A few weeks ago, I co-facilitated an internal political education (PE) session on culture and cultural work/ers with comrades in Black Alliance for PeaceAP-ATL. In planning for the session, we had several objectives: having a working definition of culture, understanding the role of cultural workers and artists, acknowledging the material basis for culture, and exploring both cultural imperialism and cultural resistance.
1 – A Material Basis for Culture
Culture does not spring from nowhere. Culture and its visible aspects are not creations of dust, but rather the material ground beneath it.
Our discussion was rich, lively, and engaging. I’m always reminded that everyone relates to and is familiar with ‘culture’ in some form, even if they don’t realize it, and that is what makes it such a dynamic vehicle for political purposes. “A culture is a total way of life,” as Walter Rodney defined it. “It embraces what people ate and what they wore; the way they walked and the way they talked; the manner in which they treated death and greeted the newborn.”
Rafiki Morris states in one of the supplemental videos we watched that we often confuse the products, artifacts, and evidence of a culture with culture itself. Rodney’s definition cuts directly to the core of culture itself: a total way of life, which reflects the people’s material realities. A song, film, or painting are all cultural products and artifacts, not themselves “culture.” This is an important distinction because our understanding of culture must account for the material basis from which a culture and cultural products originate.
For example, a Marvel film is not itself “culture” in any meaningful way, but rather a cultural product reflecting the corporate, colonial, zionist, and ultimately bourgeois culture from which it originates. When one sees a jazz funeral procession in the streets of New Orleans, on the other hand, that is a custom reflective of the collectivist nature of African cultures within our diaspora. Between these two cultural products are two completely different class distinctions and material bases.
In determining the material basis for culture, we must follow the footsteps of Rodney and Cabral, and define the economic order of the day. For them, the material basis was imperialism and a particular style of capitalist development predicated on direct colonial violence and extraction. We contend with these same systems, yet with decades of development into Neo-Colonialism as the main mode of imperialist accumulation, and Neoliberalism, or Neo-Liberal Capitalism, as the dominant mode of capitalism of U.S. capital.
Neoliberalism in short is the core belief that society and its institutions work best when engaged with and dictated by the ‘free market’, with austerity measures, deregulation, gig-ification of labor, and deep privatization as some of the key factors. In his helpful book ‘Knocking The Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics’, professor Lester K. Spence shows how this operating logic leads to policy, law, and Black cultural norms promoting private solutions to public issues. In his recently controversial but equally wonderful work “The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power,” Dr. Jared Ball shows how Black entrepreneurship, bitcoin, so-called “buying power”, “financial literacy” and other related propaganda similarly convinces us that ‘Black capitalism’ is somehow a solution to systemic issues of poverty.
Dr. Ruth Gilmore refers to the political and economic order of Neoliberalism as “organized abandonment”. Alongside its political counterpart Liberalism, although often confused, it’s wholly amenable to fascism; both favor monopoly control of markets, deregulation and consolidation of power, and imperialist conquest as a means of dictating social hierarchy over economies, politics, resources, and people.
This is the dynamic and observable material basis that “The Culture” exists within. Culture is dynamic; as societies progress through various stages of development, such as from collective pastoralism to European colonialism in many parts of Africa, the culture shifts and adjusts accordingly in tandem. In other words, there’s a relationship involving culture and cultural workers, an umbrella of cultural labor, and the use/function product artifacts; this relationship is not static because the underlying economic and societal structures underneath are never static.
When Africans were taken to Cuba around 1513 they searched for the Baobab tree, a very important centerpiece of their cultural practices; the closest they could find was the Ceiba tree, and for hundreds of years, they’ve continued their African cultural practices underneath the Ceiba trees. This is an example of the material basis for a cultural practice.
Under our current material basis – Neocolonialism and Neoliberalism – culture is only valuable insofar as it can be commodified, used to amass private wealth or advance the imperialist project, or lately, to wash Black rage.
