#StayWoke: The Language and Literacies of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement
Open accessAbstract
This paper examines the language, literacies, communicative, and rhetorical practices of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. The work pays attention to the communication practices of the BLM and Hip Hop generation in its extension of Black and African American language traditions and prior liberation movements in their unapologetic performance of Black chants, Black grammar, phonology, vocabulary, Black fashion and music, to die-ins, hands-up, and the technologization of the movement through social media, Black Twitter, hashtags, and memes. The language and literacies of the Black Lives Matter movement represent diverse identities within Black community, vernacular associated with various economic and educational classes, diaspora, culturally rooted, Hip Hop generations, cis-gendered women, men, as well as LGBTQ and gender non-conforming. In this way, the language and literacies of BLM promote the value of ALL Black lives.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The 'woke' message first launched on social media after the 2012 killing of Martin by Zimmerman, accelerated by the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and crystallized in mainstream discourses in 2020 with the killings of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, and George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
“The message first launched on social media after the 2012 killing of Martin by Zimmerman, then, it accelerated by the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and it crystallized in mainstream discourses in 2020 with the killings of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, and George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota (Goodwin et al., 2001;Richardson & Ragland, 2018;Rahman, 2021).”
From The memeification of "woke culture": a multimodal critical discourse analysis of its articulation in Essence; O, The Oprah Magazine; and Teen Vogue (2023) · cites this paper as Richardson & Ragland, 2018
In the 21st century, 'woke' regained strength as a term to articulate the passions of an enlightened movement focused on ending police/state brutality against Black and Brown people.
“The 21 st century sees”
From The memeification of "woke culture": a multimodal critical discourse analysis of its articulation in Essence; O, The Oprah Magazine; and Teen Vogue (2023) · cites this paper as Richardson & Ragland, 2018
Cites
What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy
(2004) · Education + Training · doi:10.1108/et.2004.00446dae.002 · Cited by 6,674 · see citing works
What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy
Gee, J. P. (2003) · Computers in Entertainment · doi:10.1145/950566.950595 · Cited by 5,735 · see citing works
Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America
Smitherman, G. N. (1977) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 1,380 · see citing works
(2017) · Anarchist studies · Cited by 1,217 · see citing works
(2000) · Cited by 572 · see citing works
Black talk: words and phrases from the hood to the amen corner
(1995) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.32-3094 · Cited by 421 · see citing works
Multilingual Literacies: Reading and Writing Different Worlds
Martin‐Jones, M., & Jones, K. (2000) · Cited by 380 · see citing works
Ince, J., Rojas, F. G., & Davis, C. A. (2017) · Ethnic and Racial Studies · doi:10.1080/01419870.2017.1334931 · Cited by 290 · see citing works
“The Chain Remain the Same” Communicative Practices in the Hip Hop Nation
Smitherman, G. N. (1997) · Journal of Black Studies · doi:10.1177/002193479702800101 · Cited by 267 · see citing works
Coates, T.-N., Amann, K., & KG, P. R. J. G. &. C. (2015) · CORE Scholar (Wright State University) · Cited by 257 · see citing works
Richardson, E. (2003) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9780203166550 · Cited by 230 · see citing works
Self-citationMuhammad, G. E., & Haddix, M. M. (2016) · English Education · doi:10.58680/ee201628670 · Cited by 187 · see citing works
Digital Defense: Black Feminists Resist Violence With Hashtag Activism
Williams, S. (2015) · Feminist Media Studies · doi:10.1080/14680777.2015.1008744 · Cited by 172 · see citing works
Dictionary of Jamaican English
(2003) · doi:10.37234/xktqxwjt · Cited by 121 · see citing works
Fashioning Lives: Black Queers and the Politics of Literacy
Pritchard, E. D. (2016) · Project Muse (Johns Hopkins University) · Cited by 90 · see citing works
Five Percenter rap: God hop's music, message, and black Muslim mission
(2005) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.43-2098 · Cited by 82 · see citing works
Fashioning Lives: Black Queers and the Politics of Literacy
