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Sto caricando le informazioni... Everything But the Burden: What White People Are Taking from Black Culture (2003)di Greg Tate (A cura di)
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White kids from the 'burbs are throwing up gang signs. The 2001 Grammy winner for best rap artist was as white as rice. And blond-haired sorority sisters are sporting FUBU gear. What is going on in American culture that's giving our nation a racial-identity crisis? Following the trail blazed by Norman Mailer's controversial essay "The White Negro," Everything but the Burden brings together voices from music, popular culture, the literary world, and the media speaking about how from Brooklyn to the Badlands white people are co-opting black styles of music, dance, dress, and slang. In this collection, the essayists examine how whites seem to be taking on, as editor Greg Tate's mother used to tell him, "everything but the burden"-from fetishizing black athletes to spinning the ghetto lifestyle into a glamorous commodity. Is this a way of shaking off the fear of the unknown? A flattering indicator of appreciation? Or is it a more complicated cultural exchange? The pieces in Everything but the Burden explore the line between hero-worship and paternalism. Among the book's twelve essays are Vernon Reid's "Steely Dan Understood as the Apotheosis of 'The White Negro,'" Carl Hancock Rux's "The Beats: America's First 'Wiggas,'" and Greg Tate's own introductory essay "Nigs 'R Us." Other contributors include: Hilton Als, Beth Coleman, Tony Green, Robin Kelley, Arthur Jafa, Gary Dauphin, Michaela Angela Davis, dream hampton, and Manthia diAwara. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)305.896Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Groups of people Ethnic and national groups ; racism, multiculturalism Other Groups African OriginClassificazione LCVotoMedia:
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Let me tell you a little story. Hopefully, it's relevant.
I was born “white.” I grew up in a white neighborhood, went to a white school, etc. At an early age, I fell in love with black culture. I don't know why; it just happened as it does for many. Initially, my love was simple, an appreciation for Michael Jackson and Prince which, with time, morphed into a deep love for Bobby Brown, Shai, and the R&B scene of the early nineties. By high school, I was a bonafide whigger: sagging pants, walking with a limp, stereo bumping the latest 2Pac, Menace II Society and Jason's Lyric on constant play on my VCR. I was guilty of betraying “the white race” and thieving from black culture. I was that crazy-looking white boy, taking “everything but the burden.”
Everything but the burden. They called me nigger. Hundreds of times. I wished I'd been counting. I would've had the number tattooed on my chest and worn it as a badge. They bloodied my face. They once tried to run me off a bridge. They said they were going to kill me. I believed them. They wanted to. White people hated me. Cops did too. Without reason, I was pulled over, detained, and searched. Why? Because I looked the part. Because my friends were black. It didn't matter. They said I was “worse than a nigger” because I was a traitor.
I never fought back. I couldn't. It was me versus the world, versus reason. Who'd stand behind me? And I continued for years. My whiggerdom changed, I went from white hoodrat-wannabe to white underground hip-hopper, but through it all I loved black culture.
And then time came to “grow up.” I turned down the stereo (though the music is mostly the same), I bought pants that fit snugger (though far from tight), and I quieted down (though my heart still rages).
What is burden? They called me the same names. They accused me of the same crimes. They treated me similar, if not the same. Where my burden ends is that I was able to take it off, neatly package it away, and try to fit in. But therein lies a burden in itself: I am alone. Outside of my wife (who is Hispanic, by the way; alien in part to both cultures), I have no one. I don't fit in. I literally spend days in my house without once leaving. I don't relate with people. I have become like Ellison's Invisible Man; instead of casting myself in a room of light to drown out my shadow, to become invisible, I have sequestered myself to a room without light, to be absorbed into the blackness, void of human contact because I don't know how to fit in anywhere. I knew how to talk to people when a greeting was “w'sup?” and hanging out meant goofing on a freestyle session. Now, I try to fake it, try to “act white” because that's what everyone—black and white—wants from me, but everyone sees through it. I am a fake.
What did I take? I took the swagger. I took the music. I took the literature. I took the history. I took the dialect. I took it all. I even took the burden. But I gave it all back and all I have left is a memory of what was, and of course the burden.
Maybe I was wrong to “take what wasn't mine.” Truly, I don't think so. My intentions were pure. But if I am guilty of cultural appropriation at its worst, then I guess I have received my sentence. This is my burden. Perhaps it is out of place and erroneous to expose myself completely on a book review for an uneven collection thirteen years old., but it posed the question and failed to answer it. There are many answers to such a question. This is my answer. Judge it how you will. ( )