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THE RHETORIC OF APPROPRIATION: How UPPER MIDDLE CLASS
WHITE MALES FLIPPED THE SCRIPT ON HIP HOP CULTURE AND BLACK
LANGUAGE.

By

Jill McKay Chrobak

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Rhetoric and Writing

2007

ABSTRACT
THE RHETORIC OF APPROPRIATION: HOW UPPER MIDDLE CLASS
WHITE MALES FLIPPED THE SCRIPT ON HIP HOP CULTURE AND BLACK
LANGUAGE.
By

Jill McKay Chrobak

This project investigates the rhetoric of appropriation, speciﬁcally how and why upper
middle class white males appropriate Hip Hop culture and Black Language in order to
better understand and thus value the complex sociolinguistic and rhetorical strategies
and signiﬁcance enacted in this unique phenomenon within the ﬁeld of composition and
rhetoric. What makes these individuals’ strategies, moves, and speech linguistically and
rhetorically Signiﬁcant is that while attempting to become part of a culture and
language through appropriation they are actually creating something altogether different
from what they intend to appropriate. These individuals have crafted a new culture and
language, one based on appropriation of Hip Hop culture and Black Language, what I
have come to call a rhetoric of appropriation. The crux of this research focuses on case
study interview data collected over a two year period of 30 upper middle class (UMC)
white male participants who evidence a deep interest in Hip Hop culture and
appropriation of that culture and Black Language. In studying these participants it is my
belief that our ﬁeld will be better suited to understand the unrelenting proliferation and
appropriation of Hip HOp culture and Black Language writ large into mainstream
culture and society and how this widespread growth pertains to students, instructors,

researchers, and scholars alike.

For Michael, my everything—then, now, and forever. Without your love, support,
friendship, and remarkable brilliance there is no way I could have completed this
dissertation while maintaining a semblance of sanity. However, I still recognize that “you

know who ” are crazy. No exceptions. T hanks for loving me anyways.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, I have to represent the program that brought me more professional,
academic, and scholarly accomplishment and joy than Should ever be granted a grad
student and without whose guidance and support this dissertation would not be possible.
So, a huge thanks to all the faculty, staff and students involved in/with Michigan State
University’s Graduate Program in Rhetoric and Writing. A collective appreciation goes
out to my cohort—the incoming class of 2004—1 can’t think of better scholars or people
to have ridden the grad school roller coaster with. Speciﬁc thanks goes to: Angela Haas,
Qwo-Li Driskill, and Michael McLeod. Ang, for always being “right there” and inspiring
me with your kindness and brilliance to do better, more socially conscious work no
matter what. Qwo, your giant heart and raucous hilarity made that ﬁrst year of
coursework not only bearable but fun. You are a true talent and I am blessed to count you
as my friend and colleague. Mike, for always being a trusting ﬁiend and conﬁdant, I’m so
proud of your accomplishments.

On the professor tip, I have to ﬁrst thank Colleen Tremonte. You were there at the
beginning and you stuck with me through it all, thank you. Much appreciation goes to
Kitty Geissler, for believing that a 24 year old who had never taught before could teach a
class of 60 college students, but more so for being the ﬁrst faculty member to be open
and honest with me about all things academia. I will forever be indebted to Geneva
Smithennan for offering the class that would be the catalyst for this dissertation and for
always keeping it real. Big ups to you Dr. G, for giving an outspoken white girl a chance

to shine in your kingdom. Pedagogically, if I can be half the teacher Julie Lindquist is,

iv

I’ll be doing something right. Julie, what I learned in your classes has made me a better
teacher and inﬁnitely more aware of who I am in that Space.

There are no words to express the unending gratitude and deepest awe I feel
towards my committee chair, my mentor, my friend, Malea Powell. Malea, you are the
way, the truth, and the light. I promise to do my best and whatever good comes out of my
scholarship, my teaching, my worldview I owe it all to you. You make me want to do
better—thank you for holding your “babies” to a higher standard, we’d sure be low
without you.

Thank you to my students both at Michigan State and at the University of Miami,
I hope you know I learned as much, if not more, from you than you did from me. Thanks
to the faculty and staff at University of Miami’s Department of English Composition,
especially Mr. Ben Lauren, who made it a great place to work while trying to ﬁnish a
Ph.D.

Thanks to my parents for always supporting me even though they weren’t so sure
what the hell I was doing/working on most of the time, they are fabulous cheerleaders
nonetheless. A Special thanks to my brother Jeffrey, for being an intriguing interview, but
more importantly keeping me true to our roots. I wouldn’t want to be a McKay without

you by my Side.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................ 1
Research Methodology and Method: Case Study ........................... 3
Personal Impetus ................................................................. 7
Theorizing Culture and Language ............................................. 10
Theorizing Cultural Studies in Rhetoric and Composition ................. 16
Cultural and Linguistic Appropriation ........................................ 21
Hip Hop Culture and Black Language Appropriation ...................... 26
Black Language Appropriation ....................................... 33
Conclusion ........................................................................ 38
CHAPTER 2
THE RHETORIC OF HIP HOP ........................................................ 41
Classical Rhetoric ............................................................... 44
Rhetorical Tradition of Hip Hop: Resistance and Empowerment. .. . . . 49
Old School Rhetors to New School Rappers .................................. 57
Ancient Civics to the Modern Hood ........................................... 61
Rhetorics of Citizenship in Hip Hop ................................. 65
Conclusion ......................................................................... 70
CHAPTER 3
(SOCIO)LINGUISTIC APPROPRIATION .......................................... 72
Black Language Roots and Appropriation ................................... 75
Welcome to My Study ......................................................... 79
Interpretation of the Data ...................................................... 84
Evidence and Analysis of (Socio)Linguistic Appropriation .............. 86
Lexical Appropriation ................................................ 86
Appropriation Recognition .......................................... 94
Bryan and Jeff Take on the Nigger/Nigga Debate ................ 96
Conclusion ...................................................................... 103
CHAPTER 4
THE RHETORIC OF APPROPRIATION: FLIPPIN THE SCRIPT ............... 107
Appropriation Contextually Considered ....................................... 109
Rhetoric of Appropriation ....................................................... 112
Symbolization ............................................................ 1 14
Institutional Language ................................................... 124
Cultural Capital .......................................................... 133
Conclusion ........................................................................ 141

vi

CHAPTER 5
REPRESENTIN THE RHETORIC OF APPROPRIATION: WIGGAS AND NEO-

WIGGAS .................................................................................... 143
Wiggas .............................................................................. 146
Greg ........................................................................ 1 5 1
Cory ........................................................................ 156
Neo-Wiggas ........................................................................ 1 59
Dallas ....................................................................... 160
Chet ......................................................................... 164
Conclusion .......................................................................... 168
CHAPTER 6
THE RHETORIC OF APPROPRIATION IN THE RHET/COMP CLASSROOM 170
Established Cultural Studies Pedagogy ......................................... 173
The Rhetoric of Appropriation in the Composition Classroom .............. 182
Whitcness in the Composition Classroom .............................. 186
Pedagogical Case Study, Or Howl Teach the Rhetoric of Appropriation. 191
Conclusion ........................................................................... 195
APPENDICES '
Appendix A: Tentative Interview Prompts/Questions ........................ 198
Appendix B: Consent Form ........................................................ 199
Appendix C: Rhetorical Analysis of Hip Hop Lyrics Assignment ......... 201
Appendix D: Issues in Hip Hop Research Paper. . .. ........................... 202
Appendix E: Visual Analysis Project and Presentation ...................... 203
REFERENCES ............................................................................... 204

vii

Chapter 1: Introduction

Hip hoppers continue to ﬂip the public script on undervalued Black life by making their
aesthetics the overwhelming standard by which popular music and style are evaluated.

