Godheval

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People around the world have used hip-hop brilliantly and properly – from the Palestinians speaking out against Apartheid conditions in Israel, to the righteous anger from the socially marginalized of the Parisian banlieues, to Somalian rapper K’naan speaking about abject poverty.  And let’s not forget M.I.A., who in spite of generating mainstream appeal, has managed to keep her message authentic and political.

There are countless examples of where hip-hop and rap are used incorrectly – just look at the majority of mainstream rap today.  By African-American artists, no less.  But remember that bit I told you about appropriation?  Well, as much as I despise commercial mainstream garbage rap, the fact of the matter is that, as an African-American cultural product, rap is free for African-Americans to do with as they please.

If you own a television, it is your right to use it as a surfboard, even if it means you are rushing headlong down a slippery slope towards self-annihilation.  That was not merely an analogy, but a metaphor.

If someone else were to come in and use your television as a surfboard, well…you’d be pretty justified in wanting to smash said TV over their heads.  The smash-impulse I speak of is neither an analogy, nor a metaphor.  Which brings me back to the Toyota commercial.

Here we have a fictional white family, with all of the privilege, normativeness, and inherent “rightness” their mere existence implies, members of the “dominant” culture, appropriating the music, language, and projected mannerisms of African-American culture (“minority” culture) and using it in a way that completely contradicts the intended spirit.

Hip-hop, should I need to remind you, was originally all about countering the establishment – an establishment built-in with various mechanisms and controls to ensure that African-Americans would never stand on equal footing with white people.  An establishment that would deny the average black family access to the so-called “American Dream”, which the white family in this commercial exemplifies to a truly laughable extreme.  I mean, they even seemed to choose the blondest babies imaginable to ram the point home.

Contrary to this “wholesome” symbol of white normalcy, hip-hop and rap for the most part – in spite of their mainstream commercial appeal – are regarded as less than ideal, unworthy, “not music”, “ghetto”, “stupid”, “irresponsible”, promoting all the wrong values.  That last bit – about values – is interesting, because of course hip-hop would never promote “white values” – white being “right” – where African-Americans were not given access to the same livelihoods and cultural environment within which such “values” would flourish.

This is not to say that such values – personal responsibility, emphasis on the family, etc. – are foreign or unimportant to African-Americans.  They are equally, if not more important, in an environment that regularly creates obstacles to achieving the ideal.  Hip-hop and rap, though, were the response to that environment.

So this video, in its promotion of white normalcy and wholesomeness, not-so-subtly implies a black/white dichotomy wherein the white family champions family values and the American Dream, in stark contrast to the mainstream rap music of today, which places a premium on materialism, excess, selfishness, and often violence.

“Where are the kids?” seems particularly meaningful when we consider the stigma against black families as being “broken” – having absentee parents, teen parents, or otherwise not “doing right” by their children.  No worries about the white family, though – their two little Aryans are close at hand.

The white family drives the station wagon, with the car seats in the back, while rappers show off their financially unwise and unsustainable Escalades or even fancier cars, symbols of their excess and irresponsibility.

The whole commercial screams – or maybe whispers for most of you – this paternalistic message of: “Here, let us show you what you’re supposed to be doing.”

It is important to note here that when hip-hop and rap were definitively anti-establishment, flew arms-swinging into the face of white normativeness, there were no attempts to appropriate them.  They were swiftly and decisively demonized, devalued, dismissed as invalid and inappropriate.  The average white person would have sooner taken a shit on a rap album as purchased one.  Their children who embraced the music or the culture were regarded cautiously at best- parents hoping it to be just as a fad (as it could only ever be) – or punished at worst.  They were ridiculed by their peers and regarded as niggers-by-association, the word of choice being “wigger”.

But then something happened.  White businessmen, as they had with Jazz, Blues, Soul, Rock, and other forms of black music before, saw the money-making potential of rap music.  They may not have wanted it for their own children, but they recognized it as perfect for consumption by other white children who could use it as the ultimate symbol of rebellion against everything their parents stood for – that is, everything white.  That the sizeable minority of African-Americans would also buy the albums in large quantities was an added bonus.

