Intercultural Competence: Kendrick Lamar

Intercultural competence is a grand concept that involves many pieces. One important piece of intercultural competence is the idea of race. Race and culture have been socially tied together to the point where we see race and assume culture. This carries a major influence on how we interpret culture and how different groups live together as a society. In 2016, Kendrick Lamar engaged the nation with his powerful performance at the Grammys. The reason his performance was so powerful and engaging was because he passionately rapped about the brutal truth of being Black in America. Kendrick Lamar’s performance can be linked to many important academic theories on race and culture, specifically in America. To understand culture and race in America, one must look back at its foundation. America’s history is one full of racial degradation and horrific abuse justified through racism. From mass genocide of the native people of this land to abducting Africans and forcing them to be the backbone of the American economy as
It’s not as easy as simply escaping the system. Those who the system abuses still must often work within the system because there is no alternative. This is part of the problem of being a person of color in America’s racist system. Wanting to escape but having to work within the system is tremendously taxing. This is especially true for Black Americans. Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks addresses this complex dilemma. “The points of his book centered around the contradiction of being black but needing to adjust to a world defined by whites.” (Newby, et. Al) For an academic like Fanon, there was little to no taking off his “white mask.” A Black artist in today’s America, like Kendrick Lamar, has the opportunity to publicly denounce any white mask and be proud of his Blackness in a society that tries to equate Black with