--Elaine Richardson (2003)
Hip Hop has now become a force that operates on a global scale. Having started in the
postindustrial rubble of the South Bronx and then moved through America and into the
global cultural economy, Hip Hop has become a form of expression that maintains these
roots but also can be made specific to the culture appropriating it. Hip Hop, then, is
internationally known, nationally recognized, and locally accepted. It has moved from
Frisco to Maine, and then on to Spain, from the state’s capital, from the Pineapple to the
Big Apple. Hip Hop is worldwide.

«Todd Boyd (2002)

In suburban areas all over America a cultural and linguistic phenomenon is occurring and
booming. White boys and men in upper middle class (UMC) neighborhoods are aligning
themselves with a culture and language that is decidedly not theirs, Speciﬁcally Hip Hop
culture and Black Language'. While this kind of appropriation is vast and varied, my
work focuses on a mere comer of the appropriation globe, UMC communities
surrounding Detroit, Michigan. These communities are rife with white men ages 18-30
who identify in ﬂuctuating degrees with Hip Hop music, but what is most fascinating is
the growing population of those who appropriate both the culture of Hip Hop and the
language most often used within that culture, Black Language. In my 10 years of living
within this community and my two and a half years actively researching this, I have

discovered that the way UMC white males who appropriate Hip Hop culture and Black

 

1 The term Black Language refers to the predominant language of the African American community
sometimes referred to as Ebonics, African American Vernacular English, Aﬁican American English,
and/or Black Vernacular English. I use the term “Black Language” to establish what I feel are the two most
important components 1.) With the rising proliferation of Hip Hop culture Black refers to not just African
Americans but people of African decent all over the globe, thus Black is more inclusive to these
communities; 2.) Language ﬁrmly linguistically situates my belief and the overwhelming research that the
Black community have a language that is unique lexically, semantically, and syntactically.

Language situate and identify these appropriations is rhetorically and linguistically
signiﬁcant. What makes their acts of appropriation Signiﬁcant is that while attempting to
become part of the cultural and linguistic community of Hip Hop through appropriation
they are actually creating something altogether different from what they intend to
appropriate. These individuals have crafted a new culture and language, one based on
appropriation of Hip Hop culture and Black Language that I have come to call the
rhetoric of appropriation.

The purpose of this project is to investigate that rhetoric of appropriation—
speciﬁcally how and why UMC white males appropriate Hip Hop culture and Black
Language—in order to better understand and value the complex sociolinguistic and
rhetorical strategies enacted in this unique phenomenon and apply this new knowledge to
the ﬁeld of composition and rhetoric. This project uses case study interview data from 30
upper middle class (U MC) white male participants collected over a two year period. All
of the participants displayed and articulated a deep interest in Hip Hop culture and
appropriation of that culture and Black Language. These case studies of appropriation
rhetoric are analyzed and examined using established cultural studies theory and
methodology from the ﬁeld of composition and rhetoric. In studying these participants it
is my belief that our ﬁeld will be better suited to understand the unrelenting proliferation
and appropriation of Hip Hop and Black Language writ large into mainstream culture and
society and how this widespread grth pertains to students, instructors, researchers, and

scholars alike.

This chapter begins with my research methodology followed by my personal

impetus for embarking on a project that deals largely with rhetorics of color and the

whiteness that appropriates from this culture and language. For me, it is important to
showcase where the researcher stands concerning the work/data not only theoretically but
personally. However, the overall purpose of this chapter is to focus on the theoretical, to
introduce the predominant themes and theories that will aid in more fully explaining the
rhetoric of appropriation in the coming chapters. That is, this chapter will supply and
analyze previous research on rhetoric, language, and culture that has helped to shape the
theoretical base I will be working from in order to craft original arguments on/about Hip
HOp culture and Black Language. Furthermore, this chapter ﬁmily situates linguistic and
cultural appropriation as a means to better interpret the case study research on UMC

white males and their appropriations of Hip Hop and Black Language.
Research Methodology and Method: Case Study

Methodologically, I chose to represent my 30 interviews with my UMC white
male participants as case studies. Mostly this choice stems from the need for this
dissertation not to be deﬁned as merely a sociolinguistic study but also as a work well
positioned in the ﬁeld of cultural studies—to make meaning of not only the way in which
these participants speak but also to draw conclusions about their perceptions and attitudes
concerning why they phenomenally appropriate Black Language and Hip Hop culture
and what these appropriations mean for language, culture, and mainstream society. Of
course the main unit of study is the interview and some of these interactions will be
abstracted from in order to more effectively discuss linguistic qualities of language.
Overall, however, these individuals will be represented as “cases” falling into deﬁned
categories based on the level of appropriation and the rhetorical savvy they evidence in

their explanations. That is to say, these participants are people, they have names,

identities, clear ways of deﬁning and portraying themselves in the world that formulates

them as both unique personas and part of a cultural and linguistic phenomenon.

The method I used to frame my research questions on Hip Hop culture and the
rhetoric of appropriation is case study research. To delve deeper into the assumptions and
beliefs of the appropriators I conducted 30 interviews with upper middle class white
males who affiliate themselves with Hip Hop culture and Black Language. Therefore, I
used case study methodology to collect and compile the data for purposes of further
examination and analysis. Furthermore, the unit of analysis for this methodology is the
individual and/or group interviews themselves in order to most effectively discuss the
implications and proliferations of these appropriations on and within Hip Hop culture and
Black Language.

I call my research method case study because I consider each interview and each
individual to be a case unit. All of the participants in my study share a few common
denominators: white, age 18-28, deeply involved/interested in Hip Hop, admit to using
Black “slang”/vernacular at times. Each interview lasted at least one hour and no more
than 4 hours. By recording their verbal responses, linguistic variables, individual
utterances and observing their “performance” (dress, gesturing, posturing, tone) I feel I
am attempting to draw informed conclusions about how and why UMC white males
appropriate Hip Hop culture and Black Language. I say attempting because I recognize
the limitations of this project in that there is no data that includes language in natural
settings and no way to triangulate with other contexts. So while I cannot deﬁnitively
explain the motives for language use, especially because it is drawn from

constructed/leading questions, I am doing my best to extrapolate from the rhetorical

Situation of the interview as well as my past interactions and knowledge with/of the
participants infer as to what their motives behind the appropriation may be.

