Emulating Black Culture

[Mee]

no.

Alright...

 

[raybia]

For years, mostly after rap was introduced, certain aspects black culture have been imulated but white folks. But some have wondered if it's flattery or mockery.

So in your opinion, when white folks imitate a certain aspect of black culture is it done out of appreciation or out of mockery?

Rap music and hip hop are really only an aspect of sub African-American culture and most of it is a false image and message to get blacks to live up to that image presented to them.

Not all African-Americans listen to rap and certainly not all fit the imagery portrayed in the videos, which essentially glamorizes and presents an over-exaggerated aspect of urban street life.

I don't think its flattery nor mockery, I believe its corporate America selling to the youth an image and all of the products that goes along with that image. It doesn't matter to them if its black, white or green, as long as they are making millions.

 

[Knightsaber Priss]

Well, I'm white and I tend to see white people trying to act black as really stupid looking.

 

[Ronny Shade]

Well, I'm white and I tend to see white people trying to act black as really stupid looking.

That's because you're a white supremacist

 

[jaguarr]

"Blah blah blah blah KOLABAUM-KRIEGE blah blah Nehmen es mehr!"

LOFL!

jag

 

[Immortalfire]

Here in the South, there are plenty of non-white fans of the Blue Collar Gys, Nascar, Country music etc...so it goes both ways.

Same as there are tons of white people here who aren't fans of such.

 

[Hooligan32]

Racism doesn't exsist. It was made up by money hungry Jews who wanted to benefit financialy off of people's guilt.

 

[Leto Atrides]

I think it's just become a part of pop culture. Many aspects of "Black Culture" take influences from other races, for example white, anyway, just like White Culture takes it's cues from other ones. There is no culture that's really standalone.

 

[Ronny Shade]

Racism doesn't exsist. It was made up by money hungry Jews who wanted to benefit financialy off of people's guilt.

lol

 

[raybia]

I think it's just become a part of pop culture. Many aspects of "Black Culture" take influences from other races, for example white, anyway, just like White Culture takes it's cues from other ones. There is no culture that's really standalone.

Good post.

I again stress that there are many sub-cultures as well so there really isn't such a thing as the "black culture" just like there is no "white culture" because that suggests that the customs and beliefs of people are based on a racial disposition. It discounts the historical origins of the culture of certain communities as well as economical, social, educational, and other factors.

A perfect example would be a small but growing population of people who immigrate from Africa, who don't participate in any aspect assigned to so-called American black culture.

 

[celldog]

Jackie Wilson

 

[Darthphere]

Racism doesn't exsist. It was made up by money hungry Jews who wanted to benefit financialy off of people's guilt.

Mel has it right.

 

[Darthphere]

Jackie Wilson

Thats some real conclusive evidence you have there......

 

[celldog]

Whites copying black style has happen long before rap.

 

[Darthphere]

OMG! Teh braids are black exclusive!

 

[tzarinna]

If said emulator grew up in that atmosphere then I see nothing wrong with it. Many say I act and sound white.

I guess I better watch more music videos and get hip with what's going down in the streets I don't want any young white suburbanite showing me up

 

[raybia]

Jackie Wilson

Certainly, Elvis was a person that the media propped up as the King to a style of music that many blacks had been performing for years, so while he was original in that he was the first white artist to explode using the R&B genre, his act and style was not.

However I cannot be mad at Elvis. He grew up around that music and blacks, so what he did was as much a part of him as the black artist who were doing it before him.

Unfortunately, they tamed Elvis of much of his "black tendencies" after he got out of the Army and returned to the states.

 

[jimmy]

The title of this thread sounds like a new episode of The Boondocks.

 

[GoldenAgeHero]

Good post.

I again stress that there are many sub-cultures as well so there really isn't such a thing as the "black culture" just like there is no "white culture" because that suggests that the customs and beliefs of people are based on a racial disposition. It discounts the historical origins of the culture of certain communities as well as economical, social, educational, and other factors.

A perfect example would be a small but growing population of people who immigrate from Africa, who don't participate in any aspect assigned to so-called American black culture.

yes there is and you just listed them. to say that a particular race or ethnicity of people does'nt have any culture is really ignorant.

social and educational backgrounds are divisons of the economical system. those two factors depend on economic status. they don't really have anything to with the definition of culture or the way we percieve what culture is.

