Diachronic Comparison of the Terms
The most frequent right (R1) collocates with the adjective (people, America and community) are used consistently in Coates’s discourse on race over the 22-year period, although the frequency order of the terms differs between periods, as illustrated in Table 2. However, in Period 5 there is a noticeable absence of the collocates America and community (singular), though the collocation with the plural communities is present. Note that in Period 5 collocations of black with community and America occur 6 and 5 times respectively (Table 2 displays items with a minimum frequency of 10).
Table 2 Concordance patterns with black (R1) in COCO over five periods (raw frequencies) The distribution of the identity terms in five COCO sub-corpora is presented in Table 3. The search parameters were black people*, black America* and black communit* (with 244, 187 and 102 hits respectively across the corpus) where the asterisk (*) was used as a wildcard character allowing us to retrieve instances of plural and possessive uses of the nouns as well as instances of black American(s). The term black America/’s occurred 160 times, black AmericanFootnote 1 4 times, and black Americans 23 times.
Table 3 Distribution of group identity terms in COCO over five periods (raw frequencies) Diachronically, the normalized frequencies of the five terms per 100,000 words are shown in Fig. 1. Black America* and African*Americans were the most frequent terms in Period 2 (2001–2005). However, in Period 3 (2006–2011), rates decreased to various extents for all the terms but black people, which slightly increased during the period. Interestingly, this development coincided with Obama’s presidential campaign and election as the first African American U.S. president.
The decrease in frequency of race-related identity terms suggested some kind of re-evaluation in Coates’s representation of Black American identity. In Period 4 (2012–2015), the use of black people and blacks increased dramatically, overtaking African(–)Americans and black America. The term black community/communities displayed fluctuation from Period 1 to Period 5 but their use stayed relatively stable compared to the other terms. The five terms under analysis were subjected to a close-reading procedure to determine patterns in contextual uses. The findings of the qualitative stage of the analysis are presented below.
Analysis of Pragmatic Evaluation of the Terms
To uncover differences and similarities in the representation of Black Americans in COCO, an analysis of semantic and pragmatic features associated with the five terms was conducted. Concordance lines with the terms as subject were analyzed in terms of semantic roles (grammatically expressed evaluation) and pragmatic prosody (pragmatically expressed evaluation).
Coates’s verb choice is influenced by participants’ semantic roles. Based on the frequency and types of verbs with the terms as subject in COCO (Table 4), we observe that the group identity terms in subject position implied the semantic role of AGENT (6), EXPERIENCER/THEME (7) or PATIENT, as in (5). In other words, the terms refer to either an entity in control of an action and its environment, one whose state or experience is described, or one affected by an action/subjected to a process, respectively.
(6) At this very hour, black people all across the South are still fighting the battle which they joined during Reconstruction—securing equal access to the ballot—and resisting a president whose resemblance to Andrew Johnson is uncanny. (COCO, 2017–ATL August 4).
(7) While there exists a good deal of writing on jazz and the blues, a lot of it was done by white writers, which shows how much we African–Americans treasure our music. (COCO, 1996–WCP, October 4).
Table 4 Verbs with the terms as subject in COCO
For example, verbs related to state, experience, sense or cognition (e.g., be, have, know, want, suffer, enjoy, think, etc.) assigned the role of EXPERIENCER/THEME; whereas action verbs (e.g., produce, fight out, vote, choose, give, compete, etc.) implied the role of AGENT, unless they were used in passive voice constructions which would reverse the order of participants and assign the role of PATIENT to the term in subject position.
The distribution of semantic roles in subject position is presented in Table 5. Here, two terms, African(–)Americans and black America/Americans, exhibit similar patterns of distribution—more than half of the verbs (52 and 54%, respectively) relate to experience, cognition and descriptions of state. In addition, these terms are used less frequently in passive constructions (8% as PATIENT) compared to the other terms. Considering the diachronic distribution of instances of the five terms (see Fig. 1), African(–)Americans and black America/Americans were most frequently used in Period 2 (2001-2005).