2 – Bourgeois Culture, People’s Culture, and Popular Culture
While many forms of outright physical violence against colonized groups are relentless and ongoing, this is also just one tool at the oppressor’s disposal. Psychological, social, and cultural forms of violence, often referred to as ‘soft power’, are often more effective and cost-efficient tools to use against populations at a mass scale, says Michael Parenti in the opening pages of his incredible work, “Inventing Reality.” We can observe how both positive and negative aspects of culture, cultural products, and associated social practices are all manipulated and wielded as a bludgeon by the bourgeois settler class. This indicates that culture in the hands of the oppressed and colonized masses can also be a strong weapon and we should therefore understand and interrogate culture further.
This is why the revolutionary agronomist and writer Amilcar Cabral made it clear that one should distinguish between elements of cultural norms, practices, and customs of the masses of people, and the elements of culture which emanate from our bourgeois settler oppressors. That does not mean that cultural elements originating from the masses are inherently positive, however, this is a fundamental distinction to make. One helpful way to make this distinction is by examining the relationship between the base and superstructure of a cultural element or phenomenon. In other words, looking at the economic foundations of production and labor (the base) and the corresponding cultural, legal, and political systems (the superstructure) that dictate it.
Note that “bourgeois culture” is itself synonymous with “settler culture”, because historians like Walter Rodney and J. Sakai have shown that European settler classes adopt many of the ideological, political, and social elements of the culture of the Bourgeoisie, often at their own peril. With its foundations in colonialism, chattel slavery, and genocidal accumulation, the basis of bourgeois culture within the U.S. and West reflects rigid individualism, violently enforced social and economic hierarchies, hostility to collectivism, colonial hoarding of wealth and resources, and valuing of ‘individual freedoms’ at the expense of the collective.
The veneer of ‘Christian values’ continues to influence the narrative justifications for imperialism, and the repressive cultural aspects of that system from the bones of chattel enslavement of Africans. This includes rigid so-called “traditional” and anti-African gender relations, notions of inherently inferior and superior groups, ‘repentance’ over accountability for one’s actions, and devotion to intermediary leadership. Elements of bourgeois settler culture are all around and in all hues of melanin, and are the unconscious societal norm, because this class controls the vast majority of cultural, social, and information industries — from the news and music labels to radio stations, cultural nonprofits, and the land most buildings sit on.
In contrast, Amilcar Cabral and others like Stuart Hall illustrate the importance of making clear distinctions between the culture of the bourgeoisie and settlers, and that of the people. While there’s always a consistent interplay between the two, there are still clear distinctions and lessons to be drawn from diagnosing the origins and context of cultural phenomena, practices, and products. One example from Jamaican Marxist Stuart Hall is the difference between “pop culture”, not as something synonymous with the culture of the masses, but rather a reflection of whichever class rules society. Under capitalism, the capitalist class dominates society, and this “pop culture” is a reflection of their cultural values and practices.
With this in mind, we can look at People’s Culture, the culture of the colonized masses, with a clear and sober understanding. Hip-hop music and culture, for example, was birthed by colonized Africans in the South Bronx, living in the literal rubble and ashes of neoliberal austerity. With state violence, super-exploitation blazed and dilapidated buildings, and poverty as their material backdrop, young Africans made do with a collective spirit and whatever they could reach and created one of the most significant global cultural movements of the century.
Years later, “hip-hop is pop music.” In a matter of decades, major multinational entertainment conglomerates (labels) bought up the vast majority of independent labels and artists. The melanated, retaliatory contours of hip-hop music and artistry rapidly began to fill the coffers of a handful of capitalist industries and stakeholders. Within the blink of an eye, signing to a multinational entertainment conglomerate changed from “selling out” to the ultimate objective for rappers. Increasingly and paradoxically, the “gangsta rap” image was constructed in a label laboratory, while simultaneously hip-hop artists became the go-to brands through which capitalists market products to colonized Africans. Today, Universal Music Group, Sony, and Warner Music Group own virtually all of the artists we consume, all of the artists in the capitalist music charts, and all of the artists selling us endless products and services we don’t need.