 

[Darren Daring]

This thread is so pretentious

 

[raybia]

yes there is and you just listed them. to say that a particular race of people does'nt have any culture is really ignorant.

Einstein. I didn't say that particular races don't have culture. What I said it that not all members of a particular race share that same culture.

social and educational backgrounds are divisons of the economical system. those two factors depend on economic status. they don't really have anything to with the definition of culture.

Social/Economic background and education doesn't have any bearing on culture?


Large societies often have subcultures, or groups of people with distinct sets of behavior and beliefs that differentiate them from a larger culture of which they are a part. The subculture may be distinctive because of the age of its members, or by their race, ethnicity, class or gender. The qualities that determine a subculture as distinct may be aesthetic, religious, occupational, political, sexual or a combination of these factors.


More recently, the United Nations Economic, Social and Cultural Organization UNESCO (2002) described culture as follows:

"... culture should be regarded as the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs".[4]



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture

 

[Mr. Credible]

if you want to dress a certain way, i guess that's one thing, baggy pants, whatever... but doing the whole "thur" instead of "there" thing, and everything else... putting rims on your 84 honda accord, etc... well, it doesn't make you a thug, and it doesn't make you "hard"

that goes for whites, blacks, and everyone else. why people act that way is just... beyond me.

 

[GoldenAgeHero]

Social/Economic background and education doesn't have any bearing on culture?


Large societies often have subcultures, or groups of people with distinct sets of behavior and beliefs that differentiate them from a larger culture of which they are a part. The subculture may be distinctive because of the age of its members, or by their race, ethnicity, class or gender. The qualities that determine a subculture as distinct may be aesthetic, religious, occupational, political, sexual or a combination of these factors.


More recently, the United Nations Economic, Social and Cultural Organization UNESCO (2002) described culture as follows:

"... culture should be regarded as the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs".[4]



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture

that has to be the most broadest definition i ever heard of, that tries to pass itself as an aspect of culture. I don't believe intellect has anything to do with culture, just the way your bought up and your ability to comprehend. being poor is'nt going to make you stupid nor smart. that post does'nt say anything else on what you're trying toprove to me.

 

[celldog]

A Bad Rap
Michael O'Malley, Associate Professor of History and Art History, George Mason University

Introduction
TLC's "No Scrubs" delivers almost exactly the same message as "I Don't Like no Cheap Man", written about a century earlier and sung by the great blues artist Bessie Smith.

But a scrub is checkin' me
But his game is kinda weak
And I know that he cannot approach me
Cuz I'm lookin' like class and he's lookin' like trash
Can't get wit' no deadbeat ass
TLC, "No Scrubs," 1999
I don't like no cheap man
Dat spends his money on de 'stallment plan;
... I hate to be done
In front of people that's sittin' here too
You's a cheap man, and you won't do!
"I Don't Like No Cheap Man," 1897

It's true that all popular music tends to revolve around the same themes--love, heartache, jealousy, pride. And all popular music tends to also explore themes or experiences common to everyone's life--death, money, joy, violence, playfulness, melancholy, sexuality. But African American musicians have had to make their music under an unusual set of circumstances.

African Americans combined their various African traditions with European musical forms to produce a distinctive, vibrant musical style. Early on, as early as the American revolution, white audiences recognized the distinctive qualities of African American music, and began to imitate it.

The most disturbing form of this imitation developed in the 1830s, in what became known as the "minstrel show." In the minstrel shows white men dressed up as plantation slaves. Faces "blacked" with greasepaint, they imitated African American musical and dance forms, combining savage parody of black Americans with genuine fondness for, and interest in, African American culture.


As you can see, the images of minstrels were buffoonish and insulting. But the music they sang, while most often written by whites, drew directly on melodies African Americans sang. In this way, African American music first entered into popular culture. Most of the classic American songs of the 19th century, including Camptown Races, My Old Kentucky Home, Way down upon the Swanee River, Dixie, and virtually all songs by Stephen Foster, were written for the minstrel show. By the Civil War the minstrel show had become world famous and respectable.

