your mama and your dad friends, they are your aunties and uncles.
Those words are more than nicknames.
(15:31):
Those again, were survival strategies that came from back in the day.
If your family is broken up, you always, you had somebody there to take care of your kids.
Think of godmother.
Godfathers when the slavery and systematic racism tore families apart, we rebuilt families through communities.
We created bonds that no law could break, and that is a cultural blueprint.
(15:54):
Alright, Mr.
Zanu and other people to think like him.
Alright.
And eight, and I, I'll stop here.
I could keep going on, but I don't want this podcast to be super long.
But eight is going to be justice.
So from the Black Lives Matter movement to me too, we have always been at the center of pretty much most major movements.
(16:17):
We don't just want freedom for ourselves.
We stand for the oppressed everywhere.
That's why you'll find African Americans at the forefront of every mo.
Pretty much every move is from civil rights to anti-war protests, to modern struggles for justice.
The commitment.
Is cultural.
We have always known what it's like to be in this position to have to fight for our rights.
(16:40):
So when other groups come in, you'll notice that black people tend to join their movement as well, because we understand that is cultural.
All right, now let's move on to taboos, because we said that he said, we have no taboos.
Like I said earlier, our respect for our elders is a huge part of our value system, so disrespecting the elders, that is a taboo.
(17:06):
It doesn't matter how old you are, you could be 5, 15, 50.
You do not talk back to your elders.
Second snitching, and that is part of our taboo system.
It's something you just don't do with our community.
For example, look at the whole Young Thug, and I believe it was a rapper called Gunna and everybody.
Thought gun, hold on.
(17:27):
Young Thug.
And I watched all these rappers who I guess was gonna friend kind of turn on him, or you know, talk about him online.
It's because snitching is looked down on, and this is deeper than the street code.
This is rooted in survival.
When the systems is designed to criminalize you, you learn not to feed with your own people's name.
That silence was survival and that was culture.
(17:52):
Three public family shame.
You don't air out your dirty laundry.
You don't drag your family in front of the outsiders.
That is taboo.
Even when things are messy, you protect your house.
That's the code of keeping it in the family, and I'm not sure that is.
Even healthy, but it is a taboo.
Okay? It is what it is, but it is one of our taboos.
(18:16):
I'm gonna keep on going.
Stealing without credit.
We call that biting, taking someone's style, their words, their art, and you got, you do it without acknowledgement.
That's the sin in the Black American community.
We, we, we don't like biting around here.
Okay.
We will call it out because our us being creative is sacred.
(18:37):
It, we like to own our intellectual property, so you don't wanna be out here calling, biting someone's style because you'll really be called out for being lame for that.
That's a culture of taboo.
Another culture of taboo is playing with ancestors or playing with spirits.
Even non-religious black people will not joke about like the dead.
(18:58):
We like candles.
We pour out libations.
We say their name because we don't disrespect our ancestors.
'cause they walk beside us and it's something we take serious.
We don't play with the spiritual world like that.
Think about the game.
Bloody Mary.
No, no.
We, we don't do that.
We don't.
Mm-hmm.
No ma'ams, no ma'ams.
(19:18):
We take it really serious and we understand that that world is, the spiritual world is real.
Another taboo is selling out.
Alright? So being a trader to your people, betraying your community for personal games, that's cultural death.
You'll be called like Uncle Tom.
You'll be called a coon for that.
We name it.
And we tend not to forget.
(19:39):
So that's another huge.
Ric, black American cultural taboo.
And number seven is letting the culture die.
Alright, so let's say you are at a wedding.
You better know the electric slide.
You better do the electric slide at your wedding, because if you don't, you're gonna hear about it.
We carry dances, music, recipes, we move all of that forward.
(20:03):
We don't let that fade because that's unthinkable and that is a taboo Or another thing at weddings they do is jumping a broom.
So between the electric slide, jumping a broom, if you're a black American, especially if you're married, another black American.
We better see one of those things there.
All right.
Because it is like, excuse me, you're black.
(20:26):
All right, so now,, that we got through the value systems and some of our taboos.