Table 5 Distribution of semantic roles of group identity terms (as subject) in COCO To identify the pragmatic meaning(s) of the terms, the concordance lines of African(–) Americans and black America/Americans with verbs projecting the semantic role of AGENT (a performer and controller of an action) were subjected to the close reading procedure. Particular attention was paid to action verbs implying volition or exercise of power/control, such as vote, accept, confront, reject, create, denounce, make, embrace, etc. The procedure revealed overall positive evaluation of both terms in light of the notion of control. For example, the collocation of African(–)Americans with vote and the verb phrase cast [votes], occurs 5 times in COCO, as in (8)–(10).
(8) In 2000, African Americans actually cast more votes for Al Gore than they had for Bill Clinton. (COCO, 2004–VV, January 6).
(9) While African Americans in several states voted to ban gay marriage, they also voted overwhelmingly against George Bush. (COCO, 2004–VV, November 2).
(10) But November’s electoral math is clear—African Americans didn’t just vote in 2012, they voted at a higher rate than the general population. (COCO, 2013–ATL, March 2013 issue).
Vote (intransitive) and cast [a vote] are defined as “to give a vote, to exercise the right of suffrage; to express a choice or preference by ballot or other approved means” (Oxford English Dictionary (OED) (2020) s.v. vote v.). The definition highlights a conscious decision to express a preference, which ascribes the role of AGENT to the participant, African(–)Americans. The context further emphasizes the role of African(–)Americans as acting with volition and making conscious choices. Thus, the term African(–)Americans, is in this case positively evaluated by Coates in terms of control, projecting a relatively high degree of control over events and one’s environment.
However, at times Coates seems to question the level of control exercised and acted upon by Black Americans. For example, confront meaning “to face in hostility or defiance; to present a bold front to, stand against, oppose” (OED 2020s.v. confront v.), as in (11), is used figuratively by Coates as it is preceded by the adverb loudly, implying verbal opposition.
(11) At those times when African Americans have loudly confronted the issue of police brutality, they have frequently turned it into an employment issue, singling out the lack of minorities within various police departments as the root of the problem, rather than the behavior of the officers overall. (COCO, 2001–WM, June1).
The context of the utterance suggests that Coates deems African Americans’ verbal opposition to the issue of police brutality as incomplete since it does not address the root of the problem. Thus, Coates linguistically and pragmatically downgrades the degree of control ascribed to African Americans in this case.
Similarly, the term black America/Americans projected a positive evaluation by Coates in terms of control. In (12), the collocation of black America with the verb produce, which is defined as “to bring into being or existence” (OED 2020, s.v. produce v.), occurred with expressions like the vanguard of black American leadership and the two most visionary leaders, in which leadership and leaders imply control.
(12) From the 1960s into the early '70s, the vanguard of black American leadership took some tremendous hits. We lost Malcolm and Martin, arguably the two most visionary leaders black America has ever produced. (COCO, 1996–WCP December 20).
Hence, the prosody associated with black America could be considered positive in this example. However, the context in (12) also evokes a sense of loss and uncertainty via the verb phrase took some tremendous hits and the verb lost. Thus, the extent of control associated with the term black America is pragmatically decreased.
Another interesting example of positive pragmatic prosody is illustrated by Coates’s use of the motion verb walk with black America as in (13). The full extract is provided below in order to present the collocation (black America is walking) within its contextual environment.
(13) On the night of his victory, Barack Obama talked about Ann Nixon Cooper, a black woman who, at the age of 106, had voted for him. […] He presented Nixon Cooper as an African American who was not doubly conscious, just conscious. That is the third road that black America is walking. It’s not coincidental that two black people from the South Side are leading us on that road. If you’re looking for the heralds of a “post-racial” America, if that adjective is ever to be more than a stupid, unlettered flourish, then look to those, like Michelle Obama, with a sense of security in who they are—those, black or white, who hold blackness as more than the losing end of racism. (COCO, 2009–ATL January/February 2009 issue).
The immediate context of black America is walking identifies the path as the third road. Earlier in the same article, ‘American Girl’, Coates (2009) describes the act of “black folks […] taking a third road” as being themselves as they move into mainstream America. Therefore, the prosody of the term black America in this context projects a strong positive evaluation in terms of having control over one’s environment expressed through the image of confident movement.
