Gayraud Wilmore Black Consciousness Summary

Gayraud Wilmore’s Black Consciousness: Stumbling Block or Battering Rami is a piece that explores the intersection of Blackness as identity and its role within the Black Church. Wilmore explores the notion Black spirituality being the carrier of Black identity; while at the same time flirting with the idea that Black (pop)culture is a force contrary to the authentic ontological structure of Blackness. He reduces the artists who engage in the art of rap music or “gangsta rap” as he calls it as “hucksters” (81). He paints the world of hip-hop as vehicle that only seeks to “exploit Black youth” (81). However, he does not deny that this world of black pop culture has a “… a spiritual bond between the poor and deprivilege African Americans and the