Partyin' with a Purpose: Black Respectability Politics and the Tom Joyner Morning Show

We often imagine black respectability politics as a suffocating hegemon, opposed only by small, usually youthful, groups of artists, intellectuals, and activists. But for more than the last two decades, the most popular syndicated black American radio show, The Tom Joyner Morning Show, has openly dissented from respectability politicswhile simultaneously flying under the radar of both black and mainstream public sphere attention. This invisibility may be due to the show's commercial status and mixed formatbut most importantly, because of its low-status medium, radio, combined with the unsexy nature of its huge audience: middle aged and definitely working class.