Her eyes followed her friends’ newly purchased gold hoop earrings as they swayed back and forth in the wind. The majority of sophomore Maya Moura’s classmates wore fashion styles Moura said she recognized as originating from Black American culture. But as she watched, Moura could not help but wonder if her classmates understood where their favorite jewelry, fashion pieces or even words originated from.
Despite the fact that African American styles and trends often go unrecognized, Stanford African and African American Studies Professor Matthew Morrison said African American culture has a rich and complex history, shaping the roots of what’s been considered popular “American” culture for centuries.
“Black American contributions to American popular music, American culture and entertainment start at the foundations,” Morrison said. “That whole enterprise and industry began in the 19th century during slavery through a musical medium called blackface minstrelsy.”
Through the expansion of blackface in musical performances — a practice in which white performers darkened their skin with makeup to stereotype Black people on stage — the Black American community was unable to gain control of their portrayal in popular culture, since European, Irish and Scottish white men dictated those representations, according to Morrison.
“From there, the entire American culture and industry develops through this idea of taking up the imagined or real performances of Black people and developing new genres and styles that are based on those forms,” Morrison said. “But the people who create them don’t sort of fully get the credit that they are due for it.”
Morrison said that after emancipation, music became a key pathway for Black Americans to express themselves and their culture, though stereotypes from blackface performances remained in the audience’s racist perception of people of color.
“They themselves had to absorb these racist representations of who they were as they tried to find ways to flip or reshape those representations of themselves through their musical performances,” Morrison said.
Black artists’ lack of credit has extended well beyond the 19th century. Justin Cronin, a Paly history teacher, said that the role of Black American culture in shaping American culture hasn’t always been widely understood or appreciated.
“[Black American culture has] had more of a spotlight lately, but I know [that while I was] growing up, there was no discussion of African Americans outside of Martin Luther King [Jr.] and Malcolm X,” Cronin said.
Since then, there has become more freedom in the teaching of history classes — perhaps made most notable by the introduction of new courses like ethnic studies, which Cronin said gives him more room to include diverse perspectives within the standard curriculum. Still, Cronin acknowledges that time remains a large restraint in what gets taught, and teachers ultimately have to choose how to shape their class within the time that is available.
“Who [teachers] decide to exclude and who they decide to highlight may be based on some of their assumptions and beliefs, and then individual minorities get lost in the shuffle,” Cronin said. “I would love more of everything, but you can’t realistically do that, so … every teacher has to make choices about what they dive deeper on, versus what they just kind of gloss over, versus what they don’t have.”
While each teacher’s bias can exclude certain cultures, geography often shapes whether parts of American history are taught accurately in the first place, Cronin said.
“Even the simple conversation about the Civil War, in some Southern states, they still talk about it as the war of Northern aggression, and they say it was fought over states’ rights when it was fought over the institution of slavery,” Cronin said. “You have textbooks coming up in Texas that talk about enslaved people as workers or immigrants, not truly capturing what was transpiring with the Atlantic slave trade.”
For Cronin, the solution is something close to Paly’s new ethnic studies course — a class that puts the spotlight on the histories and contributions of marginalized groups that are often sidelined in traditional history classes — applied universally to how American history is taught.
“It should just be regular U.S. history,” Cronin said. “But unfortunately, we’re not quite there yet with thinking about regular U.S. history and in the way of these multiple perspectives.”
Another curriculum offered at Paly to highlight minority groups is the Social Justice Pathway. Moura said her teachers within SJP have been able to represent minority groups that she felt were previously overshadowed in her school experience.
“I feel like there are very few Black or African American people in my grade, probably not more than 12 in every new year of school that I go into,” Moura said. “Especially here [in Palo Alto,] I feel like a lot of people lose their culture. In my personal story, I feel like I don’t celebrate my black side of the family as much.”
Cronin attributes the lack of a black community in Palo Alto to systemic barriers that have made it difficult for families to enter the rich climate.
“Palo Alto used to be a place where they didn’t allow black people to own homes,” Cronin said. “It used to be written into the contracts at the bottom that they couldn’t be sold to minorities. So, when we’re talking about history, it’s not that far from where we sit in terms of years.”
Cronin added that the restriction of Black families buying houses in Palo Alto in the 1950s prevented them from building wealth in the area, which was part of a wider problem that played out across the United States.
“When you look at statistics, we still live in a very segregated society,” Morrison said. “We imagine that we’re more integrated because of the way that culture circulates in the media.”
However, Morrison’s methodology enables him to see the complexity in his studies and within that, the multiple sides to different historical events.
“Both segregation creates inequality, and then the segregation sort of allows for a certain kind of black cultural self-sufficiency that was then directly targeted by those same segregation policies,” Morrison said.
While Morrison acknowledges the structural segregation in the United States, he has also witnessed the unique presence of the Black American community in different geographical locations through his experience of living and teaching in different regions of America.
“I find that in California, the proximity to blackness is very distant from what it is in the South, [due to] the legacy of slavery,” Morrison said.
Moura has acknowledged a similar shift in black presence in Palo Alto, despite its diversity.
“I feel like there are a lot of different ethnicities here,” Moura said. “I just feel like the black community is not one of the majority.”
With the smaller African American population in Palo Alto, Moura has seen how this influences her classmates’ interpretation of black culture.
“With braids or cornrows, it has a very racial background, rooted in slavery, so it can feel disrespectful when something that has deep cultural significance gets treated like a trend or some sort of costume,” Moura said.