Overall, the purpose of case studies is to investigate contemporary cases for
purposes of illtunination and understanding (Hays, 20042218). Case studies oﬁen involve
the close examination of people, topics, issues, and/or programs (Hays, 20042218). A
collective case study is a study of a number of cases to inquire into a phenomenon (many
individuals or groups) (Stake, 2003). My research can then be categorized as a collective
case study in that it looks at a particular group of individuals (upper middle class white
males) to inquire into the phenomenon of Hip Hop culture and Black Language
appropriation.

It must be said that case studies are bounded, they examine individual people or
individual group practices and beliefs. They do not examine the practices of an entire
people or culture. Therefore, my research can in no way be described as an ethnography,
seeking to gross wholesale understanding of the culture of Hip Hop. My research seeks
only to evidence the phenomenon of Hip Hop culture and Black Language appropriation
by upper middle class white males. To be sure, there is a fair amount of literature
presented pertaining to Hip Hop culture and Black Language to further support my
original theories about the rhetoric of appropriation as well as to draw conclusions and
analysis on/about Hip Hop culture and Black Language appropriation by the participants.
In a case study, the researchers’ purpose is not to study everything going on in the “case”
but to focus on speciﬁc issues, problems, or programs (Hays, 2004:225)——in my case Hip
Hop culture and Black Language appropriation by upper middle class white males. The

data presented here is analyzed for Black Language patterns in the participants’ everyday

speech as well as the participants’ rhetoric concerning assumptions, beliefs, perceptions,
and attitudes concerning Hip Hop culture and Black language.

To achieve the most natural speech, participants are not told I am looking for
Black Language patterns, though I am transparent in my instruments concerning my wish
to garner their ideas about Hip Hop and appropriation. The participants were asked to
voluntarily participate in this study by me. The interviews were conducted by me and
asked the participants focused questions that were voice recorded after attaining informed
consent forms (see appendix A and B for focused interview questions and consent form).
The participants’ privacy is protected through informed consent forms that are stored in a
locked cabinet which only I may access.

I obtained consent before any interviews were conducted. The participants were
presented with a printed consent form before the interview which they signed and dated
the bottom of and were able to retain the top portion which explains their protection
rights and provides them my own, Dr. Geneva Smitherman (the primary researcher) and
UCRIHS chairs’ contact information for further questions or concerns. I then collected

and retained the signed portion of the consent form.

Potential beneﬁts for the participants in my study include but are not limited to:
Provision of an open forum in which to discuss hip-hop/rap music and culture which the
participants enjoy and identify with and a greater understanding and comprehension of
the participants’ own assumptions, beliefs, perception, and attitudes towards hip-hop/rap
culture and Black Language.

Potential beneﬁts for the ﬁeld of composition and rhetoric include but are not

limited to: A greater understanding of the phenomenon of UMC white male appropriation

of hip-hop/rap culture and black language and the development of a precedent of case
studies to form a more solid base for future research on this subject.

Personal Impetus

The fact that I am a young, white female calls into consideration my appropriateness,
objectivity, and effectiveness in doing cultural studies research that focuses on a culture
of music and language that is originally from communities of color. I am sure there are
many people who don’t and will never understand why I ﬁnd value in researching Hip
Hop culture and Black Language appropriation. I can give you my standard response and
say that I feel that doing this and other research on Hip Hop culture and Black Language
appropriation will only permit a greater understanding of this popular phenomenon,
where it came from, what it has to offer the ﬁelds of cultural studies in rhetoric and
composition, and perhaps most importantly what our ﬁeld has to offer Hip Hop culture,
Black Language and their appropriators. Also, it is my belief that this research only
further validates the need to see Hip Hop as more than a fad but as a cultural revolution
that has vast implications for education in our society. Furthermore, examining the
language and cultural practices of UMC white males as they appropriate Hip Hop culture
and Black Language will aid those of us in the ﬁeld in understanding how cultures and
languages morph and stretch when appropriated and what that means for the students,

researchers, and teachers in public, personal, and civic spaces.

These are my altruistic beliefs about my research and I hold them dear to my
academic heart. They serve to prove to our ﬁeld that my work has value and a legitimate

place in our scholarly community. There are other more personal reasons that perhaps

should be made clear in order to better understand why I am doing this research, in this

way, and for this audience.

To be sure, this research is personal. I grew up in and around Detroit deeply
entrenched in Hip Hop music and culture and appropriating Black Language before I
knew what it was or what I was actually doing. To me, these interests and behaviors were
normal for someone like me who lived in a predominately Black and Hispanic
community. When I later moved to the predominately white northeast suburbs, I sought
friendships with those whose experiences mirrored my own, though we didn’t ﬁt in with
the suburban culture surrounding us. So I Spent the latter part of my teen years attempting
to hide my “urban” leanings. I distanced myself from my Puerto Rican best friend that
everyone labeled as “ghetto,” started listening to alternative music even though I really
didn’t get it or like it, and drastically altered my speech. No one knew where I was from,
that I had grown up poor in a single family home, that I worshipped Mary J. Blige and
owned every Hip Hop single tape known to man from 1984 and on. I performed upper
middle class white-girl the best I could and it worked for a while. Then something strange
happened. The Hip Hop music I loved started getting radio play, people who had never
even been to Detroit started claiming that they were “from the D,” kids started talking,
dressing, and acting like the people from my old neighborhood. Every UMC white kid
around me was performing Hip Hop culture and Black Language through varied forms of
appropriation and I couldn’t understand the sudden change. Why would these white,
privileged people decide to associate themselves with a culture and language that largely
represented oppressed people of color—what was in it for them? I had a clear view of

both Sides of the fence, I grew up alternately lower to lower middle class struggling both

economically and socially, and I knew that the economic and social grass was deﬁnitely

greener on the suburban side.

Certainly, suburbia has always been rife with musical inﬂuences whether or not the
content of the lyrics refers directly to suburban citizens. Heavy metal, alternative, and
punk music culture and linguistic inﬂuences on mainstream society have come and gone,
but Hip Hop is still here and stronger than ever. Is this a result of sawy appropriation by
the white masses? Though the kids from my late high school and early undergrad years
have evolved into tax paying, law abiding citizens in the “real” world, many still bump
Hip Hop in their cars and appropriate aspects of Black Language. What is most
remarkable is that the new generation of teenagers and young white adults (especially the
males) I interact with in my suburban neighborhood and composition classrooms have
taken appropriation to whole new level, situating them as a part of Hip Hop culture and
ﬂuent in Black Language. Because I had watched this phenomenon evolve I had to
investigate what it meant—why UMC white males continue to ﬁnd such kinship in a
cultural and linguistic practice they have nothing geographically, economically, and
racially to do with? I always knew I was white and that Hip Hop and Black Language did
not belong to me, that I was just a resident alien in my old urban neighborhood. However,
I also felt a kinship to the culture and language, that 1 was somehow sanctioned to
understand it even if I did not feel 100% part of the culture, because I lived around and
with it for 15 years. When did Hip Hop stop being just music to the UMC and Black

Language actually become a recognized and valuable vernacular by white youth?

