-- Ralph Dumain <[EMAIL PROTECTED] (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) > wrote: This story has been approached from a number of different angles. While Ehrenreich's approach is a legitimate one, there is a slightly different conclusion to be drawn from her argument. I don't buy the reappropriation of language line. It's probably true that a lot of stupid white people have borrowed a slang they don't really understand. (I see young white boys in the subway chanting "I'm a n***a" while listening to rappers on their ipods.) That was my initial impression of Imus' remarks. But if they were in fact back-handed compliments, they were still insulting, and would have been insulting no matter who uttered them. << Comment It was during the last mass hiring of the Chrysler Corp - back in 1993/1994, that I became truly aware of the post Jim Crow experience in America, as a living experience of my son generation. What is Hip Hop culture, is driven by the ceaseless engines of bourgeois private property as an industry that has altered all of us to one degree or another, and this . . . is part of the post Jim Crow legacy. ************* >> This isn't only about race, though. Much of the commentary has focused on a multi-millionaire white guy's unaccountable insult to aspiring young black women. Al Sharpton held up his own college-bound daughter as one of the injured parties; Gwen Ifill offered the painful revelation that Imus once referred to her as "the cleaning lady." But at least two of the Rutgers players are white. What is the message here? That if you hang with the sistuhs your virtue will decline and your hair go bad? << ***************** Brother Al is a professional black man. He makes his living off of being a professional African American and defender of the black, and I am not hating on Al. Hell . . . there are lots of professional and political white people who live off of being white. But, you know, don't many of these phonies know how to wear their hair in the language of the Hip Hop culture. Anyway . . . . Everything in America is converted into a job and this includes communism. My communism is still to much Motown and not enough Hip Hop. Al, if you want to get elected you have to deal with a bunch of million white boyz that are working class, Hip Hop and already identify with the "black" that is increasingly pushed outside the system. They identify because they feel themselves to be pushed outside the system in the most immediate and personal way. It is narrow mindedness masking ideological concepts scared of, opposed to, and to mutherfuckin punk to face . . . . class, and there fore speaks of white suburban boys sporting ghetto fashions. Hip Hop fashion is anything and everything but ghetto. Its street smart. The so-called white suburban boys, upon closer inspection turn out to be an entire class of white boyz - working class to the bone, who feel no need to justify their assimilation of Hip Hop culture. That is who they are and they are not the suburban white boys of the 1960's. Post Jim Crow culture is Hip Hop and this culture was visually introduced nation wide by Arsenio Hall and then was powered by MTV after their rule of suburban white boys was broken - (pressured by Sony/Epic wielding the huge stick of Michael Jackson's Thriller) and overthrown - superceded, by white boyz. The white boyz is a class thing and not pretense, unless one is gullible enough to believe that Dr. Dre is even marginally gangster. Look, I am old enough to have loved the old gangster movies with Edward G, Robinson, Bogart, and James Cagney, who was really a song and dance man. Its gangster stuff with its appeal to the individual overcoming incredible odd to triumph over the big guys and their controlling organizations. See . . . Dre is further removed from the streets than I am and this is not an indictment but a fact. Nor does this fact stops him being the Godfather of Rap producers. Dre is good and needs no apologies for being good. Dre career began with jeri curls, Hammer pants and Prince makeup. As an aspiring producer he heard, understood and loved the sound of the streets and strived for complexity in his art. Our current generation of white boyz feel the alienation portrayed in this street music, as they are out there pounding the streets . . . . and the mutherfuckers ain't got college degrees and shit. See . . . Dre, was more middle class than the majority of the contemporary post Jim Crow white boyz and white girlz, and he was poor. Post Jim Crow is the framework. It is a mistake to think that it is the black and brown workers working all of those $11 an hour jobs and less. The white girlz hair is real nappy and this is no metaphor. Look at their hair for real and anyone with the power of observation can readily see the difference between the stringy hair of the working class girlz and the upper middle class girls. Most of these girlz cannot afford the saloon and many settle for the salon. All one has to do is travel a little bit in America and look. These girlz and boyz listen to Acon which is a Rap acronym for "A Convict." "Locked Up" was his first big hit and they love it because it portrays the feeling of being locked up which is no different from being locked out and located on the margin. Imus was fighting to maintain his hegemony of a market segment by fronting as one of the white boyz. The real white boyz know to much to cross the invisible cultural boundary, that the real white boyz live and pretenders like Imus have to theorize. . Then there is "Little Kim." Sure, I like the way Anita Baker does it . . . (although it is rumored that she is a horrible tipper and complains about everything), but then, I am not a product of Hip Hop. I love the music but I was not there . . . . know what I mean? I was someplace else in history and this is no crime. I know the music but my son will tell you that I was somewhere else and he loves me dearly. There will always be things that men cannot say in front of women generally (unless its that group of women with the man stuff) because as a population segment, on our own we voice not just class stuff but male stuff. Women will always have things and issues that they view as unsuitable for mixed company . . . meaning men and women. We Marxist are charged with the task of placing every public event in a historical context and then examine the environment and interconnections between events and then outline a probable line of development. Imus was fronting and the white boyz will tell you that if you ask them. The white boyz understand the words they use and they greet each other and say "my nigga," . . . every Marxist worth their salt should stand at attention, listen and think . . . Post Jim Crow Era. Historical shame as inspiration and driver is for the upper middle class. We may our debt to history by being different and not doing the same thing over and over. The suburbs are increasingly proletariat . . . since the late 1960's and as abstract economic data, since the late 1950's.
Melvin P. ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
