What constitutes a martial art? In this episode recorded in Nov. 2024, L and M work out their respective understandings of what a martial art is; they swap stories about their early experiences with martial arts, thinking about visual representations (in television, movies, anime, etc.) or from personal experience. They draw on historical figures such as Jack Johnson, and think with the legacies of Jet Li and Bruce Lee on Black culture.

Notes and Sources:

Luke mentions a boxer from Rockford, his name is Angel Martinez.

Fighting In the Age of Loneliness:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DoaUyMGPWI

“How 1970’s Kung Fu Films Revolutionized Black Culture”, Snobhob:

https://www.snobhop.com/how-1970s-kung-fu-films-revolutionized-black-culture/

Malcom X, “You Need Some Karate and Judo”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQCKMxC0SX4

Maryam Aziz, Our Fist is Black: Martial Arts, Black Arts, and Black Power in the 1960s and 1970s:

https://chinesemartialstudies.com/2016/01/21/our-fist-is-black-martial-arts-black-arts-and-black-power-in-the-1960s-and-1970s/

“They Punched Black: Martial Arts, Black Arts, and Sports in the Urban North and West, 1968-1979”:

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.1086/713680

Theresa Rundstedler, Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojoyner: Boxing in the Shadow of the Global Color Line:

https://www.ucpress.edu/books/jack-johnson-rebel-sojourner/paper

Why Bruce lee and kung fu films hit home with black audiences, Phil Hoad, The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/jul/18/bruce-lee-films-black-audiences