What I have found in my research is that UMC white male justiﬁcations,

opinions, and beliefs about Hip Hop culture, use of Black Language and appropriation

vary but that all of them clearly invoke complex rhetorical strategies and appeals that are
central to their identity. Through interviewing UMC white males I began to see how the
media and mass consumer society has taught them this rhetoric of appropriation. But to
fully know and understand the roots and moves of this phenomenon I recognize I had to
go deeper, look more critically, and examine more closely the ties that bind my original
research to cultural studies within composition and rhetoric. Ultimately, I want to be able
to teach the rhetoric of appropriation as evidence of how and why Hip Hop culture and
Black Language have proliferated so widely in mainstream society and conversely how
Hip Hop culture and Black Language can change the study of traditional rhetoric,
composition, and sociolinguistics.

Theorizing Culture and Language

In order to effectively theorize my work I recognize that it is imperative to clearly
deﬁne how I am using cultural studies for the purpose of this research and what previous
scholarly work I am drawing upon to further theorize the material. For all intents and
purposes when I refer to cultural studies theory, methodology, and/or pedagogy I am
situating cultural studies that comes out of the ﬁeld of rhetoric and composition. That is, I
am drawing upon theories and methodologies established in composition and rhetoric that
were initially borrowed from the ﬁeld of cultural studies founded at the
CCCS/Birmingham school in Great Britain but that have evolved into a distinct set of
approaches within the ﬁeld. Therefore, my view of cultural studies is based on the CCCS
assumption that the study of culture is a way to access more structural and systematic
social phenomena and to make meaning of that phenomenon through observation of

cultural and linguistic practices. To be sure, I draw upon work done in cultural studies as

10

a discipline to support my research but only for the purpose of evidencing the need for
cultural studies foci/approaches in the ﬁeld of rhetoric and composition and in writing

classrooms.

I am aware that even within composition and rhetoric the concepts and theories
encompassed in cultural studies are vast in origin and topic. Brilliant and robust cultural
studies work has been done on a myriad of popular culture phenomenon including but not
limited to: punk (Sire, 2002), rock ‘n roll, TV sitcoms, etc. This variation is what allows
for phenomenological research such as mine to exist in our ﬁeld and furthermore to attain
legitimacy and sustainability. Sometimes cultural studies is indeed invoked by scholars in
composition and rhetoric to update their stale pedagogy or venture into new and
previously exotic research. What hooks (1990:124) would call “chic” programs or
domains that “re-inscribe patterns of colonial domination where the ‘other’ is always
made object, appropriated, interpreted, taken over by those in power, by those who
dominate” (125). My project is in no way dedicated to the “chic” cultural studies
approach and more importantly the ﬁndings of my research will serve to work against
these “patterns of colonial domination” by proving the value of diverse rhetorics and
literacies through maintaining close inspection and transparency of the dominant cultures
and languages that are embedded in our social, political, and educational institutions.

Cultural studies has proved incredibly useful for those who wish to approach
cultural phenomenon seriously, analytically, and ethically. For us, cultural studies
theories in comp/rhet provide both a justiﬁcation for studying the once unstudied or
overlooked and a methodology in which to do so. In this project, I am invoking the basic

concepts of cultural studies, speciﬁcally studying the phenomenological to make meaning

11

of a particular culture, in order to draw connections within and through Hip Hop culture,
Black Language and their appropriators that perhaps had never been attempted or
successfully drawn before in composition and rhetoric scholarship.

Previous work on cultural studies in rhetoric and composition (Berlin, Bruch &
Marback, George & Trimbur) provides a framework for me to conduct original research
on Hip Hop culture, Black Language and its appropriators. This work is important in that
it supports the value and forms a base for the new forms of rhetoric and cultural
phenomenon discussed in my project as it pertains to the ﬁeld of composition and
rhetoric. If Hip Hop culture and Black Language appropriation has truly gone mainstream
its affects will and have been felt everywhere and therefore warrant close consideration
by a ﬁeld that prides itself in studying cultural phenomenon as a way to make meaning
available and accessible to society through education. We must fully examine the nature
and implications of Hip Hop culture and Black Language appropriation in order to more
effectively understand the nature of our classrooms and public spaces and the culture
impacting them. Students and educators should be made aware of the cultural capital Hip
Hop holds, the unique and valuable linguistic properties of Black Language, and the ways
they are appropriated by the media and mainstream society writ large. We as an academic
community, can learn from the complex rhetorical strategies and justiﬁcations that are
presented by the participants in this study concerning the evolution of culture and
language through appropriation, speciﬁcally how Hip Hop culture and Black Language
are shaped and/or affected by appropriation and how UMC white males learn complex

performance strategies and means of identity formation through appropriation.

12

When dealing with speciﬁc linguistic and sociolinguistic issues surrounding this
research I rely heavily on the theory of language as social construction and draw from the
work of Smitherman, Bahktin, Rickford, Delpit, and Gilyard among others.
Smitherman’s (2000, 2003, 2006) work serves to situate the unique linguistic qualities of
Black Language, especially the social construction of sermonizin’, testifyin, and tonal
semantics. By evidencing the deep historical, linguistic, and social roots of Black
Language I juxtapose the UMC white male’s appropriation to the Black communities’
authentic speech to determine how/if these appropriators are affecting similar
constructions.

Relying on Bahktin’s (2001) argument that no utterance is original, posits
theorizing language as social construction by illustrating UMC white male’s
appropriation of Black Language as perhaps a natural progression of language change.
Furthermore, Bahktin’s belief in language as a Sign system Shows how the participants
use language to construct identity, using Black Language to somehow legitimize
themselves within Hip Hop culture.

I ﬁnd Lisa Delpit’s (1995) work complements the theories of my project in that
she argues against James Gee’s notion that individuals are not “locked” in to a dominant
discourse that we need to recognize the many voices and discourses that communities
have access to (551). In short, that language is not set in stone—existing in a vacuum—it
is socially and contextually constructed. For the participants in this study there is no
logical reason why they have been able to learn and thus appropriate a language that is
geographically, linguistically, and culturally distant from them. Despite these mitigating

factors, UMC white males have indeed crawled out of the dominant discourse of their

13

linguistic place and learned/appropriated another discourse, even going so far as to
showcase the ability to code switch from their dominant discourse to Black Language.
Furthermore she posits that “acquiring an additional code comes from identifying with
the people who Speak it, from connecting the language form with all that is self affirming
and esteem-building” (2002:39). This notion is signiﬁcant to my project because it
evidences not only how but perhaps why these individuals appropriate Black Language.
For some it is a way to connect to a language community that holds a certain social or
cultural cache.

In discussing broader themes of culture and language, I focus on Anzaldua’s
(2001) argument of language as ethnic identity as well as similar ideologies that appear in
the work of books, Smitherman, Gilyard, Pough, Powell, Cushman, and Lindquist.
Anzaldua argues for the acceptance of mixing languages and cultures to create unique
identities. In this way, her work evidences implications fOr how UMC white males
endeavor to learn and use Black Language contextually as part of their personal identity.
Perhaps their ability to code switch is part of what makes them unique from other white
men in their suburban communities, that they are knowingly creating or performing an
ethnic identity.