As mentioned earlier, African(–)Americans and black America/Americans, two positively evaluated terms in COCO, were replaced by black people and blacks in Period 4 (2012–2015). In contrast with the former terms, the latter occurred in more negative contextual environments with regard to control. For example, black people, like African(–)Americans, collocates with the verb vote as in “to express a choice or preference by ballot or other approved means” (OED 2020s.v. vote v.). Three instances of vote following the term black people were observed as in (14)–(15).
(14) I have no doubt that you are being told that by virtue of divine edict, black people will never vote Republican; that hating conservatives is our birthright; that at least since the 1930s, our foreheads have been stamped “property of DNC.” (COCO, 2001–WM October 1).
(15) Yet there is an underappreciated fact about black America that anyone armed with a decent survey could see: Black people vote like Democrats, but on social issues they think like Republicans. (COCO, 2003–VV September 23).
However, here Coates seems to underline a tension between Black Americans and their representation by the Democratic and Republican parties. The situations portrayed in (14)–(15) involve asymmetrical power relationships: between Black Americans and the political establishments. Though Black Americans have a right to vote, they might not always vote in their own interests, and therefore, lose the ability to control or influence affairs.
Example (16) illustrates the use of the verb achieve with black people. Achieve (transitive) is defined as “to carry out successfully, bring to a successful conclusion” (OED 2020s.v. achieve v.2).
(16) White Americans finding easy comfort in nonviolence and the radical love of the civil-rights movement must reckon with the unsettling fact that black people in this country achieved the rudiments of their freedom through the killing of whites. (COCO, 2012–ATL February 2012 issue).
Arguably, this utterance exemplifies embedded evaluation as lexical items interact with each other. Coates employs a seemingly positive evaluation referring to the Civil War and Black people’s achievement of some degree of freedom: that black people in this country achieved the rudiments of their freedom. However, he surrounded this statement with items of negative evaluation: the unsettling fact, the rudiments of their freedom and through the killing of whites, giving this part of the sentence overall negative evaluation. In (16), Coates also presents two different points of view: the strings white Americans, easy comfort, nonviolence, and the radical love of the civil right movement cohere in contrast with reckon, the unsettling fact, and the killing of whites.
The contextual examination of collocations of black people with action verbs revealed Coates’s overall negative pragmatic evaluation. In other words, the term black people is used in contexts which highlight participants’ lack of control and at the same time add emphasis to negative/undesirable consequences of not having control.
Similarly, negative pragmatic evaluation was observed in COCO with the term blacks. For example, two action verb collocates with the term, start (17) and advance (18), were preceded by the auxiliary should which expresses obligation/expediency, rather than control. Furthermore, both instances occur in contexts where the point of view and the evaluation are attributed to other voices: Bill Cosby in (17) and Booker T. Washington (18).
(17) Instead of waiting for handouts or outside help, Cosby argues, disadvantaged blacks should start by purging their own culture of noxious elements like gangsta rap, a favorite target. (COCO, 2008–ATL May 2008 issue).
(18) He [Booker T. Washington] argued that southern whites should be given time to adjust to emancipation; in the meantime, blacks should advance themselves not by voting and running for office but by working, and ultimately owning, the land. (COCO, 2008–ATL May 2008 issue).
Some action verbs (hire out, protest, etc.) project negative evaluations because they co-occur in the context of negation, as in (19).
(19) Blacks could never hire out their labor. (COCO, 2016–ATL June 27).
In addition to action verbs with possible implications for the notion of control, examination of instances with the verbs flee and cast off revealed implications for the conceptualization of Black Americans’ group identity. In (20), the situational context of the first instance of flee refers to the Great Migration, the movement of approximately 6 million African Americans from the rural South into the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West between 1916 and 1970 (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2020). Coates echoes writer Isabel Wilkerson who compares the act of fleeing to the notion of escape from oppression into freedom. This interpretation of blacks who fled implies a level of control as the decision to leave is followed through. However, in the second instance of flee in (20) Coates adds another interpretation of the notion of fleeing in the African American context: Black Americans with a lighter complexion reject their Black identity to assimilate into the white majority.
(20) The runaway slave is a fixture in the American imagination. As the writer Isabel Wilkerson notes in her account of the Great Migration, the blacks who fled the South during the 20th century “did what human beings looking for freedom, throughout history, have often done. They left.” There is also a less reputable history of fleeing among African Americans—the tradition of those blacks light enough to “pass” as white and disappear into the overclass. (COCO, 2016–ATL October 2016 issue).