Coan, C. E. (2018) · Community Literacy Journal · doi:10.25148/clj.12.2.009104 · Cited by 74 · see citing works
Akgul, F. (2017) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-49766-2_3 · Cited by 67 · see citing works
Pidgins/Creoles and African American English
Spears, A. K. (2008) · doi:10.1002/9781444305982.ch21 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Five Percenter rap God hop's music, message, and black muslim mission
Miyakawa, F. M. (2005) · Cited by 15 · see citing works
“The Duty of the Civilized Is to Civilize the Uncivilized”
Miyakawa, F. M. (2014) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9781315024332-11 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
(2014) · Proudflesh
Flagged first, then by citations
1 of the 23 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Race, Rhetoric, and Research Methods
Lockett, A. L., Ruiz, I. D., Sanchez, J. C., & Carter, C. (2021) · The WAC Clearinghouse; University Press of Colorado eBooks · doi:10.37514/per-b.2021.1206 · Cited by 87 · see citing works
Smith, D. S., Boag, L., Keegan, C., & Butler‐Warke, A. (2023) · Javnost - The Public · doi:10.1080/13183222.2023.2273656 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
Gamble, S. (2024) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780197656389.001.0001 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Just Kids: Youth Activism and Rhetorical Agency
Applegarth, R. (2024) · doi:10.26818/9780814215319 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Tweeting Reproductive Justice (RJ) Advocacy through #AbortionMeraHaq*
Ganguly, P. (2021) · ACM International Conference on Design of Communication (SIGDOC) · doi:10.1145/3472714.3473630 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Lofi Hip Hop and Community in YouTube Comments During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Gamble, S. (2024) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780197656389.003.0004 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Eren, B., & Caiani, M. (2025) · Nations and Nationalism · doi:10.1111/nana.70045 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Lenoir, L. D. (2023) · University of Missouri Dissertation · doi:10.32469/10355/94284 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Jensen, K., & Asen, R. (2026) · Communication Education · doi:10.1080/03634523.2026.2626545 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Online Hip Hop Feminism, Rap Music Videos, and Gender in YouTube Comments
Gamble, S. (2024) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780197656389.003.0005 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
How Hip Hop Became the Leading Music Genre in the Digital Streaming Era
Gamble, S. (2024) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780197656389.003.0002 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
THE CULTURAL COMPONENT OF THE BLACK LIVES MATTER CONCEPT
Nechyporenko, V. (2022) · International Humanitarian University Herald Philology · doi:10.32841/2409-1154.2022.56.23
Grant, P. C. (2022) · doi:10.46569/20.500.12680/t435gm63h
Gamble, S. (2024) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780197656389.003.0001
Gamble, S. (2024) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780197656389.003.0008
Virtual Hip Hop Concerts in Video Games
Gamble, S. (2024) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780197656389.003.0007
Gamble, S. (2024) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780197656389.002.0003
Herkman, J., & Heimonen, M. (2025) · Media & viestintä · doi:10.23983/mv.160031
Scott, M. N., Doyle, J., Knight, M. K., & Owusuaa-Foster, J. (2026) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1844718
- Authors
- Richardson, E., & Ragland, A.
- Affiliations
- The Ohio State University (US)
- Venue
- Community Literacy Journal
- Publisher
- Florida International University
- Published
- 2018
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 2
- ISSN
- 1555-9734 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4254363560
- Cited by
- 23
- References
- 23
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 3
- FWCI
- 5.14
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Community Literacy Journal (publishedVersion)
- Florida International University Digital Commons (Florida International University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Rhetoric and Communication Studies
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Race, History, and American Society
- Social Sciences › Linguistics and Language › Linguistic Variation and Morphology
- Keywords
- Black Lives Matter, Black language, African American English, hip-hop culture, social media activism, hashtags, Black Twitter, memes, Black fashion, Black music, vernacular language, liberation movements, Black identity, race and gender
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