Let's talk about tradition and black American culture.
Alright.
Did you hear how he said hip hop? Come on now.
Yes.
Hip hop is a part of Black American culture.
Music is our inheritance.
So we not only have hip hop, we have jazz, gospel, blues, r and b, funk, we.
(20:50):
Even have country if Beyonce haven't introduced you guys to it.
Yes.
Country has black roots.
Black musicians have defined the sound of America and the world from Louis Armstrong to Aretha Franklin, to Tupac, to Whitney Houston.
Music is the cornerstone tradition of Black American.
Culture.
(21:11):
Let's move on to dance.
Dancing is our living archive.
All right.
From the Cabbage Patch kid to the running man to footwork, to the percolator again, to the electric slide, to what the new kids are doing.
And the TikTok Tap challenge is because we know black kids make up the best TikTok dances and they always go, viral.
(21:32):
It is because black dance is a tradition and it is storytelling with.
Body.
I'm gonna move on to our foods.
My favorite soul food.
Now, I could go up to many different types of soul food, but soul food is unique to black American culture because it's memory on a plate.
I'm talking about mac and cheese, collard greens, hot water, cornbread, fried southern chicken, barbecued like these dishes.
(21:58):
A lot of them come, A lot of our dishes come from survival, like stretching scraps into nourishment and having.
Something become, sacred, a sacred tradition through holidays because it was passed down from generation to generation.
So we have recipes like that was our great, great great grandmother's recipe in a black community.
(22:20):
We would fight about macaroni cheese.
Who made the macaroni cheese? Who made the potato salad? Because, these recipes have been kept alive and.
A lot of 'em are really delicious.
I'm want to be real.
So if you have had some soul food from somebody's grandma, like great-great-great grandma, you're missing out.
I think let's talk about our institutions next.
(22:42):
We have our HBCUs, the Divine Nine fraternities and sororities.
We have Juneteenth Celebration, homecoming Block Parties.
These are institutions we created to celebrate us, to educate us, and to uplift us.
We even have our own games.
You know, we have Hopscotch, double Dutch Patty K clapping games, single alongs.
Black childhood games are a tradition of their own.
(23:06):
They carry rhythm, they carry memory.
They carry the joy of us.
Now let's move on to our tradition of having faith.
Like we have our Sunday service, our crowd rehearsals, testimonies.
We even have Ramadan.
We again, like I stated before, we have oo voodoo retreats.
Our faith traditions reminds us of our connection to the divine.
(23:30):
It is just we understand that we are, being driven towards something bigger than us.
We have faith that we're going to make a bigger impact on the world around us.
So let's be real.
Black American culture didn't just stay in America, okay? It went global.
Jazz changed music forever.
(23:51):
Hip hop became the language of the youth across the world.
Soul food has restaurants.
In Tokyo, black slang went, yeah, language.
Now that I'm thinking of it, he said about language.
Black slang finds itself in every corner of the internet.
Alright, if you just gonna internet, look into all the comics.
You'll see people saying gang, because like all, all of this is our language.
(24:15):
All right? So when people say What is African American culture, the better question is, how could you miss it when the whole world is eating from our table? Here's my final word.
African Americans don't lack culture.
We have had a culture that is so rich, so influential, and so undeniable that people confuse familiarity with absence.
(24:38):
They consume it so much that they stop recognizing.
Black American culture is resistance.
It's creativity, it's faith, it's kinship, it's music, it's dance, it's food, it's justice, it's joy.
And the taboos we honor and the traditions we carry, it's the foundations we built out of fire.
So next time someone asks, what is African American culture, you can look them in the eye and say, it is one of the most powerful cultures the world has ever known.
(25:10):
Alright, I hope I got my point across, in this podcast.
I didn't wanna make it too long, but I think it's going to be longer than 20 minutes.
I'm sorry about that guys.
Anyw who I'm, again, I'm, I'm also sorry that I'm uploading this a day late.
Like I said, I was kind of in a fog with the horrible news that happened early in this week because I'm a real empath, but it still got uploaded, so I still feel like a win is a win.