And so was rap music corporatized – warped and perverted into a commercial product far-removed from its original purpose; something achieved by the silver tongues of businessmen appealing to the sensibilities of those with very little, with promises of what they never had – and, for the most part, still wouldn’t have even after the deals were signed.

When deciding which of the wide variety of rap music to push into the mainstream market, the businessmen chose those who emphasized the black/white dichotomy in the most extreme way – the “gangsta” rappers – the music which further reinforced just how far black people were from the white ideal of family values and personal responsibility.  It was the portion of rap that the kids of white suburbia would most embrace, thereby generating the highest profit.

The rappers themselves, beneath a superficial layer of anger and violence, often had important messages to relay – but these messages were lost on a market that had neither any frame of reference within which to process them, nor any real interest in hearing them.  The music that stayed completely true to hip-hop’s original spirit, what we today call “conscious rap”, was kept in the margins.  Not only because it continued to speak against white businesses’ appropriation of hip-hop, but because their message, more readily accessible without the superficial layer of violence, was not marketable to white suburbia, nor was it something that the establishment wanted people to hear.

So make no mistake.  While much of mainstream rap music today disgraces the spirit of hip-hop, its popularity and mass-marketing is the direct result of cultural appropriation.  What little wealth or acclaim it grants a handful of African-American artists – often short-lived – is a mere consolation prize for the wholesale theft of a cultural product.

The Swagger Wagon Toyota commercial, in implicitly pointing an accusatory finger at mainstream rap music, and African-Americans by proxy, again aims to make a profit by promoting a black/white dichotomy that reinforces white righteousness.  And anything that validates the current social pecking order is ripe for consumption by those at the top.

As an added bonus, the commercial even elicits a few hearty chuckles.  Hee mother fucking hee.

While I have zero doubts about what this commercial is saying, implicit though it may be, I cannot say with any conviction whether or not this loaded message was intentional.  White privilege, white normativeness, white standards, white values, and the black/white dichotomy – these things are all built into the foundation of American society.  This video may truly have been an innocuous attempt at humor, but one that echoed from that foundation.

I’ll ignore, lest I get carried away with my analysis, the fact that the commercial itself is in black and white.

The people who made it, having already embraced the dichotomy, may not even have been aware of all of the implications – just enough in the abstract to recognize how it would speak well to the sensibilities of other white people.  Such is the essence of good marketing, which as any self-aware capitalist will tell you, is often mutually exclusive from any ethical or moral good.

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Adam Shepard: Poster Child for White Privilege

What proponents of the “American Dream” always forget – or perhaps never even consider – is that the “American Dream” is not equally accessible to all Americans.  Shepard’s experience of being able to get that job, to rent that apartment, has much to do with his privilege as an able-bodied white male.

Before I get into that, though, there is a bit that needs to be discussed about Shepard’s background. He entered the experiment with a college education, which although he did not use the credential to help him get the job, certainly played into his ability to navigate his experience with poverty.

That he was even able to secure a college education speaks to certain advantages he had that many do not.  That he was even inclined to go to college in the first place says more still, because for the genuinely poor, foregoing four years of income for the mere possibility of a better job is often not even a consideration.  The value of higher education is easy to take for granted once you have it.

There is also the small matter of Shepard’s major in college: business management. Might that have given him an advantage that many – if not most – people do not have, with regards to handling his finances? I would say so.

Furthermore, Shepard admitted that he had a credit card in his back pocket for emergencies.  While he didn’t use it for the experiment, just knowing that it was there for him to use certainly buffered him against the harsh reality faced by actual homeless people.  Knowing that he always had a way out if he needed it would prevent despair from setting in.  The psychological cost of homelessness is one that can only be taken for granted by someone who was never truly homeless.

Now, back to his privilege.  As an able-bodied male alone, he would be considered more qualified for work at a moving company, than say the man in the wheelchair he discusses during his interview, or even an able-bodied woman.  As a woman, current statistics would suggest that she’d be getting paid less for the same job, if she had gotten it at all.