The minstrel show usually made black Americans into grotesques. But it's also clear that white Americans, then as now, were strongly drawn towards the creativity and vibrancy of black culture. The minstrel show allowed them to play out fantasies that ordinary life forbid, but it also created a vast audience for African American culture--an audience willing to pay for songs and performances. By the 1890s there were many African American minstrel performers, all of whom had to "black up" to make money. Not only did they wear the minstrel's black greasepaint, they also had to sing songs and act in ways that conformed to white people's prejudices. These two sites offer more information on the minstrel show before the Civil War.

A Mini Minstrel Show
Lift Every Voice
Blackface minstrel shows continued well into the twentieth century. The first "talking picture" the Al Jolson film The Jazz Singer (1927) was a blackface film, and major white entertainers like judy garland, Mickey Rooney and Bing Crosby all performed in blackface. At first, actual African Americans were not allowed on the minstrel stage. But by the end of the nineteenth century, as the minstrel show became more respectable, African Americans began performing "in blackface" as well. In the 1890s, some of the most important African American composers got their start performing minstrel songs.

The bizarre minstrel show might be easier to understand in modern terms. Think of white rappers like Eminem, or white rock musicians who play blues-derived music. There are many white people who love African American music but don't particularly like African Americans. When they imitate black musicians, are they expressing admiration, or are they just stealing? Are they sincerely trying to come to some understanding of cultural difference, or are they just engaging in minstrel parody without the make up?

Consider also that the largest audience for rap and hiphop music today is white, just as, in 1890, the largest audience for sheet music and music performance was white. MTV, when it shows music videos at all, tends to show rap, especially hard edged rap that features an emphasis on violence, hostility to women and flashy materialism. Record companies, theaters, and stores—the distribution system that publicizes music and gets it to the buyer's hands—are still overwhelmingly owned and controlled by whites. Many critics have pointed out a similarity between the minstrel show of the 1890s and the rap music of the 1990s

Updated | April 2004

Here's the link: http://chnm.gmu.edu/exploring/20thcentury/badrap/index.php


Look....this is nothing new. Even our lingo.........everything from "Right On" to "You go girl" to " Yo' shizzle my nizzle" (I actually saw Justin Timberlake trying to do that Snoop-Dog speak), has been aped. I laughed my butt off. I've seen some white girls tryin' to move the neck while givin' someone attitude, like the sista's do.

They have the luxury of enjoying the culture without the hassle that comes with it.

 

[Alpha and Omega]

Imo, mocking hip-hop culture isn't mocking black culture.

Hip-hop having an alliance w/ any culture (in actuality) is only an interpretation. Since certain affluent African Americans have a vested interest in Hip-hop, it's labeled 'Black.'

Corporate America owns hip-hop and makes the majority of income off of it. Arguably, the origins of hip-hop come from sampling James Brown, the Isley Brothers, and Arethra Franklin, but regardless of how it started, it never really was a 'black' enterprise when it hit mainstream. There are too many labels involved who are making money off of something that is portrayed as temporary.

In a sense, the showy display of ones means of life is advocated by a lot of inner city youth, but when you look at their surroundings, most of these people have no money, no decent living quarters, and no real goals in life. Hip-hop is debatably symbolic of a party-lifestyle that is desired by most young people.

Unfortunately, most people in it don't realize that its current state, hip-hop strips them of any artistic credibility. How can you respect an art form where the no. 1 goal is money? I'd wager that 99% of the songs focus solely on materialism. [that's the problem w/ national radio today]-[it doesn't matter what quality goes on air, it just has to sound the same as the previous successful hit. Growth or maturity is little more than a marketing ploy.]

There's no real way to emulate(in terms of one attribute) 'black culture', 'white culture', or any other for that matter, because they're deceptive interpretations in the mind of the viewer.

Stigmas become reality, and people run w/ it. Honestly, hip-hop is little more than a sub-group in business. . . like the only legal monopoly: Sports(NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL), Hollywood/film-tv, Media. It's sole connection to 'Black Culture' (as people would say) is that it's marketed as such to give it "realism." Any time you hear 'the struggle,' 'we gon' make it,' or some other bs attached, people are drawn to that affiliation w/ an underdog(figuratively speaking), and some identify w/ this. Again, it's just intelligent marketing.