Oceanic Negroes: Communicating Pacific Blackness Down, Out, and Under

Abstract

Blackness is its own salient racial identity within Australian discourse, in part due to colonial legacies, pan-African activism, global media, and the ongoing influence of the 1970s’ American Black Power movement. In this article, I examine Australian Blackness as an identity that is cultivated through media interaction and discursive norms. As the terms “white (fellas)” and “Black (fellas)” are largely employed through in-group vernacular exchanges, I interviewed 27 Aboriginal Australian people about the personal significance of Blackness for them. Pulling from methods of narrative analyses and interethnic discourse, I ask the following questions: In what ways do Aboriginal people as a minority deploy and make meaning of Black identity through discourse and media consumption? How does their talk about Blackness frame its political and cultural significance, particularly in relation to Black people in the United States? I examine Black Pacific identity outside of (and in relation to) the Black Atlantic and the African diaspora.