Being a white male further enhanced his opportunities, because of certain things he did not have to face.  A person of color in his same situation – especially in South Carolina – would likely have to deal with discrimination, by police who might question his right to be anywhere, by employers who would not give him the time of day, and by rental property managers who would assume that he – for his ethnicity, nevermind his financial situation – may not be able to pay.

In a way, homelessness and poverty are associated with people of color, and indeed people of color are disproportionately poor.  White Adam may have been looked upon with sympathy, or with the assumption that he must genuinely be in a tough spot and that he’ll pull himself up if only he’s given the chance.  Black or brown or red Adam’s condition would’ve only affirmed what the property managers, employers, and police already expect of such people, that even if given a chance he probably wouldn’t do anything with it.

Perhaps here one would be inclined to criticize me for injecting race into an issue that has nothing to do with race.  Except that of course it does, for all the reasons I’ve mentioned, and because Adam Shepard himself indicates that it does – whether he intended to or not.  He says in the interview:

I’ve got child care. I’ve got a probation officer. I’ve got all these bills. Now what am I going to do? Am I going to continue to go out to eat and put rims on my Cadillac? Or am I going to make some things happen in my life…?

Who will most people picture when they imagine someone driving a Cadillac with rims on it?  Who, according to stereotypes, drives Cadillacs?  A black or brown person, undoubtedly.  And I am certain that it was a black or brown person that Adam himself envisioned when he made that statement.  Urban dictionary is hardly a scholarly or reputable source of information, but it is useful in providing some insight into the ways that racism can be packaged within subjects that ostensibly have nothing to do with race.  The first definition of Cadillac reads:

A car which is bought with crack money, that must have D’s thrown on it. Sometimes referred to as a bitch.

“Just bought a Cadillac, Throw some D’s on that bitch!”

“D’s”, in case you’re wondering, is short for “Dubs”, another term for rims.  A second definition rams the point home more explicitly:

Once classy brand which my doctor neighbor owned in the 80’s but has now transformed and became popular amongst gangster wannabees…

…Cadillac brand has now become a joke since the only people who like them now are gangstas, poor blacks from the hood…

About rims:

The chief expenditure of African Americans

And:

The subject of every “crunk” rap song, along with “twunny foes”, and prostitution and strippers.

So maybe – maybe – Adam Shepard wouldn’t have been thinking about black or brown people if he had only mentioned Cadillacs, but tack on the rims bit and it’s pretty clear that he was.

Considering all of this, how should I interpret the quote above?  That contrary specifically to what poor black and brown people are doing with their money, with only some “hard work” and “common sense”, anyone can achieve the American Dream.

What Shepard fails to consider is the presumption built into the ideal of the American Dream that one should be white, able-bodied, and male – as is Shepard himself.  It is a presumption that rings true as we see many people, unequipped with white male privilege but exerting the same amount of – or more – hard work and common sense, unable to shatter the various glass ceilings set above them for reasons of gender, race, class, and physical ability. Interestingly enough, Barbara Ehrenreich highlights some of these disparities as they relate to race in a recent article she co-wrote for the Huffington Post.  In it she writes:

The longstanding racial “wealth gap” makes African Americans particularly vulnerable to poverty when job loss strikes. In 1998, the net worth of white households on average was $100,700 higher than that of African Americans. By 2007, this gap had increased to $142,600. The Survey of Consumer Finances, which is supported by the Federal Reserve Board, collects this data every three years — and every time it has been collected, the racial wealth gap has widened. To put it another way: in 2004, for every dollar of wealth held by the typical white family, the African American family had only one 12 cents. In 2007, it had exactly a dime. So when an African American breadwinner loses a job, there are usually no savings to fall back on, no well-heeled parents to hit up, no retirement accounts to raid.

Do these statistics reflect an entire population foolishly choosing to put rims on their Cadillacs?  Or do they perhaps reflect a serious socioeconomic disparity based in the institutional racism of American society?  The last sentence in the above excerpt corresponds to Shepard’s ability at any time to fall back on his credit card and the wealth of his parents if and when he needed them – something he was able to take for granted because he did not, in fact, use them.  That is, until he decided the experiment was over and went back to his normal life – again, a luxury that a genuinely poor person does not have.

