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A review by srfrq
White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue ... and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation by Lauren Michele Jackson
3.0
"...in the here and now and the everyday, we are alone together with our desires and our gestures...if there is a call embedded in this book...it is a call to more alertness, more intensity, more care, and more fluency in the racial dramas performed as part and parcel of business as usual."
"to those who count themselves allies, may these essays make you a little less sure of yourselves"
i was a little uncomfortable when putting this book on my list and even while reading it, because of the n-word on the cover and also used a lot in a chapter discussing language. i say "n-word" in my head instead of the actual n-word, but i'm still perceiving it and processing it semantically which is what bothers me i guess.
usually, a conversation around appropriation begins and ends right there, no one digs deeper into the culture around us and even into ourselves. this was very much needed.
this book was written very clearly although at times it could get boring when the author was writing about memes i was already familiar with but i really appreciated the analysis that would follow! the chapter titled "the hipster" was about language, and i think the author makes a really good connection between the semantics of words.
for instance, a word like 'literally' also means 'figuratively' in our minds but that does not change the original definition of the word, 'in a literal manner'. another example might be the word 'queer' which was used a slur historically and is now being reclaimed in the community. in this way, the n-word also holds a very heavy and violent history, a word that the black community is reclaiming.
another thing that the author brought attention to is social media and what she writes is something i've been thinking about for a very long time! and i think we all to an extent know this as well. black culture is the foundation of fashion, art, and social media through memes, language, and designs. blackface evolved into digital blackface with the power of anonymity, and imitations and appropriation of black culture became secondhand! i recognized how i was a part of this, especially on twitter, and deleted all my social media. i was trying to escape appropriation (alongside surveillance and my own insecurities), but i'm living in a world shaped by social media and i know that it's impossible to escape anything. i still appreciate the mental breadth i have from society in general and the self-awareness that is being fostered as a result but it's truly impossible to individually destroy appropriation and other negative effects of social media.
"a protest is not an event but an endurance test. if we survive it's only for sharing such a scourge. i hope everyone keeps on til tomorrow, whenever that comes."
"i cannot overstate the regularity of appropriation, how often it is, for most, a nondilemma...complex problems often deserve complex solutions, but in the case of power and appropriation the answer is quite simple when looked at from a bird's-eye view. equality is too tame. fair compensation is too modest. our world deserves reordering. only under a transformation on that scale could i ever imagine a version of society in which black people have options instead of destinies, options instead of statistics"
"to those who count themselves allies, may these essays make you a little less sure of yourselves"
i was a little uncomfortable when putting this book on my list and even while reading it, because of the n-word on the cover and also used a lot in a chapter discussing language. i say "n-word" in my head instead of the actual n-word, but i'm still perceiving it and processing it semantically which is what bothers me i guess.
usually, a conversation around appropriation begins and ends right there, no one digs deeper into the culture around us and even into ourselves. this was very much needed.
this book was written very clearly although at times it could get boring when the author was writing about memes i was already familiar with but i really appreciated the analysis that would follow! the chapter titled "the hipster" was about language, and i think the author makes a really good connection between the semantics of words.
for instance, a word like 'literally' also means 'figuratively' in our minds but that does not change the original definition of the word, 'in a literal manner'. another example might be the word 'queer' which was used a slur historically and is now being reclaimed in the community. in this way, the n-word also holds a very heavy and violent history, a word that the black community is reclaiming.
another thing that the author brought attention to is social media and what she writes is something i've been thinking about for a very long time! and i think we all to an extent know this as well. black culture is the foundation of fashion, art, and social media through memes, language, and designs. blackface evolved into digital blackface with the power of anonymity, and imitations and appropriation of black culture became secondhand! i recognized how i was a part of this, especially on twitter, and deleted all my social media. i was trying to escape appropriation (alongside surveillance and my own insecurities), but i'm living in a world shaped by social media and i know that it's impossible to escape anything. i still appreciate the mental breadth i have from society in general and the self-awareness that is being fostered as a result but it's truly impossible to individually destroy appropriation and other negative effects of social media.
"a protest is not an event but an endurance test. if we survive it's only for sharing such a scourge. i hope everyone keeps on til tomorrow, whenever that comes."
"i cannot overstate the regularity of appropriation, how often it is, for most, a nondilemma...complex problems often deserve complex solutions, but in the case of power and appropriation the answer is quite simple when looked at from a bird's-eye view. equality is too tame. fair compensation is too modest. our world deserves reordering. only under a transformation on that scale could i ever imagine a version of society in which black people have options instead of destinies, options instead of statistics"