Cushman (1998) and Lindquist (2002) also write about how language is directly
related to identity as well as the social constructions of language, literacies, and rhetorics.
For Cushman the participants in her research learn to use their language to navigate a
myriad of gate keeping strategies in an urban community. Lindquist’s participants prove
that language is inextricably tied to class evidenced by the unique rhetorical moves

enacted when discussing politics in a working class bar. The participants in this research

14

evidence similar linguistic and rhetorical savvy in attempting to perform an ethnic
identity through appropriation. Ultimately, the analysis of my case study data will Show
whether or not the participants view their appropriations as mush-faking or as an
authentic part of their linguistic identity. To be sure, these implications and others will be
discussed further in Chapters 3, 4 and 5.

To theorize broad issues of culture in relation to Hip Hop culture, I rely on a vast
array of works that argue explicitly for Hip Hop as culture (Chang, Pough, Richardson,
Hill-Collins, Watkins, etc.). More Speciﬁcally, for the purposes of my study I will be
invoking Bourdieu’s (1977) argument of culture as capital, that habitus produces
individual and collective practices in accordance with schemes generated by history.
After close examination I have discovered that the participant’s social and linguistic
appropriation practices are motivated by a want/need of cultural capital and that these
beliefs have been fueled by mainstream society’s own appropriation of Hip Hop culture
and Black Language.

Broadly, I will be invoking the traditional rhetorical appeals of ethos, pathos, and
logos as a means of critically analyzing how UMC white males construct a cultural and
linguistic identity through appropriation. More speciﬁcally I am working with Kenneth
Burke’s. view of rhetoric as a way for “individuals to examine their identities to determine
what they are” (Heath, 19862202) as well as Bazerman’s belief that rhetoric is “a study of
how people use language and other symbols to realize human goals and carry out human
activities. . .ultimately a practical study offering people great control over their symbolic
activity” (198826) as a way to frame the discussion concerning the rhetoric of

appropriation. Both Burke and Bazerman’s deﬁnitions of rhetoric lend critical framing to

15

why and how appropriators do what they do. In essence, the rhetoric embraced by UMC
white males who appropriate Hip Hop culture and Black Language is decidedly linked to
how they identify themselves through symbolic language (Black Language), appearance
(dress), preferences (Hip Hop music), etc.
Theorizing Cultural Studies in Rhetoric and Composition

Drawing from one of the founding father’s of the Centre for Contemporary
Cultural Studies (CCCS), Raymond Williams, my project engages with his notion of
culture as “a whole way of life, material, intellectual and spiritual” (Sadar and Van Loon,
1997229). I argue that Hip Hop is not just music but culture; it’s a way of life and speech,
a political agenda, a social stance, a way of being in the world that sets individuals and
communities apart frOm the mainstream while also blending easily into popular culture.
More complexly, talking about Hip Hop as a culture sets the stage for a wider
understanding of Hip Hop as a youth movement and as a cultural phenomenon that
encompasses a variety of genres (Pough, 2004: 5). Richardson (2003) further argues that

“it is important to view Hip Hop as a total culture” (69) and:

“Hip Hop is more than the surface appearance of vernacular speech and style. It is
born from a culture of underground struggle and survival on a deep level, no
matter if the surface appears to comply with official dominant discourses.
Historical memory, deep cultural practices along with resistance to current
oppressions plays a major role in maintaining, developing and creating world
views, identities, and means of survival.” (72)

I indeed do not stand alone in viewing Hip Hop as music, culture, and rhetoric, which are
inextricably connected to the concepts and theories characteristic of cultural studies.
Further and deeper discussion of Hip Hop and Black Language’s rhetorical and linguistic

signiﬁcance will be provided in Chapter 2.

l6

While I understand that not all studies focused on culture are cultural studies, I do
believe my amalgamation of disciplines in which to draw upon in my research of
appropriation of Hip Hop culture and Black Language is decidedly cultural studies work
in the ﬁeld of composition and rhetoric. My study is rooted in cultural studies theory and
practice because it investigates appropriation as a social practice. That is, the participants
in my research appropriating Hip Hop culture and Black Language as a means to
pursuing cultural capital and draws conclusions about these linguistic and cultural
appropriations in relation to dominant power structures in mainstream society. To use
cultural studies theory in my research is to posit that all cultural phenomenon, traditional
and non-traditional, is worthy of careful study and consideration. In addition to theory,
cultural studies in practice allows for the integration of the theories, conclusions, and
concepts born out of this project to be valued and heard in the composition classroom.
The topoi of Hip Hop culture, Black Language, and their appropriations act as a catalysts

to critically discussing and viewing power relations in a writing class.

Sadar and Van Loon (1997) state that “cultural studies takes whatever it needs
from any discipline and adopts it to suit its own purposes” (7). In this way, my research
can be deﬁned as cultural studies in composition and rhetoric because I am borrowing
concepts from sociolinguistics, African American studies, Hip Hop studies, and classical
rhetoric in order to examine how and why Hip Hop culture and Black Language are
appropriated and how these appropriations are linguistically, pedagogically, and
rhetorically signiﬁcant. I believe that UMC white male appropriations of Hip Hop culture
and Black Language occur as a form of socially constructed performance that has clear

rhetorical and linguistic strategies and practices that has yet to be fully examined. If as

17

Berlin and Vivion (1992) posit that cultural studies is “the study of ways social
formations and practices are involved in the Shaping of consciousness, and this shaping is
seen to be mediated by language and situated in concrete historical conditions” (ix) then
it is the best ﬁeld to draw from in order to present my research ﬁndings in making
meaning of the phenomenon for the beneﬁt of rhetoric and composition teachers,
scholars, and students. F urtherrnore, cultural studies in composition and rhetoric allows
for the evaluation of non-traditional/non-canonical texts to make meaning of largely
overlooked or forgotten cultural phenomenon not only in the classroom but in rhetoric
and composition theory research writ large. As a critical discipline, cultural studies insists
on the relevance of all texts as objects of cultural analysis. It questions the notion of
“high culture”, especially as the sole domain of the classroom, enabling students to draw

upon their familiarity with the texts of popular culture (George and Shoos, 19922200).

There are many scholar’s work/theories and methodological and pedagogical
approaches that I draw upon to conduct and examine research on UMC white male
appropriation of Hip Hop culture and Black Language. I ﬁnd that hooks’ (1990) work
provides a clear space in rhetoric and composition for my research in/through cultural
studies. She argues that cultural studies and ethnographic research may just be the way
for scholars of all races to approach research on a level playing ﬁeld if done correctly.
hooks believes that it Should be possible for scholars, especially those who are members
of groups who dominate, exploit, and oppress others, to explore the political implications
of their work without fear or guilt (124). She goes on to discuss cultural studies in

composition and rhetoric as a space for dialogue between intellectuals, critical thinkers,

18

etc. who may in the past have stayed within narrow disciplinary concerns while calling

attention to race and similar issues and gives them renewed academic legitimacy (125).