(25:33):
It got uploaded a day later.
Anywho, this is London Bambi, and this was episode 36 of the Hood Debutante Podcast, black American Culture.
Until next time, stay bold, stay brilliant, and stays.
Simply you.
I love you.
Mm.
Bye.
Let's roll up as a new high good.
Laughs.
Some good vibes is a safe space to talk about all the dope things that's on our mind.
From word philosophies.
We stay stylish.
Coming rock with me is a good time.
We got the sauce to make champagne.
Which reality? Um, we do it for the culture.
Gotta show him what we can't be.
This is the high life.
Yeah, we also fancy keep it a GS.
(00:36):
We are family.
It's the hood debutante with London.
Bam.
On.
Debutante.
Yo.
Yo yo.
What's up? Rock stars.
Y'all know y'all, you guys knew.
You knew I was gonna make this, make it through the intro without putting my extra twist on it.
(00:58):
Any who? Um, welcome to another episode of the Hood Debutante podcast with.
Me your host, London Bambi, and I hope you guys are doing well.,
Here in America, a lot of crazy things have been happening.
We've had a lot of tragic things happen.
(01:19):
One being that a young man was found hanging from a tree on his college campus.
That was pretty disturbing.
Also, another man in the same state was found hanging from a tree.
Now I should say one, the young man that was hanging from a tree on his campus was black and the other man was white.
(01:40):
And I, they weren't in the same town, but I just find them equally as disturbing because why in 2025, we are still hearing about people hanging from trees like lynching.
I digress.
But I will say, uh, I was in a bit of a fog yesterday and kind of the day before when I heard out, heard about it.
(02:01):
But as Americans go, as, as as American, me being American as American apple pie, we hear about these tragedies and you know, we kinda sit with 'em and then it's like, okay, move on.
Um, and from my understanding, investigations are underway to figure out what happened to these men, but I.
Think we can kind of figure out an idea.
(02:25):
Anywho, I digress.
Today.
Episode is not about that, but it is about dealing with blackness.
All right.
Today we're stepping in one of the most misunderstood and most debatable topic about my people, and that is black American.
Culture.
Now, you may be saying why this topic, and it is because recently I came across a conversation where a man boldly claimed that African Americans don't have a culture.
(02:54):
He said that we don't have no value system, no taboos, no tradition.
Pretty much he was saying we just have scattered survival.
And a person that was engaging him, I don't know if it was an interview because I didn't.
Sit down and watch the whole video.
I just listened to what he had to say about Black American culture, but that person seems to be left stuttering and couldn't answer.
(03:16):
As a matter of fact, I'm just, I'm gonna play the, clip for you right now because I feel like that would be probably the only way you guys would understand what I'm trying to say and where I'm coming from.
So, hold on, let me find this clip here we go.
I found the video.
African Americans in this country are the only groups.
(03:38):
They have no culture.
It depends on who you meet, where you meet them.
But currently there's not an African American culture.
No.
Yes, there is.
What is it? Name two, value systems in the African American culture value system.
Name, yes.
Name two, taboos in the African American culture system.
(03:58):
Name two Traditions.
By the way, in the African American cultural system, there is no value for freedom.
If you don't understand what it is, the concept of free.
You have to have a foundation on which it would balance when you ask for it.
Civil right, they give it to you.
You have no culture.
Nancy, you've been here, born here.
(04:20):
Why would you be surprised if I say African Americans don't have a culture? Or twe.
So anything you, but we may, but I feel like African American culture has definitely, you, you, you say the mainstream? No, you say the word, the African American culture, what is it? Okay.
Fine.
Fine.
Like, like hip hop.
Oh, not hip hop.
I mean, I don't wanna look.
(04:42):
Yes.
I feel like you, Christ, he don't even wanna acknowledge hip hop as a part of culture.
I feel like she was pulling that thread there.
You should know you were born and raised.
Yes, but I have a Haitian.
Are you African American? I'm Haitian American.
That's correct.
Do you see why you are being specific with that? Because anybody who encounters you already knows you before.
(05:05):
If they know you are Haitian, at least two things comes to their mind.
