The Black Power Elites in The Age of Neoliberal Globalization

This article highlights the origins and constitution of the black power elites who would come to serve as the bearers of ideological and linguistic domination for black people the world-over in the age of neoliberal globalization. The work puts forth the argument that people of African descent in the age of neoliberal globalization are under the ideological and linguistic domination of two identities, the negro, i.e., black bourgeoisie, or African Americans, on the one hand, under the leadership of educated professionals and preachers; and the “my nigga,” i.e., the black underclass, on the other hand, under the leadership of street and prison personalities, athletes, and entertainers vying for ideological and linguistic domination of black America. These two social class language games were historically constituted by different ideological apparatuses, the church and education on the one hand and the streets, prisons, and the athletic and entertainment industries on the other, of the global capitalist racial-class structure of inequality under American hegemony, which replaced the African ideological apparatuses of Vodou, peristyles, lakous, and agricultural production as found in Haiti. Contemporarily, given both groups’ overrepresentation in the ideological superstructures of the American empire, they, antagonistically, have become the bearers of ideological and linguistic domination for all black youth the world-over..

Keywords: African americanization; Racial identity; Religiosity; Black diaspora; Spiritualism