Meaning of Blackness | Babel Free

Definitions

1. The state or quality of being black in colour.
   uncountable, usually
2. A suburb of Dundee, City of Dundee council area, Scotland (OS grid ref NO3830).
3. Alternative letter-case form of blackness (“state of being of African descent; culture of African-Americans”).
   alt-of, uncountable
4. Any space that such colour pervades.
   uncountable, usually
5. A small coastal village in Falkirk council area, Scotland; a nearby headland is named Black Ness (OS grid ref NT0580).
6. Darkness, gloominess; depression.
   figuratively, uncountable, usually
7. A hamlet in Westham parish, Wealden district, East Sussex, England (OS grid ref TQ6104).
8. The quality of being evil or dismal.
   figuratively, uncountable, usually
9. A suburb of Crowborough, Wealden district, East Sussex (OS grid ref TQ5230).
10. The state of being of African descent.
    uncountable, usually
11. The experiences and culture of African-American people.
    uncountable, usually

Equivalents

Examples

“The blackness of outer space comes from the lack of anything to reflect light rather than the absence of light.”

“The lights of Luluabourg disappeared, and we were in the blackness of the African night, which was continuously pierced by the showers of red sparks ejected skywards and red hot ashes deposited on the track as the fireman rocked his fire.”

“Out of the blackness came some flickers of light.”

“She had seen so much of the blacker side of human nature that blackness no longer startled her as it should do.”

““Black Panther” is a stunning visual and cultural achievement that takes superhero cinema where it’s never gone before by not being afraid to embrace its blackness.”

“It is Blackless, hence it shares that very quality, Blacklessness, with Whiteness; and it is Whiteless, hence it shares Whitelessness with Blackness.”

“Describes a person or thing that is authentic, the height of something, according to the authentic, natural, ‘keepin-it-real’ standards of Blackness that are believed to exist in ghetto communities. Also ghetto fab.”

“It is a question of 'what we invest ourselves in' (Grosz 1995, 184) and how people live Blackness, Whiteness, Azerbaijaniness, Germanness, femaleness or maleness.”

“The soundingness of Blackness only achieves recognition in a sociopolitical context where the very fact of Blackness holds significant meaning. In other words, the acoustic markers of Blackness are not just about differentiating the vocal utterings and tonal inclinations of particular cultures.”

“In one sense, the tragic mulatto heroine is baboon—babooness, if you will—since she has to deny, or at least denigrate, her Blackness in order to be tragic.”

“From Afrofuturism to hopepunk, many continue to draw on Butler's vision of a future where Blackness and Black people not only persist, but help bring worlds into being.”

“[S]ocial authorities generally design and disseminate selective versions of science, religion, and media that emphasize some elements of social life (e.g., cis experience, hetero- and monosexuality, upper=class experience, endosex [i.e., non-intersex] categorization and downplay or otherwise erase other aspects of social life (e.g., Blackness or other non-white racial experience, trans experience, […]”

“Like those, James’s season still gave noticeably less screen time to its Black contestants—and because of James’s Blackness, the colorism that has always plagued The Bachelor became more visible. Darker-skinned and/or monoracial-presenting Black women were sent home earlier; none even made it to the hometown dating rounds.”

“In the same ways queerness and Appalachianness cannot be separated for some, Blackness and queer Appalachianness cannot be separated for others.”

“While there are some POC clean girl ambassadors like Selena Gomez and Zoe Kravitz, clean girls of color are few and far between. Social media has accepted that clean girls are generally white: A Twitter post entitled "'Clean Girl' aesthetic but make it black" published in May received over 90,000 likes, which exemplifies the fact that Blackness is not inherently accepted as part of the look.”

CEFR level