What is that? If they've been to Haiti, they can look at work ethics and they say, yes, Haitians, I know them.
Service industry, they know where they do well food, they can say yes.
And even language Creole.
Right.
And they can say, oh, I love Haitians.
(05:27):
Mm-hmm.
Because they saw the culture in abstract Before they encountered, yeah.
Before they encountered you.
Mm-hmm.
So people go over the bridge of your culture, your tradition, your customs, and that helps them to know how to, to address it Exactly.
Saying.
Any people who ask for these things, which are abstract freedom, for example.
Mm-hmm.
Independence, for example.
Mm-hmm.
(05:47):
And civil rights, for example, voting right.
For example.
You must have a foundation on which these things are going to balance because the people there have to uniformly agree with consensus.
This is our way of life.
The dos and the don'ts involved in our culture.
Even you have to create an artificial culture.
(06:08):
Is that why the civil rights movement? It's considered dead.
It dead and useless.
They got it, but they could not balance it on any foundation.
African American.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
I mean, that just gave me a damn headache trying to even listen to that clip again.
So that clip is what inspired this podcast because I don't think people have a true understanding what is Black American culture or African American culture.
(06:36):
Mind you.
If he's living over here in the United States, he don't understand that, uh, black American culture is the reason he was able to integrate into our society.
But I'm going to get into that, um, further down in this podcast.
Now, obviously I went through the comments and you know, people are saying, dude, what are you talking about? Those people that are knowledgeable, knowledgeable about Black American culture was trying to educate him.
(07:04):
There have been a couple of people that made videos trying to point him in a direction of African American culture, and I am, I'm not gonna say anything nude.
'cause if you know, you know, and so I'm pretty much just gonna build on what's already out there and because I'm part of African American culture, I just feel like for those that have that same misunderstanding that black Americans don't have a culture, I would just put out this podcast so you guys could understand or try to understand what it is if you are really, really curious.
(07:39):
Okay, so let me let, so let me just say this.
If any, if you ever hear someone else say, African Americans have no culture, I want you to stop them right there after you listen to this podcast because not only is it false, it's disrespectful, and today I'm going to show you exactly why.
So we are going to start with the basics, right? And that is what is culture? So let's start with culture.
(08:05):
Culture by definition is the shared values, beliefs, customs, behaviors, and traditions that people pass down through generations.
It's not just the obvious food, dance, music, rituals, but it's also unwritten rules.
The taboos, the way people protect one another.
I agree.
Culture is how you know people live, survive, imagine themselves.
(08:28):
It's like their story, their practices, their celebration, and their boundaries.
It is the map of how people say, this is who we are.
Quintessentially.
Okay.
So when people say African Americans don't have a culture, they're not just wrong, they're ignoring the evidence that's been screaming at the world for centuries.
I want to address this claim head on.
(08:50):
The argument usually goes something like this, the African Americans had their land language and lineage stripped away during slavery.
Because of that, we supposedly have no cultural foundation to stand on.
But here's the truth.
Culture is not frozen in the past.
It's not only what you inherit, it's also what you create.
(09:10):
And us Black Americans, we created a culture in the belly of oppression.
I mean, it is, our culture is so loud that it's powerful, it's undeniable, and the world consumes it daily.
You guys, I'm pretty sure, see.
We didn't just lose, we remixed, we reinvented, we took broken pieces and built something whole.
(09:31):
We built a culture forged into fire.
Alright, and let me show you exactly what that looks like.
So he said that we had no values system and I wanna start there with the value systems.
And it was a creator named, lazy Black man who had the perfect rebuttal for him.
(09:54):
And I'm going to just.
Add on to what he said about the other Black Americans value system because the guy asked for two, so we are gonna give him a few.
All right.
All right, so let's start off with resilience first.
If there's one value that defines us, It, it, I would say it's resilience because we don't just survive, we transform.
(10:15):
We went from slavery to Jim Crow to mass incarceration.
Resilience is not just a buzzword for, for us, you hear it's a lived reality.
