Soul Thieves: The Appropriation and Misrepresentation of African American Popular Culture

307 Pages·2014·3.212 MB·English

by  Tamara Lizette Brown, Baruti N. Kopano (eds.)

Contemporary BlaCk History
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Soul Thieves: The Appropriation and Misrepresentation of African
American Popular Culture
Edited by Tamara Lizette Brown and Baruti N. Kopano
Black Power Principals
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The Congress of African People: History, Memory, and an Ideological Journey
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Soul Thieves

The Appropriation and Misrepresentation
of African American Popular Culture
Edited by
Tamara Lizette Brown and Baruti N. Kopano
soul thieves
Copyright © Tamara Lizette Brown and Baruti N. Kopano, 2014.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-0-230-108912
All rights reserved.
First published in 2014 by
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ISBN 978-0-230-10897-4 ISBN 978-1-137-07139-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137071392
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Contents

Preface vii
Acknowledgments xxiii
1 Soul Thieves: White America and the Appropriation of
Hip Hop and Black Culture 1
Baruti N. Kopano
2 The Appropriation of Blackness in Ego Trip’s The (White) Rapper Show 15
Carlos D. Morrison and Ronald L. Jackson, II
3 Cash Rules Everything around Me: Appropriation, Commodification,
and the Politics of Contemporary Protest Music and Hip Hop 31
Diarra Osei Robertson
4 I’m Hip: An Exploration of Rap Music’s Creative Guise 51
Kawachi Clemmons
5 Foraging Fashion: African American Influences on Cultural Aesthetics 61
Abena Lewis-Mhoon
6 In the Eye of the Beholder: Definitions of Beauty in
Popular Black Magazines 77
Kimberly Brown
7 Neutering the Black Power Movement: The Hijacking of
Protest Symbolism 91
James B. Stewart
8 A Silent Protest: The 1968 Olympiad and the Appropriation
of Black Athletic Power 109
Jamal Ratchford
9 Imagining a Strange New World: Racial Integration and
Social Justice Advocacy in Marvel Comics, 1966–1980 151
David Taft Terry
vi Contents
10 So You Think You Can Dance: Black Dance and
American Popular Culture 201
Tamara Lizette Brown
List of Contributors 269
Index 271
Preface