As metioned earlier, cultural studies can act as a “chic”, new way to approach
researching and teaching composition and rhetoric, drawing cursory conclusions from
varied “sexy” topics for the purpose of attention-getting rather than the creation of new,
critical knowledge. Again, this is not what this project is based on. I ﬁnd support in hooks
who encourages work like mine, that engages in cultural studies in the ﬁeld of
composition and rhetoric, if done right, and believes that it can offer much insight to the
ﬁeld. Furthermore, she cites that these new ethnographies, or in my research, case
studies, call on us as researchers to “bear witness, and patiently wait for revelation”
(133). In this way, one can infer how to ethically invoke cultural studies in composition

and rhetoric as a way to more ﬁrlly and honestly discuss case study or ethnographic data.

While I know Malea Powell (2002,2004) does not call her approach to her
research cultural studies, it is in fact historiographies of Native American culture,
literacy, and language practices and therefore bears the mark of inclusion into the ﬁeld of
cultural studies. This is due to the fact that she looks to non-canonical historical texts of
Native Americans to evidence rhetoric that has long been dismissed in white, masculine
heavy Western rhetoric. Her work borrows from feminist theory and uses
historiographical methods to draw attention to voices of survivance that evidence
enormous, complex rhetorical savvy, traditionally reserved for old, dead, rich white men.
Though my research topics differ from hers in many ways, I employ a similar approach
through the lens’ of varied disciplines to achieve the same ends, to make meaning of the

rhetoric of appropriation effecting Hip Hop culture and Black Language.

19

Abalos’ (1999) work is perhaps more similar to mine and shows how popular
culture can and should be studied to enhance and broaden the rhetorical knowledge in the
ﬁeld of composition and rhetoric. Abalos examined the popular TV series “Miami Vice”
to Show how the drama is revealing in regards not only to ethnic imbalances, but also to
those involving gender, sexual orientation, and national origin (168). She believes that
despite the overt appearance of the “buddy show” technique employed by other hit
programs, Miami Vice’s Black character is actually relegated to a subordinated position.
Furthermore, she posits that this program is not just a Show, but in fact reﬂects the society
that produced it (168). Hence, for Abalos, popular culture really does imitate life. In
short, Abalos is using a cultural studies approach to deconstruct a popular TV Show.
Cultural studies methodology in rhetoric and composition has allowed her to borrow from
race, ethnic, and sexuality studies to examine a non-canonical artifact to make meaning
of a certain popular culture phenomenon, in this case the Black/white male “buddy”
genre. To be sure, critical analysis and rhetorical critiques of popular culture artifacts is in
many ways at the heart of cultural studies in rhetoric and composition, to make meaning
of the phenomenological so as to better understand the general workings of our society.

While Powell and Abalos’ research has helped immensely in shaping my own
notions of cultural studies and the broad concept of studying culture, it is Dick Hebdige
(1979) who speciﬁcally examines the notion of sub-culture which is clearly aligned with
my research of UMC white males who appropriate cultural and linguistic practices of the
Hip Hop community. If Hip Hop is a culture, which I strongly believe it is, then the
participants in my project can certainly be considered part of the sub-culture of Hip Hop.

Their appropriated linguistic and cultural practices clearly deﬁne or symbolize their style,

20

a style that marks them as unique from the suburban hegemony surrounding them.
Hebdige states:

The challenge to hegemony which subcultures represent is not issued directly by

them. Rather it is expressed obliquely, in style. The objections are lodged, the

contradictions displayed at the profoundly superﬁcial level of appearances: that is,

at the level of signs (17).
It is imperative then, to situate UMC white male appropriations of Hip Hop culture and
Black Language as performances of style, rooting their practices in linguistic and cultural
“appearances”. More concretely, we must look at culture for these individuals as
something this style of language and appearance seeks to attain. The analysis of the UMC
white males in this study will Show they are challenging hegemony through their
appropriations of Hip Hop culture and Black Language. Work like Hebdige’s clearly
posits cultural studies as a means to studying sub-culture, to make meaning of “the
process whereby objects are made to mean and mean again as style” (3).
Cultural and Linguistic Appropriation

Cultural and linguistic appropriation is nothing new for the US. In fact, some
may argue that modern day appropriation is decidedly an American trait. Let’s face it,
this country is young and American culture when compared to the rich linguistic and
cultural histories of our European, Asian, and African counterparts comes up looking like
a parasite of other cultures. American culture is so all encompassing, so blurrily deﬁned
and rooted in W.A.S.P.-ism that it can be viewed as lacking a unique culture. Much of
who and what America is comprised of today is due to the amalgamation of races,
religions, and social and economic divisions.

He is a Polish-American, she is an Aﬁ'ican-American, I am a Canadian-American.

As Americans we have always sought out other cultures and languages to legitimize our

21

identity, our unique beings, in this increasingly culture obsessed world. Perhaps this has
vetted us a nation of appropriators, looking to the next cultural or linguistic fad that suits
our fancy, creating identities through claiming ethnic-Americaness. It can certainly be
argued that the majority of our appropriations are ruthless; we take the capital we can use
of a culture, language, religion, etc. and throw the scraps to the wind.

The purpose of this discussion on culture is to establish the connection between
the growing phenomenon of UMC white male appropriation of Hip Hop culture and
Black Language and the history of American hegemony that fosters these and other
appropriations over the course of our Short history. Kitwana (2005) echoes this belief and
further Speciﬁes it to white youth, both in America and abroad, stating:

White youth are not simply consuming pop culture messages wholesale, any more

than black kids are. Most Hip Hop kids—white, Black, Latino, Asian, and Native

American—are taking from popular culture what they ﬁnd useful, fashioning it to

local needs, claiming it as their own and in the process placing their own stamp on

it. This is happening regionally and internationally, as youth the world over are

claiming Hip Hop (3).

This argument helps to Show not only how Hip Hop has become part of the mainstream
but also how widespread varied forms of appropriation are occurring. Kitwana is
evidencing that appropriation has become almost a right of passage into mainstream
popular culture.

If this is true, and I believe it is, then it would behoove us as academics to look
more closely at the nature of appropriation writ large. To be sure, academia is ﬁlled with
anthropological, ethnographic, and linguistic research that focuses on how various
cultures and communities come to identify themselves in society. However, most of this

work centers on appropriated behaviors, aspects of language and culture that are not

inherent or intrinsic and warrant explanation because their practices and characteristics

22

are not understood by those outside the cormnunity being studied. There is a fair amount
of linguistic research that focuses on how dominant discourses are learned (Labov,
Delpit, Gee, Smitherman) but what makes my project unique is that it emphasizes how
language and culture is learned outside the dominant discourse community. UMC white
males who appropriate Hip Hop culture and Black Language are products of both nature
and nurture. In essence, the participants in this study “have cultivated an identity and
language through appropriation with help from other facets of society, most notably mass
media.

