Everything But the Burden: What White People Are Taking from Black Culture

Everything But the Burden: What White People Are Taking from Black CultureThis collection of essays and short commentaries is well-written and hits the mark not just for African Americans, but for those people who keep current - or want to keep current - with the origins of all those hip, cool sayings. It will be surprising to find that among some of us, this phenomenon is far from new.

Tate's anthology is so badly needed that if it didn't appear, someone would have *had* to invent it. Why? The answer is simple. Black cultural nationalism is not simply an historical relic. It is a smart, vital 'movement', not the hyper-masculine, homophobic monolith it is routinely assumed to be. It has taken on new shapes & forms. At a time when Black neo-cons & neo-liberals, with the support of the majority of US body politic, are punitive anti-essentialists, asserting that all cultural production is a result of 'hybridity', the writers in this book are not afraid to point out, in a nuanced and intelligent manner, that white people are still taking whatever they like from Black cultures, and leaving the hard work to Black people. Filmmaker and sub-rosa genius Arthur Jafa's mindblowing essay, 'My Black Death' is a brilliant polemic which responds unequivocally to the book's assertion. If this crucial book fails to convince readers that Tate and the contributors are not kidding around, consider the (fairly) recent incident in which Eric Clapton, while observing the late Eddie Kendricks in a studio session, asked the engineer if he could go into the studio and look down Kendricks' throat, believing there was a *physiological* *thing* that would explain how Kendricks' was able to sing in the way he did. Consider why beloved English 'techno' heroes 808 State, in an interview with a UK music paper, said that, for them, making dance music invented in Chicago & Detroit by Black people, was the "the white kids' revenge". Urban legends? Heard/read from a source wholly unconnected to the events? No. It is apparently much easier to consider the fate of James Byrd, Amadou Diallo, Abner Louima, and too many others as repulsive racist violence (and that's what those acts are) but stand idly by while Clapton, 808 State, etc., etc. go on with their hatred/envy of Black people. Please read this book. There will likely be very few other books like this in the forseeable future because they don't permit neo-liberals and conservatives to sleep well.

Remember the add for Elvis Presleys number 1s CD...................BEFORE THERE WAS ANYTHING THERE WAS ELVIS? Forget Ike Turner, forget Little Richard, forget Fats Domino.....Before there was Bobby Seal and Huey P. Newton and Malcom X there was Apple Computers PANTHER X software? Let's not start with Eminem or Kenny G or Chuck Mangioni. Before there was Picasso there was no cubism? There are many issues brought up in Greg Tates "Everything But the Burden: What White People Are Taking from Black Culture" but 95 percent of the people don't want to see this...maybe the 5 percent always will. So much can be diss-missed or over looked when looking at appropriation from the appropriators perspective. It isn't about freedom that is in question here but privilege and power.....something easily misunderstood.....

greg tate's "everything but the burden" is a wide ranging collection of literary essays most of which deal convincinglyand several quite brilliantly,with the subject at hand- how white folks appropriate and misappropriate black culture.the writer attributes the book's title to his mother who "once wrote a poem called 'everything but the burden'" in which she railed against white people's wanting everything culturally identifiable as black---but the burden.my personal favorites among the essays are the ones by the brilliant writer and editor greg tate; fashion stylist michaela angela davis' poignant piece on growing up black and beautiful but not sure of being either; historian and jazz scholar robin b d kelly; writer and etherealist latasha n diggs satire on her satirical fetish for asian men ; and a breathtakingly informative and analytical piece on musician james brown's cultural influence on post- colonial west african youth by author/filmmaker/scholar manthia diawara.an altogether welcome addition to the increasingly important writings about what"burden" contributor and artist/cinematographer arthur jafa calls the "post-soul culture".