Think about your grandma house on a Sunday when everybody used to come over and she would feed everyone, or everyone would bring something and you'll talk about the week ahead or the week behind you, or the elders coming in.
(10:37):
From their work just to still be able to teach, one of the youngins how to fix a bike or how to go fishing or even how to pray.
Resilience.
It's coated in our DNA.
It's the way we like just stand with each other for protection when every car is stacked against us.
(10:57):
We still made jazz, we still made hip hop.
We still put together looks and styles that the world copy amongst all the things that we are going to.
We still have that resilience to be creative and to live.
Alright, collective uplift number two.
Don't believe the whole crime in a ER theory.
(11:18):
They say, oh, you know, you see one person making you try to pull it down.
No, we don't leave our people behind.
The principal truly is each one teach one, and it has been around since.
Enslaved folks taught other enslaved folks how to read and secrets from the church pulpit to neighborhood mentorship programs.
There's always been a push that if I rise.
(11:39):
I'm bringing my brothers with me.
You see it in a way that when we talk to each other, we say, I got you.
You see it in a way.
Black businesses try to shop each other.
Keep the black dollar circulating in a community to see you see it.
In a way we support HBCUs the way that we march together when one of us is cut down unjustly, like that's culture, believe it or not.
(12:03):
Alright, three.
Self-determination.
Even when we were in change, we had the instincts to self govern.
When we were pushed out, like literally everything was against us.
So when slavery ended, we were heavily uneducated, no money, but out out of slavery, we still was able to build Black Wall Street and Tulsa, Oklahoma.
(12:28):
Look at Marcus Garvey.
Look at Malcolm X.
Look at, Harriet Tubman.
We are.
Self-determined people.
The desire to build our own schools, our own towns, our own businesses.
That's not Randall.
That is culture.
That is the drumbeat of self-determination.
That still echoes in today's black entrepreneurs, black school, black price, and grassroots activism.
(12:52):
Okay.
Number four in our value system, respect for the elders, like hands down.
That means we was raised to say, at least my generation was raised to say, yes ma'am.
No sir.
Or, you know, you call your dad's best friend, uncle, you know your mama's best friend, auntie.
(13:15):
We was raised with the respects for those that was older than us.
We used to always say you, you couldn't talk back.
In my generation, you could not talk back and we honor our elders, not because it's polite, but because they are the keeper of our wisdoms.
They are the glue to keep our neighborhoods together.
Even when systems broke families apart, we built respect into culture and disrespecting a elder.
(13:40):
That is a culture taboo speaking.
When he said, we don't have any taboos, that itself is a cultural taboo, but we'll get to that later.
I don't want to digress.
Number five.
Faith and spiritual power.
Faith is the oxygen of the black community, believe it or not, whether it's Christianity, whether you're Muslim, whether you're practicing ancestral practices like DU or Voodoo Faith has always been our confi.
(14:08):
The black church was not just a place of worship, it was the headquarters for the Civil Rights Movement as he spoke onto that, but.
I'm not gonna get into that right now.
Um, faith carried the songs that coded messages for some of the enslaved folks back in the day.
It, it coded messages to help them escape.
(14:29):
We had prayer circles that became protest circles, like Faith is not just a religion for us, it's a belief that we can make a way out of no way.
And that in itself is a value we live by.
Right.
Now creativity as resistance.
We turned sorrow into songs.
(14:50):
We've turned rhythm into a rebellion.
Spirituality became blues.
Blues became jazz.
Jazz became hip hop.
We turned everyday speech into poetry.
We turn dance into defiance.
Creativity is not entertainment for us.
It is survival.
It is the way we turn pain into beauty and oppression into art.
(15:10):
That is culture in itself.
Alright, now let's talk about kinship in a value system.
Kinship Beyond Blood In, in our culture, family doesn't stop at bloodlines.
We have play cousins.
Again, like I said, your mama and your dad friends, they are your aunties and uncles.
Those words are more than nicknames.
(15:31):
Those again, were survival strategies that came from back in the day.
If your family is broken up, you always, you had somebody there to take care of your kids.
Think of godmother.