With time, Moura has grown to attribute this behavior not to hostility, but to a lack of understanding.
“I’d say my classmates are kind of 50-50 — some acknowledge [where trends originate from] and some kind of don’t really think beyond their race,” Moura said.“Especially when you live in a place like Palo Alto, … it’s really important to understand that there are different people living here and to try your best to understand, respect and appreciate the different cultures that you’re being surrounded by.”
According to Senior Kamili Fossati-Moiane, co-president of Paly’s Black Student Union, because of the lack of Black representation in Palo Alto, the Black Student Union is very important to uniting the Black community.
“[As co-president], I get to plan events and work with the Black community at Paly and bring them together,” Fossati-Moiane said. “I feel that’s really important, because I feel like the Black people at Paly are super separated; they’re not really in the same friend groups. So, BSU is a way to bring us all together and relate and talk about relevant topics and current events.”
For Moura, Paly’s Black Student Union has been a safe haven, and she views it as a great place for her classmates to gain better awareness of black culture.
“Events like Black History Month programs, cultural clubs and even classroom discussions give students a chance to see the diversity and contributions of the Black community,” Moura said. “I think it also helps students see that Black culture isn’t just one thing; it’s varied, rich and evolving.”
Fossati-Moiane encourages more people to attend Black Student Union, even if they’re not Black themselves.
“I think [more students] definitely should [attend], some of my friends who aren’t African American or some of my sister’s friends show up,” Fossati-Moiane said. “I think it’s really nice because they get to experience and learn more about a different culture that’s not theirs.”
While Moura does not always see her classmates giving Black culture proper credit for its contributions to American society, Cronin said Black culture and popular culture in America are largely one and the same.
“What is originally ‘American’ rock and roll comes from Black music [and artists], as does rap and hip hop,” Cronin said. “But at its core, [popular American music] tends to be African American music.”
According to Luminate and Billboard, R&B/hip-hop is the most streamed genre of music in America, and Edison Research recognized rap/hip-hop, pop and R&B as the most popular music genres for listeners aged 13 to 24. Cronin said that Black music’s popularity among the younger generation is no accident — music that is born from struggle naturally resonates with teenagers may relate.
“It’s the art of the oppressed,” Cronin said. “When you think about teenagers, teenagers often feel like they’re oppressed, and so the music that they tend to like is frowned upon by the generation before, which is usually their parents.”
This trend is visible in Paly’s own hallways, where sophomore Justin Chen has watched rap and hip-hop become the soundtrack of his peers’ lives.
“Rap is probably the most popular genre of music among people my age,” Chen said. “Almost everyone I know at Paly listens to rap and hip hop.”
The influence of Black culture on the foundations of American culture extends far past music.
According to a study on Gen Z language from the Journal of Sociolinguistics, African American Vernacular English is often rebranded into “Tiktok language” and Gen Z slang, despite much of this slang originating from African American culture. According to Chen, this slang is popular among high schoolers as a result of its internet popularity.
“There are so many words and phrases used so commonly these days that originated from Black music or culture, such as slang words like ‘lowkey,’” Chen said.
Moura said the widespread adoption of these phrases has not always been accompanied by awareness within its users.
“African American Vernacular English has a rich cultural and linguistic background that isn’t always recognized or spoken about,” Moura said. “I just wish my classmates were more mindful of the culture behind what they’re participating in.”
Moura attributes part of the popularity of these phrases among her classmates to their rise in social media.
“Social media especially makes it harder to learn the history, because when something is trending, everyone just follows along,” Moura said. “And in that process, we not only miss out on learning about different cultures, but we also miss out on discovering our true selves if all we do is chase the next trend.”
The popularity of Black American trends, music and slang only adds to the value of African American artists’ creations that Morrison said have yet to be recognized.
“I’m not sure that [Black American cultural contributions] can ever be recognized fully for the value that it has contributed because … our systematic structures of racism prevent Black Americans, in many ways, from being seen as capable of producing certain types of things that are worthy of being recognized for their value,” Morrison said. “The problem is a racist structural system that comes out of slavery that has not yet been addressed.”
According to Chen, these diverse cultural contributions have become even more important to acknowledge in the present day, especially as he sees the lack of recognition get even worse.
“We’re seeing a growing sentiment of decreasing appreciation of these minority cultures, and I think that’s something that needs to be changed,” Chen said. “With the recent administration, we’ve seen a lot of actions regarding how culture is recognized, specifically in museums and government institutions.”
According to ABC, the White House has ordered the Smithsonian Institute to undergo a federal review, which would require them to get rid of exhibits relating to race and gender that “cast American milestones in a negative light.” As these perspectives in museums and other institutions change, Morrison said that it is critical to make sure we are keeping the full truth intact to prevent us from accepting false portrayals of history.
“There’s even more urgency, in some ways, to make sure that we are preserving certain historical truths as they’re trying to be directly challenged and erased as facts though we know that they are,” Morrison said. “Because that’s how fascism takes hold, by creating its own narratives that are not true, that they’ll become the dominant narrative acceptance for however long people accept that narrative.”
With the critical importance of conserving historical facts Morrison describes, Chen says it is fundamental to understand the diverse cultures of minorities as the foundation of American culture, especially now.
“Recognizing diverse culture is important because at the end of the day, diverse culture is what built American society as we know it today,” Chen said.