Shepard’s Scratch Beginnings is in part a criticism of Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, which was about her struggle (and failure) to work her way out of poverty as a Wal-Mart employee.  His criticism does not consider how Ehrenreich’s experience might have been different for the fact that she was a woman.  And while Ehrenreich is white, a disproportionate number of Wal-Mart employees are people of color, a fact that is related to the uneven distribution of wealth along racial lines.  Those employees likely have an even more difficult time than she did.

In that Shepard is able to criticize the poor Wal-Mart employee by proxy through Ehrenreich, for her inability to achieve the American Dream as he did, and invoke the image of the poor black or brown person choosing extravagance over fiscal responsibility, he makes his white male privilege very evident.  He also shows how from that position of entitlement it is easy to condemn those who do not have it – invariably women and people of color.

Finally it shows how white male privilege underpins the American Dream and how implicit within that ideal is the utterly racist, classist, and sexist assumption that it is for their own shortcomings – laziness, irresponsibility, stupidity – that anyone does not live the dream.

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This is not incidental. It is no secret that Sarah Palin – and by extension Bristol Palin – occupy that strange gray area where they are pro-celibacy but also pro-family, which more or less translates into “Wait until you’re married, then have a bunch of babies.” They are also part of the same social conservative platform which has put forth the mythical icon of the welfare mother, the poor woman who allegedly has a lot of babies so that she might receive extra financial benefits from the government.

That being the case, the pro-family position is not one that these ideologues hold with regards to the poor. And should a poor mother become pregnant on several occasions, because she – like the Palins – is pro-family, then she should not expect any sort of support, most certainly should never consider abortion, and therefore be left with the only “reasonable” choice – to send a host of new children into the foster system.

Better yet, maybe she should just abstain from sex altogether.  It is a confusing message, for sure.

What is the poor mother to do? Deny herself the right to have a family because she’s poor? It is blatantly obvious that this piece of propaganda – I don’t even think it deserves to be called a “Public Service Announcement” – is drawing a qualitative distinction between the poor family and the wealthy family. In the beginning we see Bristol, with all of her posh clothing and furniture. By the end, we see Bristol portrayed in the way that the wealthy view the poor – as having absolutely nothing, by virtue of their lack of material wealth.  It is impossible that a poor family could be just as happy as the wealthy and privileged Bristol Palin in their choice to have a child.

At the same time that this platform calls for sensitivity towards Bristol Palin and her pregnancy, it approaches the poor with moral judgment and paternalistic mandates for what decisions these women should make regarding their bodies and their families. It is not merely hypocritical, but is nothing less than class war. And when we consider that racism and classism are inexorable – indeed the “welfare mom” is portrayed as a black woman, and people of color are disproportionately poor – we come to realize just how much propaganda can be stuffed into a mere 30 seconds.

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So what about White History Month? Well, if such a thing were created, it’d only be as a blatant affront to Black History Month, because as I mentioned, the history of America has mostly been told with respect to and with a focus on the actions of Euro-Americans. The only reason there is a need for Black History Month – which I personally wish wasn’t the case – is that history is often been written at the exclusion of the non-white population in any situation, and not only have so-called “black people” been a minority in this country for its entire history, but a marginalized one at that. Text books give lip service to slavery, but often merely as a backdrop to the American Civil War, glossing over 400 years of atrocity to eventually pay high tribute to white military generals and Abraham Lincoln – who, mind you, was more keen on shipping all African-Americans back to Africa than dealing with the difficulties of Reconstruction.

It is not mentioned how the institution of slavery formed the very financial backbone of this country, nor how the wealth of many of the top 1% of individuals and the richest corporations were accumulated on top of a slavery money foundation. After slavery, history books do not pay much attention – if they mention it at all – to the atrocities that continued to take place against African-Americans, such as beatings and lynchings that went unpunished because of the mentality that while no longer slaves, they were still less than human and therefore entitled to less than human rights. Perhaps it is thought that impressionable little minds cannot digest the scope of the crimes committed against African-Americans, but in my opinion, that is the exact impression that they need of this country – i.e. an accurate one.

