In this webinar, the presenter takes inspiration from a common expression in Black Language: WORD IS BOND. Though the expression “word is bond” has certainly been popularized by Old Skool Hip Hop, it did not begin there. The Old and New Testaments both represent the word as holy and unbreakable. Before the Christian Bible, Ancient Kemet treats the word as sacred. The Dogon of Mali further believe in Nommo where the power of the spoken word carries a sustaining energy that generates life, sets one’s destiny, and invokes spiritual power. Because “Word is Bond” is such an important and deeply-historied idea in Black cultural histories going way back to slavery, my presentation grounds Black literacies today in that history. “Word is bond” is more than just being truthful. It is about a specific, culturally-based care and attention to Black literacies and languages that can re-direct who we are and what we do with literacy, learning, and our bodies.

Presenter Bio:

Carmen Kynard is the Lillian Radford Chair in Rhetoric and Composition and Professor of English at Texas Christian University. She interrogates anti-racism/anti-colonialism, Black feminist pedagogies, AfroDigital/Black cultures & languages, and the racial politics of schooling with an emphasis on composition and literacies studies. Her award-winning book, Vernacular Insurrections: Race, Black Protest, and the New Century in Composition-Literacy Studies makes Black Freedom a 21st century literacies movement. She traces her research and teaching at her website, “Education, Liberation, and Black Radical Traditions” (http://carmenkynard.org) which has garnered over 1.9 million hits since its 2012 inception.