Penelope Eckert’s (1989) ethnographic study on how social categories and
identity are formed and navigated in a suburban high school is an important work in
theorizing how and why UMC white males take their appropriation one step further into
adulthood. Even though Eckert’s participants were largely under the age of 18 and so
considered adolescents, their rhetorical moves and strategies concerning their social
stance and identity are strikingly similar to the participants in my study. For example,
Eckert’s discussion of how “Jocks” and “Bumouts” categorize themselves is largely
through symbols like clothing and music tastes. Eckert posits:

What everyone knows of their difference is what shows—the symbolic

manifestations of category afﬁliation. . . .Clothing and other forms of adornment,

ways of speaking, territory, and even substance use and school performance all
have symbolic value in ...However subconsciously, they all stand for deeper
cultural differences that may themselves not be accessible to all who participate in
the symbolic system... Category symbols attain their value from association with
clear differences in both form and content, developing around salient social
differences between the categories and maximizing distinctness in visible form

(49-50).

This is to say that what people see and choose to Show is largely how people are

categorized in society and in many ways these choices are culturally and linguistically

23

Signiﬁcant because they symbolize deeper social and class standings. Eckert’s argument
clearly straddles Bahktin’s belief of language as Sign system, evoking intrinsic meaning
from the seemingly mundane. This clearly parallels how the UMC white male
participants in this study evidence their social stance and identity through similar
symbols, predominately music choice, clothing, and speech. These participants
knowingly chose these symbols and many times are unaware, like the Jocks and
Burnouts, of the deeper meaning these symbols portray. In many ways the UMC white
males in this study perform appropriation of Hip Hop culture and Black Language to
distinguish themselves, some from those in mainstream society (bumouts, wiggasz) and
other’s from the margins of society (jocks, neo-wiggas3). Therefore, they seem to be
appropriating Hip Hop culture and Black Language to be different or unique from the
aspects of society that they feel, or wish to be, least afﬁliated with.

Similar to Eckert’s study, Stanley Cohen (1972) discusses the importance of V
symbols in shaping identity, though his subjects are largely considered “deviant” for their
time (Mods and Rockers) in 1960’s Britain. He states that:

Communication, and especially the mass communication of stereotypes depends

on the symbolic power of words and images. . .There appear to be three processes

in such symbolizations: a word (Mod) becomes symbolic of a certain status

(delinquent or deviant); objects (hairstyle, clothing) symbolize the word; the

objects themselves become symbolic of the status (and the emotions attached to

the status) (27).

Many participants in this study have experience with these three processes of

syrnbolization through their appropriations. For example, wigga is a word that has

become symbolic of a white male who wants to talk and act black. He is seen this way

 

2 Term created from the combination of the words white and nigga, commonly used to categorize white
males who wholly appropriate Black culture and language.

3 Author’s original term used to describe those who evidence rhetorical savvy in their selective and partial
appropriations of Hip Hop culture and Black Language.

24

because he wears his pants baggy, his baseball cap backwards, and a do-rag underneath
the cap. Currently this image connotates a myriad of value-added judgments about this
individual; lazy, thug, fake, ignorant, etc. Let me be clear that I do not believe UMC
white males who appropriate Hip Hop culture and Black Language should be considered
or even labeled as delinquent, however, their behavior can be classiﬁed as highly unusual
and largely misunderstood by society as a whole, especially those who are still operating
on the stereotypical belief of Hip Hop as violent black music, and Black Language as
Slang.
Cohen also lends insight into how the mass media and dominant culture construct
these individuals who stand out from the “norm” in negative ways. He argues:
Each society possesses a set of ideas about what causes deviation. . .and a set of
images of who constitutes the typical deviant. and these conceptions shape what
is done about the behavior. In industrial societies, the body of information from
which such ideas are built is invariably received at second hand. That is, it arrives
already processed by the mass media and this means the information has been
subject to alternative deﬁnitions. (19722 7).
As stated earlier, the UMC white males in this research have not come to appropriation
on their own, they have certainly had help. Their behaviors can be seen as always
socially, and sometimes rhetorically, constructed. It is no coincidence that in the last 10
years Hip Hop culture has become the marketing angle of choice for media outlets
(MTV, VH1) and large corporations (BoostMobile, McDonalds, Pepsi), ostensibly
pushing an appropriated version of Hip Hop culture and Black Language to the masses.
While the shift of Hip Hop becoming part of mainstream popular culture will be more
thoroughly covered in the later part of this chapter, it is imperative to note that this shift

has greatly impacted the proliferation of appropriation concerning Hip Hop culture and

Black Language.

25

Building off of Cohen’s research of the mods, Hebdige discusses the contrasting
sub-culture of the skinheads in 1960’s Britain who grew out of the “hard mods”. Like the
mods before them and the participants in my study, the skinheads constituted an
identiﬁable subculture appropriating the dominant culture aspects that suited them and
reviling the rest. Hebdige explains:

In order to express a more stringent [hard] identity, the skinheads drew on two

ostensibly incompatible sources: the cultures of the West Indian immigrants and

the white working class. . .In such accounts, the black contribution tends to be
played down: conﬁned solely to the inﬂuence or reggae music, whereas the
skinheads borrowed individual items of dress, argot and style directly from
equivalent Wet Indian groups...It was not only by congregating on the all-white
football terraces but through consorting with West Indians at the local youth clubs
and on the street comers, by copying their mannerisms, adopting their curses,
dancing to their music that the skinheads ‘magically recovered’ the lost sense of

working class community (55-56).

This description of the skinheads appropriation of West Indian cultural and linguistic
practices is strikingly similar to the participants in my study and further validates the
work done by Eckert and Cohen concerning symbolization and style as a way of crafting
identity. What Hebdige does is take the issue of symbolization one step further by
evidencing symbolization by means of appropriation. The skinheads appropriated West
Indian symbols as a way to ‘magically recover’ a sense of working class community in
much the same way UMC white males symbolize the style and language of Hip Hop to
connect to a Black culture and in essence create a subculture of their own.

Hip Hop Culture and Black Language Appropriation

Appropriation of Black culture and language is certainly not a contemporary
occurrence. In the mid to late 1920’s, the music, art, poetry, and overall Black aesthetic

of the Harlem Renaissance were mass marketed to mainstream America for the purposes

of white enjoyment and eventual appropriation. Bastions for black culture and

26

entertainment like the Cotton Club in New York would perform toned downed versions
of their music and language for the white patrons during the day and early evening and
reserve “the real” experiences for after hours, dubbed CP (colored people) time. Whites
thought that they were getting the authentic black experience and wore their new found
knowledge and appropriations as a badge of honor or “coolness”, while blacks knowingly
kept the real “cool” on lockdown. In many ways the white community of the 1920’s is
not so unlike the white community of the present, both are appropriating a watered down,
mainstream version of black culture and language.

Norman Mailer’s (1958) article “The White Negro” was one of the ﬁrst works to
speciﬁcally discuss white appropriation of black culture. Mailer opened discussion of an
alternative white masculinity, uniquely informed by the black culture of the day,
particularly jazz (Boyd, 2002222). In the same way that jazz was held up as an
appropriated cultural artifact of the 1920’s, Hip Hop is now experiencing a similar
position in popular culture. As Kitwana (2005) posits, “talk long enough to almost any
white kid into Hip Hop, and he or she will openly acknowledge a fascination with black
culture” (2).