All of this is to say that we must take these origins and developments in hip-hop and the music industry to adequately assess the related culture. Today independent artists exist in steadily dwindling numbers, and labels are more invested in rewriting what it means to even be “independent”, with artists signed to major label distribution and PR deals claiming to be “independent.” Nonetheless, can we say that the prominent depictions and industries surrounding hip-hop culture represent “People’s Culture”? With hip-hop culture being incorporated into Pop Culture, it too then becomes a reflection of the capitalist, imperialist, and Zionist capital that dictates it. They surveil the streets for whatever could compete with their capitalist cultural offerings.
In contrast, consider the cultural movement surrounding the Black Power Movement of the 60s and 70s. Emory Douglas, the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party (BPP) who is responsible for the many iconic illustrations that we associate with the Panthers, says that their cultural front was itself a result of serious organizing. As a result of their genuine involvement in political organization, they were in deep dialog and service with their neighborhoods and communities, and understood their needs; from this, they intentionally devised the idea of referring to the police as “pigs” in word and illustration. They were informed by the masses which they were a part of, invested in community and not corporations, and were able to create a metaphor that resonates globally.
From this, they also popularized the slogan “off the pigs”, which could not easily be co-opted or adopted by the state. While the cultural movement of this time is often thrown under the umbrella of the Black Arts Movement, it’s important to know that in addition to formations like the BPP and Revolutionary Action Movement, radical arts and cultural collectives formed during this time like AfriCOBRA in Chicago, Freedomways in NYC, and the Free Southern Theatre in Mississippi were all deeply connected to political organizations, and organized as such. In African communities across the U.S., everyone from children to mailmen to the newly empowered elderly was telling the “pigs” to get out of their neighborhoods.
Advanced technologies and developments in the capitalist system make it much more difficult to decipher the nature of a cultural element, event, or experience. Kendrick Lamar performed his hit diss track “Not Like Us” half a dozen times, back to back, at his sold-out Juneteenth Pop Out, alongside ‘united’ gangs who’d allegedly formed a truce. Culturally, this is certainly significant. But what do we make of the fact that this spectacle was fully sponsored by and mainly profitable to Amazon and Universal Music Group, two of the worst capitalist entities in the world? If the greatest beneficiaries of the cultural production and labor of the beef were the Zionists and capitalists who control the base underneath the performance; what does this mean for the material basis of the spectacle?
3 – Culture Is A Weapon Of The Beholder
In the contemporary political landscape, culture is wielded as a strong, strategic tool by those in power. Politicians, for example, frequently exploit cultural symbols, practices, and figures to secure votes and consolidate their influence. While this process can be a product of genuine organizing with and within the masses, it is usually a corporatized, non-profit palatable, counter-insurgent affair. This practice is clearly illustrated by the use of culturally (ir)relevant individuals such as Amber Rose and DaBaby at campaign rallies for former President Donald Trump, and the slightly more mainstream, ‘sophisticated’, and nonprofitized use of rappers Megan Thee Stallion and Quavo at rallies for Vice President Kamala Harris, who uses popular rappers and performative displays of “Black culture” to appeal to Black voters. This tactic reveals a strategic deployment of ‘culture’ in political affairs and the process of inventing reality, as both a counter-insurgent and political measure.
While blackness and its associated culture are the scorn of ‘tough on crime’ policies and objects of career criminalization every three years, in the fourth year something magical always seems to happen in which political figures in the U.S. remind us how culturally ‘down’ they are. Suddenly, they’re not too good for the Breakfast Club, Verzuz battles, and the BET Awards; in fact, every fourth year, their PR teams scramble to place them in as many acceptably ‘Black’ media outlets as possible.
