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Abstract

Project Mentor(s): Cynthia Pengilly, PhD

Black people of the Progressive era were concerned with how to regulate their behavior to better their position in society. This research will examine the synthesis of gender performativity, critical race theory, Marxism, and psychoanalysis to create an assimilation identity strategy called “Appropriate Blackness” and how it is demonstrated through the sport of Boxing. The case study subject of all these different frameworks is the first Black Heavyweight champion of the world, Jack Johnson, who was the premier Black celebrity during the Progressive Era and thus an example for a specific gender strategy many working-class Black men adopted. His contribution to culture still exists today in how rappers portray themselves. The study's results found depictions of Johnson to be conflicting based on class and assimilation strategies; however, the prevailing ideological camps of assimilationist and confrontationalist both had the understanding that Johnson, as their racial representative, deserved better treatment, as do many Black people. The “Appropriate Blackness” framework can be applied to other Black celebrities and civilians in various fields to test its validity. The identity of Whiteness remains unexamined, and how it is related to the concept of “Appropriate Blackness”. The results further illustrate the social construction of race and masculinity within the purview of White acceptance. The implications of the results underscore the need for further scholarship on the dialectical relationship between Blackness and Whiteness, as these identities are fundamentally opposed to one another. There is also a need to correlate the results with the development of racial identity in the 21st century.

SOURCE Form ID

78

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