Everything But the Burden

November 11, 2002
There's an old remark to the effect that if you toss a Harvard boy in a locked room with a ghetto kid for a month, well, who'll come out sounding like whom? This collection, edited by Village Voice
critic Tate (Flyboy in the Buttermilk), attempts a sociology of that transaction, as repeated perpetually throughout American culture. Contributors including Carl Hancock-Rux (on Eminem), Hilton Als (on Richard Pryor) and Renee Green (on a complex of film and social theory) advance considerations more specifically directed than Norman Mailer's classic "The White Negro."

December 1, 2002
How does the majority, dominant, power-holding culture appropriate elements of the disenfranchised minority culture? In myriad ways, according to this collection of new essays edited by Village Voice writer Tate. From Picasso and Pollock to Steely Dan and Eminem, the white imitation of black ways has profoundly "colored" Western culture. Despite the book's subtitle, this work is as much about the varied emotional and intellectual responses of black thinkers to this phenomenon as it is about cultural appropriation per se. Ranging from Hilton Als to Jonathan Lethem, the contributors include professors, artists, musicians, and writers, and their essays embrace research (on the Left and the "Negro Question"), theory (on the primal history of thugs), and personal reflection (whether an impassioned account of sexual jealousy or reserved observations on James Brown and Malian youth), plus snippets of verse and drama. The degree of formality in the language varies enough to be distracting. The collection's stylistic diversity and idiosyncratic selection of topics create a provocative, if rather trying, reading experience. Recommended for substantial academic and public collections on race and American culture.-Janet Ingraham Dwyer, Worthington Libs., OH

Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2003
In this collection of essays, Tate, a cultural critic for the" Village Voice" , explores the American attraction/repulsion, fascination, adoption, and obsession with the alternative culture constantly being reinvented by black Americans. White America's appropriation of black American culture is often accompanied by denial or inability to acknowledge the cultural contributions of blacks, while perpetuating the notion that they are culturally deficient. The essayists, including Elsa Davis, Danzy Senna, Arthur Jafa, and Melvin Gibbs, explore the ironies of commercial television filled with the soundtrack of black music from the baby boomers' youth as if the songs are (and were) American classics. Contributors analyze the alternate obsession with and denial of black cultural contribution in American life, drawing a line from Norman Mailer's obsession with the white Negro to Steely Dan's black-influenced sound, all setting the precedent for white rapper Eminem. The contributors also explore the downside of white America's love and envy of black culture, a condescension or paternalism that raises questions about whether blacks are being flattered or mocked or both. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)