Harris’s recent rally in Atlanta, featuring Megan Thee Stallion, can be seen as a calculated move to harness the cultural capital of hip-hop to engender support among younger, predominantly Black voters. However, this superficial engagement with cultural icons — tacitly through the non-profit sector — masks a lack of substantial policy commitment to the issues facing these communities. Moreover, it ‘Blackwashes’ or ‘culture-washes’ the Zionist, mass incarcerationist, undeniably harmful political histories of said candidate. It is a clear example of “culture as a weapon,” with the wielder of this weapon being the state and the capitalists it serves.
Walter Rodney articulation of culture encompasses a total way of life that reflects the material conditions and historical experiences of a people. When politicians co-opt cultural elements without addressing the underlying socio-economic struggles, or in fact as a way to wash their crimes against the bearers of said culture, they reduce culture to a meaningless tool for political gain. This exploitation highlights the ongoing battle over cultural narratives and the need for cultural workers to reclaim and redefine culture in the service of genuine political and social transformation.
4 – Is This Culture? Fidel’s Battle of Ideas
Culture itself is not the battlefield, it is a battlefield. Speaking at a conference of cultural and educational workers in 1944, Comrade Mao stated:
“In our work, the war comes first, then production, then cultural work. An army without culture is a dull-witted army and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy.”
If we think of culture not as the end product one commodifies but the result of a people’s wit and will for survival, then by the same measure, bourgeois cultural elements are reflections of the ruling class’s violent dedication to its own survival. Dr. Jared Ball has shown in his extensive work that within this cultural relationship and environment, the colonized masses are on the receiving end of nonstop cultural and psychological warfare.
To turn to Dr. Walter Rodney once more, he elaborates at length about the necessity of cultural research, surveillance, and exploitation in European colonialism and chattel slavery, in History of the Upper Guinea Coast. He explains that religious figures were strategically the first Europeans sent to explore West Africa’s Upper Guinea Coast, as they’d write extensive reports on the local cultural practices, maps of the region, and documentation of indigenous regional affairs. This information would prove invaluable for the colonizers, as they learned that local villages and kingdoms value things such as beads, alcohol, and other culturally significant items, and the colonizers used this to swindle, bribe, and exploit the indigenous leadership. They would eventually force cultural and material dependency into once independent African kingdoms, with spiritual and cultural leaders often playing key roles in forcing European chattel slavery into African society.
The reason for reaching as far back to 1545 for our examples, is to show that since its very inception, the colonial bones of this system require a level of social, cultural maintenance and warfare. The intersection of culture and politics is often fraught with complexities and contradictions, with individuals such as former ‘Fight The Power’ rapper Chuck D proclaiming there’s no contradiction with partnering with the U.S. State Dept, as it carries out a genocide in Gaza.
To raise some of these complexities and contradictions of culture, I asked the room during our political education session, is the BET Awards culture? After a minute of processing, I asked again, and folks responded with a variety of answers. With artists such as Kehlani, signed to a multinational entertainment conglomerate (label), making seemingly “pro-Palestine” statements and joining protests, the contradictions are new and messy. Some artists have made symbolic gestures towards Palestine, a few even mentioning Sudan and Congo, with artists as big as The Weeknd even making large donations to Palestinian aid nonprofits. Yet again, they remain on labels that inevitably fill the pockets of notorious capitalists and Zionists, they continue to exchange their likeness for selling useless products and services to the Black masses, and their work itself remains woefully apolitical.
Two weeks after asking the room if the BET Awards were ‘culture’, to which we came to the consensus that it is a reflection of bourgeois culture, the 2024 BET Awards took place. Their slogan? “Culture’s Biggest Night”, with the “Culture” in reference being that of corporate advertisements and capitalist values. My first time watching the BET Awards in a few years, it felt like every award was ‘sponsored’ by a corporation or multinational NGO.
