Meanings
- uncountableThe process of making or becoming more black (i.e. of African descent) or more characteristic of black culture.
White entertainers like Eddie Cantor (left) cashed in on the blackenization of White America by imitating Black minstrels in blackface.
1980, Louie Robinson, "The Blackening of White America", Ebony, May 1980, page 162 (image caption)2 more examples
Today's blackenization, if you will, of the prisons only exacerbates racist proclivities in nonblack Americans to associate black people with wrong.
2001, Mark Lewis Taylor, The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America, Fortress Press, →ISBN, page 28By far the most important event for launching the Pentecostal movement, the 1906-9 Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, was led by a black preacher, William Seymour. Thus, tongue speaking and other Pentecostal practices can be interpreted, at least in part, as a 'blackenization' of evangelicalism.
2007, Mark Hulsether, Religion, Culture, and Politics in the Twentieth-century United States, Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 68
Origin
Cite this entry
blackenization. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/blackenization
“blackenization.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/blackenization. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “blackenization,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/blackenization.
Source: blackenization on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.