Godfathers when the slavery and systematic racism tore families apart, we rebuilt families through communities.
We created bonds that no law could break, and that is a cultural blueprint.
(15:54):
Alright, Mr.
Zanu and other people to think like him.
Alright.
And eight, and I, I'll stop here.
I could keep going on, but I don't want this podcast to be super long.
But eight is going to be justice.
So from the Black Lives Matter movement to me too, we have always been at the center of pretty much most major movements.
(16:17):
We don't just want freedom for ourselves.
We stand for the oppressed everywhere.
That's why you'll find African Americans at the forefront of every mo.
Pretty much every move is from civil rights to anti-war protests, to modern struggles for justice.
The commitment.
Is cultural.
We have always known what it's like to be in this position to have to fight for our rights.
(16:40):
So when other groups come in, you'll notice that black people tend to join their movement as well, because we understand that is cultural.
All right, now let's move on to taboos, because we said that he said, we have no taboos.
Like I said earlier, our respect for our elders is a huge part of our value system, so disrespecting the elders, that is a taboo.
(17:06):
It doesn't matter how old you are, you could be 5, 15, 50.
You do not talk back to your elders.
Second snitching, and that is part of our taboo system.
It's something you just don't do with our community.
For example, look at the whole Young Thug, and I believe it was a rapper called Gunna and everybody.
Thought gun, hold on.
(17:27):
Young Thug.
And I watched all these rappers who I guess was gonna friend kind of turn on him, or you know, talk about him online.
It's because snitching is looked down on, and this is deeper than the street code.
This is rooted in survival.
When the systems is designed to criminalize you, you learn not to feed with your own people's name.
That silence was survival and that was culture.
(17:52):
Three public family shame.
You don't air out your dirty laundry.
You don't drag your family in front of the outsiders.
That is taboo.
Even when things are messy, you protect your house.
That's the code of keeping it in the family, and I'm not sure that is.
Even healthy, but it is a taboo.
Okay? It is what it is, but it is one of our taboos.
(18:16):
I'm gonna keep on going.
Stealing without credit.
We call that biting, taking someone's style, their words, their art, and you got, you do it without acknowledgement.
That's the sin in the Black American community.
We, we, we don't like biting around here.
Okay.
We will call it out because our us being creative is sacred.
(18:37):
It, we like to own our intellectual property, so you don't wanna be out here calling, biting someone's style because you'll really be called out for being lame for that.
That's a culture of taboo.
Another culture of taboo is playing with ancestors or playing with spirits.
Even non-religious black people will not joke about like the dead.
(18:58):
We like candles.
We pour out libations.
We say their name because we don't disrespect our ancestors.
'cause they walk beside us and it's something we take serious.
We don't play with the spiritual world like that.
Think about the game.
Bloody Mary.
No, no.
We, we don't do that.
We don't.
Mm-hmm.
No ma'ams, no ma'ams.
(19:18):
We take it really serious and we understand that that world is, the spiritual world is real.
Another taboo is selling out.
Alright? So being a trader to your people, betraying your community for personal games, that's cultural death.
You'll be called like Uncle Tom.
You'll be called a coon for that.
We name it.
And we tend not to forget.
(19:39):
So that's another huge.
Ric, black American cultural taboo.
And number seven is letting the culture die.
Alright, so let's say you are at a wedding.
You better know the electric slide.
You better do the electric slide at your wedding, because if you don't, you're gonna hear about it.
We carry dances, music, recipes, we move all of that forward.
(20:03):
We don't let that fade because that's unthinkable and that is a taboo Or another thing at weddings they do is jumping a broom.
So between the electric slide, jumping a broom, if you're a black American, especially if you're married, another black American.
We better see one of those things there.
All right.
Because it is like, excuse me, you're black.
(20:26):
All right, so now,, that we got through the value systems and some of our taboos.
Let's talk about tradition and black American culture.
Alright.
Did you hear how he said hip hop? Come on now.
Yes.
Hip hop is a part of Black American culture.
Music is our inheritance.
So we not only have hip hop, we have jazz, gospel, blues, r and b, funk, we.