In a press release bragging about the program’s 3 million viewers, BET’s parent conglomerate Paramount stated that it “proved once again that “Culture’s Biggest Night” is the largest Black gathering for culture, entertainment, and empowerment in the country.” Sponsors for each award included McDonald’s, Walmart, Nissan, Dove, and a range of other exploitative corporations. In between long commercials, notable performances include a near-naked Latto (formerly “Mulatto”) gyrating while repeating “What do I get for my birthday?” a number of times, a near-naked Ice Spice repeating “Fat butt, pull my pants up” roughly 18 times, and Sexyy Red, Glorilla, and Megan Thee Stallion doing similar performances. Whose culture does this reflect? With a real emphasis on “the women of hip-hop”, merged with the usual “Black excellence” talk, it was the perfect audience for a cringeworthy campaign promo from Kamala Harris.
Two weeks prior to these awards, we’d determined that they in fact were ‘culture’ and a cultural event, but not one of the masses. Even if the masses of people enjoy and reflect elements of this culture, that does not make it ours. We own none of the means of cultural production and largely do not benefit from the capitalist exploitation of culture. These critical questions about the nature and purpose of culture in our society can perhaps help us identify and differentiate the instances of genuine cultural expression, something that comes from the masses of working and oppressed peoples, and the co-opted cultural performances that serve the interests of milky white capitalist and imperialist agendas.
The BET Awards present a platform where Black culture is allegedly celebrated, with corporate brands, nonprofits, and politicians all rushing to use this corporate platform to signal to ‘Black audiences.’. However, the commercialization and commodification of such ‘cultural’ events are in a dialectical relationship with other forms of news and social media, as they intentionally omit word of the genocide in the backdrop or the Cop Cities surrounding them, in a grab for the attention of the masses. This is as much cultural empowerment as Chuck D serving as an ambassador for the U.S. State Department. Which is to say, not at all.
Contact Fidel Castro’s concept of the “Battle of Ideas” offers a profound roadmap for cultural workers aiming to navigate these challenges and for those attempting to understand culture’s role in our liberation struggle. Fidel emphasized the importance of cultural and ideological struggle in achieving revolutionary change because the enemy, he says, is undergoing a ceaseless war of ideology, cultural weaponization and eradication, and a battle of ideas. He argued that winning the battle of ideas was essential for the socialist transformation of society, the same way that Fanon, Cabral, and Nkrumah each noted the role of culture in shaping consciousness and mobilizing the masses.
Cultural workers, artists, and ‘creatives’ are not at all synonymous. Some artists are not cultural workers, some cultural workers are not artists, and most ‘creatives’ are neither. Assessing the material basis for culture and cultural phenomena, alongside a sober assessment of the landscape a culture operates within, helps us decipher our role and position in this battle of ideas. In light of this, those of us who understand our labor as cultural workers must critically assess what we engage with and produce. We need to ask: Is this culture truly serving the people, or is it being used as a tool of exploitation? What is the basis of this thing? By reclaiming clarity around culture as a weapon organized either for or against our liberation, only then can we begin to wield its power, and ours in the process.
Author: Musa Springer is a cultural worker, community organizer, and independent researcher. They are a member of the Walter Rodney Foundation, Black Alliance for Peace and host of the Groundings podcast.
Our chapter read the following works for in preparation for the PE session:
Required:
- [READ] Cultural Worker, Not A “Creative” [7 min read]
- [READ] Culture, Colonization, and National Liberation Arnilcar Cabral [10 pgs]
- [READ] THE UNITED FRONT IN CULTURAL WORK [1 pg]
- [READ] The Role of Culture in the Struggle for Independence Amilcar Cabral [7 pgs]
- [WATCH] The Life and Times of Emory Douglas, Minister of Culture in the Black Panther Party [part two] [13 mins]
Supplemental/Additional:
- [WATCH] The Role of Culture in Black Resistance and Revolution [1:52:49]
- [LISTEN] The Black Arts Movement [1:14:00]
- [LISTEN] How Capitalism Underdevelops Hip-Hop [48:56]
- [WATCH] The Life and Times of Emory Douglas, Minister of Culture in the Black Panther Party [part one] [part three] [total 28 mins]