Culture is the beliefs, values, norms, traditions, and artifacts shared among
the inhabitants of a common society. Harold Cruse in The Crisis of the Negro
Intellectual validates culture in the African American tradition by directly link-
ing and interlinking it with politics and economics.1 Popular culture is that cul-
ture literally of the people. It is distinguished from high culture or that which is
of, or reflective of, the elite. Its value for mass consumption and entertainment
purposes distinguishes it from the more “legitimate” artistic pursuits. Music,
movies, television, fashion fads, slang, magazines, and the like are examples of
popular culture. Today’s popular culture will be tomorrow’s cultural history
and a means by which to analyze society at a given moment. Popular culture
as a general term is “used to distinguish the mass of the people—not ‘people’ in
general—from the titled, wealthy or educated classes of people.”2 It can include
both folk and mass objects, as well as traditions and beliefs. Such material culture
manifests itself as readable objects—open for evaluation and interpretation.3
Soul Thieves: The Appropriation and Misrepresentation of African American
Popular Culture is an analysis of the misuse and, in some cases, outright abuse
of African American popular culture through various genres. Hip hop is,
and has been, one of the most dominant African American popular culture
creations and is denoted in many of the offerings in this volume; however,
Soul Thieves is a historically inclusive documentation of the misappropria-
tion of black popular culture, thus spanning other areas and genres besides
the contemporary and current craze. This book documents that historically
African Americans have been in the forefront in the creation of American
popular culture. As scholar Harry Shaw demonstrated in Perspectives of Black
Popular Culture, black popular culture traditionally has been synonymous
with American popular culture, but not credited with the innovation. “To
look at Black popular culture . . . through any medium is to get a glimpse of
the essential Blackness. It is the DNA that affects all Black—and, to a great
extent American—artistic achievements.” Such shared experiences and artis-
tic pursuits form the foundation of African American culture and identify,
explain, and retain Africanisms (cultural traits that can be traced to an African
foundation) and the intrinsic essence of that blackness that emanates from the
everyday lives of African American people. Moreover, emerging from this base,
“[o]nly Black culture has retained identifiable Africanisms and Black culture
traits in a culturally competitive environment while making innumerable
viii PrefaCe
significant contributions to American and Western Culture [sic].”4 In the use of
the term African American, the editors acknowledge the African diaspora and
its inherent cultural implications, but pay particular attention to the African
American impact on American popular culture.
Nearing the end of the twentieth century, historians Robin D. G. Kelley and
Lawrence Levine debated the interpretations of popular culture in the pages of
the American Historical Review. Levine lamented that in its current state schol-
ars were not adequately assessing this mass medium that he pitted as a battle, at
times, between consumers and producers over the construed meaning and intent,
and suggested a varied approach to studying the field, since scholars tended to
focus on the intent of the producers rather than that of the consumers.5 Kelley, in
responding to Levine’s article, stated that in the latter’s analysis over production
and consumption historians should view “popular culture as contested terrain.”6
Kelley emphasized that scholars should consider race, class, and gender in ren-
dering the relationship of power and popular culture. This cultural form for
public consumption can suppress as well as fight oppression. He proposed that
such studies should take into account the “defeats, constraints, and, more gener-
ally, the reproduction of hegemony [which] ought to be just as important as the
power of audiences to invest mass-produced cultural forms with oppositional
meanings.”7 Kelley called for research that considered the product, the produc-
ers, and the intended audience. Moreover, as one grapples with the ever-changing
nature of popular culture, the influence of the impetus of the production—the
tapped source of the creativity—must be a factor as well.
While black popular culture often defines American popular culture and
has global implications, a need for a separate category for black popular cul-
ture remains. To a large extent American popular culture has been driven or
influenced by black popular culture without the reverse necessarily being true.
“Black popular culture is a hotbed of America’s popular culture, especially in the
music, dance, and language.”8 This particular form of popular culture cannot be
separated from African American culture in general. In her research, sociolo-
gist Joyce Ladner addresses the issue of the dominant “norm” and the “deviant”
Other. Traditionally a termed minority has knowledge of the dominant cul-
ture, but the dominant culture does not have an accurate view of the minority.
Therefore, defining that minority as implicated by the terms of the majority is
problematic. The group in power will cast an interpretive light through a clouded
lens to analyze the behavior of all others. This analysis and the appropriation of
the culture in question as a reinterpreted facet of their own helps to solidify their
hierarchical standing while diluting the meaning and initiatives of the original.
“For, the presence of viable cultural alternatives among those they label as infe-
rior provides evidence which threatens to shatter their carefully but precariously
constructed social definition of reality, a definition which justifies their domina-
tion and self-interested rule.”9
As the title of this book suggests, appropriation denotes taking possession of
something that one has no right to, and misrepresentation refers to the deliberate,
typically negative, depiction of a false ideal. Both can relate to commodification
or turning something of inherent value into an instrument for monetary gain.
PrefaCe ix
Such characterizations often form a dialectic with regard to African Americans
and popular culture that pit white against black. As culture separates from its
formative grounding, its meaning, emphasis, and focus change. Take, for exam-
ple, the work of dance anthropologist and ethnographer Katherine Dunham.
Through performing research in the Caribbean on African survivals in dance in
the 1930s, Dunham documented the machinations of the beguine, the national
dance of Martinique—where it is danced, why it is danced, and how it is danced.
This dance form involved various classes of people. Blacks (upper class men)
basically came to dance with the lower class women. A middle-class or upper-
class female would be shamed if she entered the dancehall—even just to dance.
This is because while it was a place for people to dance for the pleasure, it was
also a “working girl’s” place to do business. Therefore, blacks came to dance and
whites came for other pleasures where dance served as a prelude to other physi-
cal activities. “The real beguine . . . is a work of muscular art . . . The sailor [white
man] who watches drools at the mouth and calls for more rum. For him this is a
paradise of debauchery . . . [T]he young man of color, he is merely seeking enter-
tainment in the dance. Finding [his] pleasure in this sole form of amusement.”10
In this instance, the dance was removed from its traditional cultural context,
altering the intended meaning and morphing the message and movement into
another existence.
Many recent publications dealing with black popular culture center on music
and the influence of rap and hip hop in particular. Soul Thieves, as stated, does
not solely concentrate on hip hop’s or music’s proliferation as popular culture phe-
nomena, nor is it the first to bemoan specifically white America’s appropriation,
misrepresentation, and commodification of black cultural expression. Several
mediums of popular culture such as film, television, fashion, comic books, and
dance are thematically treated in this work. In many instances this volume out-
lines specific instances where blacks have contributed to their own demise or
have misappropriated culture to or for others’ benefit. There is “capital” (and
capital gain) in culture, cultural capital, and though African Americans continue
to create, many in white America exploit these creations. “The fact remains that
Black popular communication is an integral part of (American and global) cul-
ture.” However, some communicative forms “that purport to represent Blackness
have, at times, bastardized Black culture.”11
Some critics may decry that the premise of this volume promotes racism, or
more precisely reverse racism. It does not, and an entire work could be dedicated
as to why this is not possible. However, even prior to the erroneous belief of a
postracial America because of the election of President Barack Obama, any dia-
logue on race (a human-made construct rather than a biological classification)
could incur the accusation of racism. Talk of race makes people uncomfortable
and oftentimes prompts those with a living memory of the past to remember
the ugly sphere of a separate and unequal America. Suppressing such knowl-
edge helps to alleviate feelings of guilt and the uneasiness that a complete pic-
ture of history conjures. When black people proclaim pride in their heritage and
history as well as the rights and privileges of American citizenship, bringing
the ugliness of the past together with the hard-fought gains of the present and