(20:50):
Even have country if Beyonce haven't introduced you guys to it.
Yes.
Country has black roots.
Black musicians have defined the sound of America and the world from Louis Armstrong to Aretha Franklin, to Tupac, to Whitney Houston.
Music is the cornerstone tradition of Black American.
Culture.
(21:11):
Let's move on to dance.
Dancing is our living archive.
All right.
From the Cabbage Patch kid to the running man to footwork, to the percolator again, to the electric slide, to what the new kids are doing.
And the TikTok Tap challenge is because we know black kids make up the best TikTok dances and they always go, viral.
(21:32):
It is because black dance is a tradition and it is storytelling with.
Body.
I'm gonna move on to our foods.
My favorite soul food.
Now, I could go up to many different types of soul food, but soul food is unique to black American culture because it's memory on a plate.
I'm talking about mac and cheese, collard greens, hot water, cornbread, fried southern chicken, barbecued like these dishes.
(21:58):
A lot of them come, A lot of our dishes come from survival, like stretching scraps into nourishment and having.
Something become, sacred, a sacred tradition through holidays because it was passed down from generation to generation.
So we have recipes like that was our great, great great grandmother's recipe in a black community.
(22:20):
We would fight about macaroni cheese.
Who made the macaroni cheese? Who made the potato salad? Because, these recipes have been kept alive and.
A lot of 'em are really delicious.
I'm want to be real.
So if you have had some soul food from somebody's grandma, like great-great-great grandma, you're missing out.
I think let's talk about our institutions next.
(22:42):
We have our HBCUs, the Divine Nine fraternities and sororities.
We have Juneteenth Celebration, homecoming Block Parties.
These are institutions we created to celebrate us, to educate us, and to uplift us.
We even have our own games.
You know, we have Hopscotch, double Dutch Patty K clapping games, single alongs.
Black childhood games are a tradition of their own.
(23:06):
They carry rhythm, they carry memory.
They carry the joy of us.
Now let's move on to our tradition of having faith.
Like we have our Sunday service, our crowd rehearsals, testimonies.
We even have Ramadan.
We again, like I stated before, we have oo voodoo retreats.
Our faith traditions reminds us of our connection to the divine.
(23:30):
It is just we understand that we are, being driven towards something bigger than us.
We have faith that we're going to make a bigger impact on the world around us.
So let's be real.
Black American culture didn't just stay in America, okay? It went global.
Jazz changed music forever.
(23:51):
Hip hop became the language of the youth across the world.
Soul food has restaurants.
In Tokyo, black slang went, yeah, language.
Now that I'm thinking of it, he said about language.
Black slang finds itself in every corner of the internet.
Alright, if you just gonna internet, look into all the comics.
You'll see people saying gang, because like all, all of this is our language.
(24:15):
All right? So when people say What is African American culture, the better question is, how could you miss it when the whole world is eating from our table? Here's my final word.
African Americans don't lack culture.
We have had a culture that is so rich, so influential, and so undeniable that people confuse familiarity with absence.
(24:38):
They consume it so much that they stop recognizing.
Black American culture is resistance.
It's creativity, it's faith, it's kinship, it's music, it's dance, it's food, it's justice, it's joy.
And the taboos we honor and the traditions we carry, it's the foundations we built out of fire.
So next time someone asks, what is African American culture, you can look them in the eye and say, it is one of the most powerful cultures the world has ever known.
(25:10):
Alright, I hope I got my point across, in this podcast.
I didn't wanna make it too long, but I think it's going to be longer than 20 minutes.
I'm sorry about that guys.
Anyw who I'm, again, I'm, I'm also sorry that I'm uploading this a day late.
Like I said, I was kind of in a fog with the horrible news that happened early in this week because I'm a real empath, but it still got uploaded, so I still feel like a win is a win.
(25:33):
It got uploaded a day later.
Anywho, this is London Bambi, and this was episode 36 of the Hood Debutante Podcast, black American Culture.
Until next time, stay bold, stay brilliant, and stays.
Simply you.
I love you.
Mm.
Bye.
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