In this case, the notion of fleeing (there is no explicit use of flee here) is negatively evaluated as it is less reputable and those blacks disappear into the overclass.
Another verb used by Coates with reference to Black American identity is the phrasal verb cast off. Example (21) illustrates an explicit link between the contextual use of the verb and Black American identity as the NP their identity functions as a direct object of cast off.
(21) Fighting against white racism is at the heart of black identity, so much so that a generation ago, men who were considered pro-black were called race men. But Graham's interviewees have only a surface interest in struggle. The only fight they deem worthy is the battle to be white. At its worst, this psychosis is manifest when light-skinned, straight-haired blacks cast off their identity and literally become white. (COCO, 1999–WCP May 21).
Though the verb cast off in (21), like the notion of fleeing in the second instance in (20), implies a conscious decision by the subject and could be interpreted as having a degree of control over one’s life and environment, the context suggests a strong negative evaluation by the author since both notions are explicitly linked to rejection of Black identity. In other words, the use of such verbs in figurative contexts provides negative evaluations, whereas flee used literally is interpreted positively. However, this is the only instance of the term blacks displaying a somewhat positive evaluation with regards to the notion of control.
The term black community/communities projected somewhat positive evaluation collocating with 5 action verbs in COCO (excuse, say, demonstrate, commit, refuse). For example, the verb refuse, defined as “to decline to do something; to reject” (OED 2020, s.v. refuse v.), implies a conscious choice and an action intentionally performed by an animate subject (a person, a group of people, collectivity, etc.).
(22) The black community refused to comply with expectations, and instead turned out in droves. In 2012 […] black turnout was not fueled by demographic growth but by a higher percentage of the black electorate going to the polls. (COCO, 2013–ATL March 2013 issue).
The description of events in (22) is framed within a discourse on Obama’s re-election in 2012. The contextual environment points to several expressions of the participant (black community) being in control of events. For example, the black community does not act as observers expect, but consciously makes a decision to turn out at the polls. The volitional aspect of this action is amplified by the statement that the high turnout of Black voters was not due to demographic growth, but to the fact that more Black Americans performed the dynamic action of going to the polls. In other words, the black community in (22) was portrayed as having the ability and will to control events. Therefore, the pragmatic prosody of the term black community in (22) had a positive evaluation in terms of control as projected by the author.
Another action verb implying volition which collocates with black community, is the verb commit (23), defined as “to carry into action deliberately” (Merriam-Webster, 2020).
(23) Cosby was an avowed race man, who, like much of his generation, had come to feel that black America had lost its way. The crisis of absentee fathers, the rise of black-on-black crime, and the spread of hip-hop all led Cosby to believe that, after the achievements of the 1960s, the black community was committing cultural suicide. (COCO, 2008–ATL May 2008 issue).
The immediate context suggests that the black community was committing cultural suicide, which would be evaluated negatively in terms of control. While the verb commit describes a deliberate action performed by the participant (AGENT), its collocate, the NP cultural suicide, implies loss of control over one’s environment. But the extended context of (23) specifies that the expression the black community was committing cultural suicide is attributed to the perspective of another voice, Bill Cosby. Using the verb phrases had come to feel and led Cosby to believe, Coates makes it clear that, in his opinion, Cosby’s perspective is a belief or feeling rather than a fact. Thus, Coates implicitly disagrees with Cosby’s negative evaluation of black community […] committing […] suicide as he does not consider it a statement that reflects reality.
In summary, the diachronic comparison of the terms (Fig. 1) and the analysis of pragmatic evaluation show that, in his early career, Coates frequently used the terms black America/Americans and African(–)Americans to represent Black Americans as a group which has some control over events and their environment. However, as also displayed in Fig. 1, the use of these terms decreased in Period 3 (2006–2011) signaling some sort of re-evaluation. In Period 4 (2012–2015), the use of black people and blacks, which portrayed more negative evaluation in terms of control, dramatically increased while the more positively evaluated black America/Americans and African(–)Americans decreased in usage. The term black community/communities remained relatively stable in frequency over time; however, the plural form became more frequent in Period 5 as a possible reflection of diversification among Black Americans in Coates’s writings.