Shamanism, Racism, and Hip Hop Culture: Essays on White Supremacy and Black Subversion

250 Pages·2005·1.191 MB·English

by  James W. Perkinson (auth.)

Shamanism,Racism,and
Hip-Hop Culture
Black Religion / Womanist Thought / Social Justice
Series Editors Dwight N. Hopkins and Linda E. Thomas
Published by Palgrave Macmillan
“How Long this Road”: Race, Religion, and the Legacy of C. Eric Lincoln
Edited by Alton B. Pollard, III and Love Henry Whelchel, Jr.
White Theology: Outing Supremacy in Modernity
By James W. Perkinson
The Myth of Ham in Nineteenth-Century American Christianity: Race, Heathens,
and the People of God
By Sylvester A. Johnson
African American Humanist Principles: Living and Thinking Like the Children of
Nimrod
By Anthony B. Pinn
Loving the Body: Black Religious Studies and the Erotic
Edited by Anthony B. Pinn and Dwight N. Hopkins
Transformative Pastoral Leadership in the Black Church
By Jeffery L. Tribble, Sr.
Shamanism, Racism, and Hip Hop Culture: Essays on White Supremacy and Black
Subversion
By James W. Perkinson
Shamanism, Racism, and
Hip-Hop Culture
Essays on White Supremacy and Black
Subversion
James W.Perkinson
SHAMANISM,RACISM,ANDHIP-HOPCULTURE
© James W.Perkinson,2005.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2005 978-1-4039-6786-2
All rights reserved.No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2005 by
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PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
Macmillan division of St.Martin’s Press,LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.
Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States,United Kingdom
and other countries.Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European
Union and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-53031-1 ISBN 978-1-4039-7918-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781403979186
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the
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Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd.,Chennai,India.
First edition:June 2005
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Dedicated to the genius and incorrigibility of those who have resisted
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Contents
Series Editors’ Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction xv
I. White Supremacy,African Sorcery,
and Euro-Christianity
1. Beyond Occasional Whiteness 3
2. Modernity’s Witchcraft Practice 17
II. Black Creativity,Shamanic Remedy,
and Afro-Polyphony
3. The Gift/Curse of “Second Sight” 45
4. Constructing the Break 85
III. Hip-Hop Ferocity,American Mortality,
and Trance Trickery
5. Rap Rapture and Manic Mortality 117
6. From Mega-Lith to Mack Daddy 137
IV. Market Liturgy,Indigenous Pedagogy,
and the White Body
7. Monstrous Polyphony/Tricky Antiphony 161
8. The Body of White Space 179
Notes 203
Bibliography 215
Index 225
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Series Editors’ Preface
Following up on his groundbreaking first book, White Theology:
Outing Supremacy in Modernity, Jim Perkinson continues to gift us
with the novel (and usually hidden) self-examination of a white middle
class, middle aged, American male. Perkinson begins with the unique-
ness of his childhood socialization between African American con-
strained space and white American voluntary boundaries, including
the borders and taboos of interracial dating. The vignette exposure of
himself serves as metaphor for the larger narrative argument that
anchors the entire book. The result is a series of cogent theoretical
chapters on Witchcraft and Shamanism, markers of white and black
beings, respectively in the United States. Moreover, Perkinson is an
accomplished poet—as well as a community organizer and professor
who has lived in inner city Detroit for a couple of decades.
Consequently, the rhythm and rhyme of his writing show us how
words on paper can actually talk to the reader and bring meaning to
the ear as words in song mode. The theoretical academic approach
couples with the popular poetic form because Witchcraft and
Shamanism morph into disparate configurations. Here, Perkinson
performs the act of conjuror. How? By betraying the silence over white
male racial entitlement and siding with the black community’s
syncretistic creativity of survival and double living. Furthermore,
Perkinson writes this book to act out conjuration on himself. In fact,
as he asserts directly, part of the journey of producing this book is to
turn the scalpel of knowledge discovery on himself—what he calls
“self-exorcism.”
For conjuror (magician?) Perkinson, the attendant question is: what
are the cultural and spiritual underpinnings of modern white
supremacy and black political (and spiritual) counter-resistance?
Witchcraft is white supremacy in the United States, or, more exactly, it
is what the structure, culture, and psyche of white America carry out