"Word is BOND": An Introduction to Black rhetoric and Language for Undergraduate Students
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Flip through the syllabus zine below. You can also download the PDF at TCU's D2L companion to the course.
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The UndergradUate Syllabus
Pull up in the park and then pop the trunk |
“Word is Bond” sets the context for how we define Black rhetoric in this class. A more traditional definition of rhetoric goes something like this: the available means of persuasion for the time and place in which we live. When we talk about Black rhetoric, we are likewise talking about communication and persuasion but we do so in relation to justice, freedom, and joy against all odds. Black rhetoric is more than just speeches, marches, and public presentations by Black people, though it includes all of that. Black rhetoric is about freedom imaginations and the ways that all forms of language and communication work towards those freedoms (with all ensuing complications fully on deck).
Rhetoric for freedom is a different kind of flavor and urgency and that’s why we say “word is bond.” |
Though the expression “word is bond” was certainly popularized by Old Skool Hip Hop, it did not begin there. The Old and New Testaments (Book of Numbers and the Gospel of Matthew) both represent the word as sacred and unbreakable. Before the Christian Bible, Ancient Kemet (Egypt) also treated the word as sacred this way. The Dogon of Mali (West Africa) also believe in what is called Nommo (you will hear about this throughout the semester) where the power of the spoken word carries a sustaining energy that generates life, sets one’s destiny, and invokes spiritual power.
When Old Skool Hip Hoppers like Rakim, later-generation crews like Wu Tang Clan, and contemporaries like Joey Bada$$ bless their lyrics with chant-like phrases of “word is bond,” they are not inventing something new. They are re-mixing what they have heard from their own elders, who have heard this expression from their elders and so on, reaching all the way back to slavery. After all, for whom was everything so stripped from their human dignity that all they had was their word other than enslaved Africans? Enslaved Africans were, of course, reaching back too: to their B.C. origins in Africa. So “word is bond” is more than just being truthful. It is about the seriousness of language and all that it does. For the purposes of this class, we will call that Black Rhetoric.
Our study of Black Rhetoric will also include the study of Black language and literacy. Many will be tempted to hear a popular phrase like “word is bond” from African Americans and call it “slang.” What might it mean that a 100+ years-old expression deeply rooted in age-old spirituality is dismissed as informal language? You will be challenged in this course to think critically about the racial origins of whose language is pejoratively called “slang,” “improper,” “informal,” “incorrect,” or “inarticulate” like this. For many of you, that will mean challenging how you relate to Black Language and re-seeing the deep-roots of Black expression.
Our study of Black Rhetoric will further require us to be part historian, part communication theorist, and part curator. We will examine deep histories and the specific time and place in which a Black rhetor is attempting to intervene. We will also look closely at communication styles to hear, see, and feel how a person is doing what they do with language, persuasion, and meaning-making. And last, but not least, we are also part curator because we are always working with real-life artifacts and primary materials, whether that be speech transcripts, comedy routines, letters, lyrics, or tweets. We are never just asking what these texts mean; we ask: what do these texts do… especially for imagining and achieving new freedoms?
This class is a mixture of many things: part writing workshop, part seminar, part laboratory, part social group, part social justice inquiry… but it will be up you to style that alllll the way DOPE.
When Old Skool Hip Hoppers like Rakim, later-generation crews like Wu Tang Clan, and contemporaries like Joey Bada$$ bless their lyrics with chant-like phrases of “word is bond,” they are not inventing something new. They are re-mixing what they have heard from their own elders, who have heard this expression from their elders and so on, reaching all the way back to slavery. After all, for whom was everything so stripped from their human dignity that all they had was their word other than enslaved Africans? Enslaved Africans were, of course, reaching back too: to their B.C. origins in Africa. So “word is bond” is more than just being truthful. It is about the seriousness of language and all that it does. For the purposes of this class, we will call that Black Rhetoric.
Our study of Black Rhetoric will also include the study of Black language and literacy. Many will be tempted to hear a popular phrase like “word is bond” from African Americans and call it “slang.” What might it mean that a 100+ years-old expression deeply rooted in age-old spirituality is dismissed as informal language? You will be challenged in this course to think critically about the racial origins of whose language is pejoratively called “slang,” “improper,” “informal,” “incorrect,” or “inarticulate” like this. For many of you, that will mean challenging how you relate to Black Language and re-seeing the deep-roots of Black expression.
Our study of Black Rhetoric will further require us to be part historian, part communication theorist, and part curator. We will examine deep histories and the specific time and place in which a Black rhetor is attempting to intervene. We will also look closely at communication styles to hear, see, and feel how a person is doing what they do with language, persuasion, and meaning-making. And last, but not least, we are also part curator because we are always working with real-life artifacts and primary materials, whether that be speech transcripts, comedy routines, letters, lyrics, or tweets. We are never just asking what these texts mean; we ask: what do these texts do… especially for imagining and achieving new freedoms?
This class is a mixture of many things: part writing workshop, part seminar, part laboratory, part social group, part social justice inquiry… but it will be up you to style that alllll the way DOPE.
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