Anyway, without going much further into the exclusion of particularly “black” issues from mainstream written American history – and literature, and art, and invention, and more – the point is that American History is all too often “white history”. I should mention that the issues of “non-black” minorities get even less attention. Perhaps because their roles were on the whole less significant given their numbers, but mostly for the same reason that black history is relegated to a single month of coverage rather than interspersed throughout the continuum of American history as it should be, and as would eliminate the need for such a month. My focus on black history here is due mostly to the fact that the exclusion of other minorities from the American stage of history has left me with little to no knowledge about their roles. I blame the standardized American education system for this exclusion.

I will say, though, that the American Indians, in spite – or because of their reduced numbers and a need to preserve their history and culture – need as much as any non-white group to be adequately represented in American history. The true story of Columbus should be told. The Thanksgiving myth needs to be deconstructed, if not completely abolished. The plights that American Indians have faced and continue to face in the aftermath of their near physical and cultural annihilation and marginalization needs to be recognized and discussed with as much fervor as anything else.

But as for “white history month”, perhaps there should be such a thing. Not to pay even more attention to those figures who already dominate American history, but to observe a history of this phenomenon called “whiteness”. There are several progressive academic intiatives, all at the college level, to examine this – indeed “whiteness studies” – which I applaud and wish would gain some mainstream attention.

So enough about history. What about White Entertainment Television? I have to ask any person who argues this point what television they are watching. The main characters and the majority of cast members on every American sitcom, drama, and news show are Euro-Americans. WET, as it were, is every television station – except for the ones that obviously, you know, aren’t – and they are few. How much media coverage has Paris Hilton received, and for what? The woman has no talents to speak of, at least none that she advertises, unless we consider her sexual prowess. But I don’t know anything about that; I didn’t see the tape. She goes to jail – sort of – for an everyday crime, perhaps as much because of her illicit celebrity status as the crime itself and the country can’t stop talking about it for weeks. And in the aftermath, all eyes were on Paris as she declared that she was a changed woman, and the media outlets wait with bated breath to report on her next escapades.

Lindsay Lohan’s transition from a kid-friendly actress to a wanton drunk makes headlines. Anna Nicole Smith stayed in the spotlight even before she died – and for what – manipulating old men into including her in their wills? Brad and Angelina’s relationship joys and woes are given far greater attention than their humanitarian efforts in Africa. And which of the Olsen twins will die first from anorexia or drug addiction would seem to be quite newsworthy.

Also worth noting is that while the depravities of these white women seem to bring them greater attention and popularity, instances where non-white celebrities fall from grace are met with such venomous responses. Barry Bonds took steroids, which has become a bigger deal as he approaches the home run record of squeaky clean Hank Aaron. This is ironic since Hank himself received extreme scorn and even death threats as he approached Babe Ruth’s record. Michael Vick – who was overrated to begin with – is getting even more media attention than he deserves, but this time all negative. Paris Hilton goes to jail and she could make a few million “writing” a book about the experience. Meanwhile, Michael Vick allegedly has some dogs fighting one another – something that is disgraceful and rightfully condemned – but not something that should make him public enemy number one.

Now this is a strange phenomenon, because it almost seems as though these African-American celebrities are held to a higher standard than their white counterparts – strange because these standards are certainly not reflective of how minorities are often perceived in the public consciousness. One would think that where a “black man” lives up to society’s expectations that he be a criminal or a degenerate, he would be met with justified nods.  But in truth, it is not that Michael Vick and Barry Bonds are held to some higher standard than Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan, it is that their celebrity was resented from the start – at least by some – and their indiscretions have finally given justification to tear them down. Perhaps hesitant to exalt African-American role models as it would conflict with their perceptions of African-Americans in general, these incidents have given racist parents an excuse to recommend wholesome white gentlemen like Peyton Manning or Steve Nash as their children’s new heroes. This, of course, is not to say that these two men aren’t well-deserving of admiration all else notwithstanding.