Eric Lott’s (1993) book on the connections and intersections of blackface
performance and class further examined white fascination with black culture and
aesthetic. While Lott is speciﬁcally discussing minstrelsy, his observations lend insight as
to why whites appropriate black culture. For Lott, it is true that, while blackface
sometimes seemed an authentic instance of black culture, its “black” simulations were
even less a populist product than popular arts usually were (101). Therefore, those who

were performing blackness were considered factually correct in their portrayal. Their

27

blackface performances encompassed all the stereotypical “black” actions, gestures, and
lexicon. However these performances were based only on what they thought to be
popular in black culture, only what the black folk allowed them to see but was not
actually what was popular. What was on display in minstrelsy was less black culture than
a structured set of white responses to it (Lott, 19932 101). In many ways this is what is
occurring in UMC white male appropriation of Hip Hop culture. The individuals in this
study are appropriating mass produced notions of Hip Hop culture and therefore creating
and adding to the rhetoric of appropriation that surrounds Hip Hop in mainstream society.
Lott calls this phenomenon “popular counterfeiting”, which in the case of blackface
depended as much on American and racial ideologies as on the political tendencies of
popular culture (104). Whatever you wish to call it, appropriation of Hip Hop culture and
Black Language, like blackface genre, is largely dependent on how the mass media and
mainstream society have chosen to portray this culture and language.

In 2006, Hip Hop is quite literally, everywhere. What was once a musical genre
born out of linguistic and racial oppression in the South Bronx and performed by
predominately Black and Hispanic artists, has now become a mainstream popular culture
staple with every white suburban mom in America referring to their jewelry as “bling-
bling” and lauding their burgeoning backsides as “bootylicious”. So how does a language
and culture once so underground and “of the streets” become a societal norm?

If, as Smitherman (2000) argues, the term Hip Hop refers to urban youth culture
(268) than it is imperative to understand when the “urban” variable of that equation
became negotiable. Some claim that Hip Hop went mainstream when record execs got

involved and started marketing the culture to the masses in the early 90’s. MTV, BET,

28

The Source, Vibe, and other media outlets peddled albums and artists like Dr. Dre’s The
Chronic and Snoop Doggy Dogg’s Doggy Style as seminal works that appealed to all
young males, whatever their ethnicity or social status. Their subsequent videos seemed to
ask: didn’t all boys everywhere just want to bounce in hot cars to hotter beats, hang out
with their crew, party all night, and spray conceited bitches with malt-liquor? (Chang,
2005: 420). Apparently so, considering that these were the ﬁrst Hip Hop albums that I
remember catching the interests of the white kids at my Catholic school, kids who had no
geographical, social, or economic ties to Hip Hop before then. Chang (2005) further
posits that these albums also distilled a shift in corporate thinking; growing convictions
that these massive paradigm Shifts—demographic change, broadcast to niche, whiteness
to post-whiteness, the rise of the “urban”—were not such a bad thing after all. Hip Hop
offered a way this elusive generation could be assimilated, categorized and made
proﬁtable (420). This proves how the term “urban” became redeﬁned as a marketing tool
rather than a geographical space. In many ways, Hip Hop’s crossover to the mainstream
was scripted and carefully planned, but for something to sell it has to be in demand and
the social and political climate of the early 90’s provided the gap that Hip Hop culture
could ﬁll. In many ways, absorbing aspects of Black youth culture, largely via popular
culture, young whites have created their own subculture (Kitwana, 2005: 124).
Furthermore, Kitwana contends that though Hip Hop is largely youth-centered that it
“only requires its participants to have a mouth, the ability to listen and ﬁ'ustration with
business as usual” (11). In short, he is positing that anyone in mainstream society can

argue connection to Hip Hop culture just by feeling stressed or put upon by everyday life.

29

However, it must be noted that many scholars believe Hip Hop didn’t ask to be
part of popular culture, that popular culture had a jones for it. Boyd (2002) posits that Hip
Hop never went mainstream, the mainstream came to Hip Hop, and this reversal or shift
in power relations underlies a number of cultural concerns (1 6). Most widely known, is
the concern of the growing phenomenon of white appropriation of Hip Hop culture.
While some scholars like Boyd see the altruistic promise of appropriation, more appeal to
a mainstream white audience equating to greater acceptance of Black culture, others see it
as a direct threat. Greg Tate (2003) believes that white’s get “everything but the burden”
from Black culture, a term he borrowed from his mother to “decry the long-standing,
ongoing, and unarrested theft of African-American cultural properties by thieving,
ﬂavorless whitefolk” (2). He sees appropriation as decidedly malicious and dangerous to
black folk in that it takes cultural nuances that are proudly black and turns them into a
white washed version to make it more palatable for the masses. Smitherman (2000) is not
as fervent in her beliefs about appropriation but is nonetheless concerned with the
ramiﬁcations:

“Whites get the “nigga metaphor” at bargain-basement prices. They don’t have to

pay no dues, but reap the psychological, social, and economic beneﬁts of a

language and culture born out of enslavement, neo-enslavement, J irn Crow, U.S.

apartheid, and twentieth-century hard times. Lacking the depths of this

experience, sometimes whites get it all wrong. . .”(32).
Despite these concerns and outcries there are some who still see the promise of Hip Hop
appropriation, not that they support wholesale appropriation per say, but do in fact note

that Hip Hop can and has done something that hasn’t been done since the Civil Rights

Movement. In many ways Hip Hop has formed a bridge of youth culture that can be

30

traversed by people of all ages, classes and ethnicities. As noted Hip Hop artist and
political activist Chuck D states:

“. . .It’s something to see videos connect to white kids in Utah to black kids in

South Chicago to Croats and Brazilians. This is the sound and style of our young

world, the vernacular used in today’s speak from scholastic to sports. . .It’s

difﬁcult to stop a cultural revolution that bridges people together. Discussing
differences through artistic communication and Sharing interests in a common

bond—rap music and Hip Hop have achieved that in 20 years” (from Time, 1999

in Smitherman, 2000).

Perhaps Chuck D’s observation strikes a little too Pollyanna for some Hip Hop scholars,
but his statement cannot be denied if some forms of appropriation are seen in a positive
light. Hip Hop separated from marketing imperatives is still something this generation
can control and deﬁne with suburbanites uniting with urban residents; whites could learn
to respect Blackness, not to merely consume it (Chang, 2005). Whether or not Chang’s
notion of appropriation as respect versus consumption is possible remains to be seen. It is
my belief that by showing varying degrees of appropriation from a sampling of case
studies involving UMC white America that we will be able to realize the depths and
motivations of Hip Hop culture and Black Language appropriation.

To be sure, the merits or lack thereof of appropriation can be debated indeﬁnitely
and that is not the purpose of this portion of the dissertation. The goal is only to evidence
what the climate of scholarship is concerning the appropriation of Hip Hop culture and
Black Language in order to better examine the ