BlackRhetGurl was created and trademarked in 2025 as a response to the overwhelming presence of GenAI and its problematic relationship to Black histories and cultures. BlackRhetGurl will be a kind of symbol for how we politicize GenAI. You can expect to see more of her!
This website goes hand-in-hand with courses about Black Rhetoric and Black Language.  We follow some of the more traditional practices of African American rhetorical study and closely examine persuasive strategies in multiple Black public texts (song, speech, tweet, meme, painting, letter, essay, etc.)  We focus on Black activist groups, community organizers, performers, artists, writers, and speakers to ask ourselves: how do Black Rhetors dream and language new futures in unjust worlds?  Our key themes will include:  Black gender/ sexuality/ intersectional justice, the sacred-secular continuum, political economies, digital Blackness, Blues-to-Hip Hop lineages, and the history of Black language and literacy.  As a community, we identify Black life as infamous and intimate, loud and quiet, past and present, well-known and forgotten, and we will challenge ourselves to see and feel how Black Rhetoric helps us achieve more critical visions and praxis for racial justice.  Various course materials are housed at this website and you, too, will have the opportunity to digitally curate Black Rhetorical histories.  In the theme song for this page (in the player above), "Check The Technique," Guru from Gang Starr tells us that "it's more than just style, it's conceptual genius." Let that statement be our guiding star!​

HIP HOP RHETORICS & the 50-Year AnnIversaRy

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