Going back to television – Homer Simpson, Peter Griffin, Dr. Meredith Grey, Tony Soprano, Gil Grissom – the leads of some of the most popular television shows – although it is never said, nor does it need to be said – are “white”. And the media starlets (although a word that rhymes with starlets may be more appropriate) are no different. In fact, it registers in the mind like a beacon whenever this is not the case, and it most often is not, unless it is a show with an all or mostly non-white cast.

I should give special mention to Tony Soprano, as he showcases something important – that where an Italian-American television family isn’t simply “white”, they are most likely in the mafia. And it is that element, and not any Italian heritage or culture that gives them such ample popularity on mainstream (i.e. “white”) television. That is to say, stereotypes appear to be good business.

White dominance of media attention is not mentioned because of what I said before about the default status of Americans and American interests being white as well. So, in light of all of this, what else would an explicitly “white television” station be, other than a racist thumb-at-the-nose at every channel that dares to show anything else? And for those of you who argue for “WET”, I again ask you what television you’ve been watching all this time, but also if it is really necessary to begrudge minorities one or two stations and a handful of programs?

Finally, moving into socioeconomics, the argument of non-white exclusivity as a form of racism is most vehement when it comes to Affirmative Action. It should be mentioned right from the start that as many “white” women have benefited from the program as minorities, but even glossing over that point, why is Affirmative Action not a form of reverse discrimination? Why is it okay to give someone a job at least in part because they are a minority, but apparently not justifiable to hire someone or grant certain privileges to someone because they are “white”? It is hard to even take these questions seriously, but let me address them first with a question of my own: What country do you people live in? In the United States of America, history (as I’ve discussed), politics, economics, indeed everything, favors “white people” – a term I continuously put into quotes due to its spurious status as a term of classification.

No white person ever need fear being pulled over by police simply for being white, or of police adopting a shoot-first-ask-questions-later mentality as they reach for their wallets. No white person has ever needed to be concerned about being denied a loan or housing in a certain neighborhood on the basis of their perceived race. White people – in all the places and situations that matter – are evaluated as all people should be – exclusively on the basis of their merits. This is one aspect of what is called “white privilege” or the “wages of whiteness”, but there is much more to be observed that unfortunately goes beyond the scope of this essay.

On the other hand, minorities face this kind of exclusion on a regular basis, and on a scale that is hardly balanced out by a few half-baked diversification initiatives or corporate hiring quotas. Employment applications and contracts often have an “at will employment” clause, which state that employment can be terminated at will by the employer for any reason. Now, for fear of a lawsuit, no company would explicitly state that they are firing someone on the basis of race, gender, or ethnicity. But nor do they have to. It is as simple as saying “it wasn’t a good fit” or “we decided to go in a different direction”, and there is absolutely nothing that an employee can do about it, even on a strong suspicion of racist motives.

And a company can give practically any reason they choose for not hiring someone in the first place, just as a lender can be vague in their reasons for denying someone a loan, and a realtor can simply sell or rent the property to another tenant. Perhaps racism is involved in the majority of cases where minorites aren’t given jobs or loans or housing. Perhaps it is involved in very few. But that it is even possible is why programs like Affirmative Action must exist. In an ideal world it would not be necessary, but this world – and this country less so – is hardly ideal. So, again, why can’t we or don’t we give privileges to people on the basis of their whiteness as we do to minorities? News flash: we do – by default – with no need for any laws or special programs.

So by now it should be clear why there is a need in certain rare cases for non-white exclusivity in society – as an attempt to balance things in American life, which regardless of how it is represented in the media and in the public consciousness, is not synonymous with “white life”. White exclusivity would be the default position of virtually every institution where it is not already, were there not systems in place to prevent it.

If this is not clear, because you think that I am making this up, or because you have made up your mind to reject it from the outset, I encourage you to do genuine research on all the things I have discussed for yourself. By no means should you take me at my word, and I am certain that you could find ample material by which to argue against me. But it is because such material exists – in defiance of truth and to further fundamentally racist agendas – that this essay was written in the first place.

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