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Book Strut: Other People's Property

KNOWKNAIMEKNOWKNAIME 51 Posts
edited September 2007 in Strut Central
O.K. I know that posts of a racial nature usually get flak, but I just read a book that needs to be mentioned. "Other People's Property: A Shadow History of Hip Hop in White America" by Jason Tanz. A friend that runs a bookstore gave me an advance reading copy that he had. Jason Tanz writes about the appropriation of Hip Hop by white youth and it's affect on the music and culture. Tanz, himself a white guy, talks about his relationship to the music and he early naive perceptions of people of color. When I read this book I found myself relating to his stories of trying to fit into the Hip Hop culture. His guilt of being white and his undereducated dreams of being cool enough or black enough to be accepted. He talks about white rappers and what it means to live in the suburbs. Tanz also tries to seperate the white people who identify as HIp Hop fans into two distinct groups the Wigger and the Wegro. Wiggers are typified as young teens who have a surface relationship to Hip Hop. They adopt the additude, fashion and music to help establish their masculinity, while the Wegro listens to Hip Hop in order to transcend their whiteness and to try and understand the "black perspective". I hope that I would fall into the "Wegro" catagory. How about other strutters? Anybody got an opinion on the white dilution of Hip Hop? Are you a Wigger? A Wegro? Holla Back Atcha Boy!

  Comments

  • funky16cornersfunky16corners 7,175 Posts



    This cat was crossing the wigger/wegro (horrible words by the way) line 70 years ago...
  • faux_rillzfaux_rillz 14,343 Posts
    O.K. I know that posts of a racial nature usually get flak, but I just read a book that needs to be mentioned.

    No, it really doesn't.
  • johmbolayajohmbolaya 4,472 Posts
    I'm waiting for someone to paraphrase Yall So Stupid and say "I am not a wegro, because my wee hasn't grown since 8th grade"

  • SoulOnIceSoulOnIce 13,027 Posts
    I hope that I would fall into the "Wegro" catagory.

    Everybody's got to have goals!

  • Birdman9Birdman9 5,417 Posts
    I hope that I would fall into the "Wegro" catagory.

    Everybody's got to have goals!


  • Egbert_SouseEgbert_Souse 920 Posts
    caucafrican american....?
  • funky16cornersfunky16corners 7,175 Posts
    caucafrican american....?

    I prefer OFAY-mous....
  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    wegro

    This was the name of my after-school program as a kid.
  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    O.K. I know that posts of a racial nature usually get flak, but I just read a book that needs to be mentioned. "Other People's Property: A Shadow History of Hip Hop in White America" by Jason Tanz. A friend that runs a bookstore gave me an advance reading copy that he had. Jason Tanz writes about the appropriation of Hip Hop by white youth and it's affect on the music and culture. Tanz, himself a white guy, talks about his relationship to the music and he early naive perceptions of people of color. When I read this book I found myself relating to his stories of trying to fit into the Hip Hop culture. His guilt of being white and his undereducated dreams of being cool enough or black enough to be accepted. He talks about white rappers and what it means to live in the suburbs. Tanz also tries to seperate the white people who identify as HIp Hop fans into two distinct groups the Wigger and the Wegro. Wiggers are typified as young teens who have a surface relationship to Hip Hop. They adopt the additude, fashion and music to help establish their masculinity, while the Wegro listens to Hip Hop in order to transcend their whiteness and to try and understand the "black perspective". I hope that I would fall into the "Wegro" catagory. How about other strutters? Anybody got an opinion on the white dilution of Hip Hop? Are you a Wigger? A Wegro?

    Holla Back Atcha Boy!

    First thought: Was there ever this much put on white dudes who used to listen to Sly Stone and Stevie Wonder and would pick their afro's and wear dhashikis and stuff? Were they really all trying to "transcend their whiteness" or were they just especially attuned to what was uber-fashionable at the time?

    Jack Kerouac comes to mind as well. He sure did love jazz and he certainly tried to assume the identity of a black American man...but did he really lose his own Lowell, Mass/French Canadian identity in the process?

    I would say no.

    And right offa that I would have to say next...that white people who are over-facinated that fellow white people are so into rap music that they would actually go as far as buying albums, knowing lyrics, using slang, adopting "attitudes", etc. are really showing they punk asses. To not only think, but to go as far as to write a whole book, that the reasons why white people like rap music can be broken down into 2 simple and both white-guilt-related reasons is utterly ridiculous. Surely the author goes into greater detail on those classifications, but as in the case of Jack Kerouc as well as my many white-skinned-but-afro'ed uncles from the 70's, sharing an affinity for music and culture with your black neighbors does not automatically make you an asshole.

    Those who are into rap music only as much to confirm their pre-conceived negative notions about black people that they otherwise don't know...now that is a category to be labeled and made fun of.

    But white people who are just as geniunely into rap music as they are into their real life and healthy relationships with black people...they don't deserve to have some second-guessing, permanent-outsider even attempting to define them for he has no way of truly understanding them.
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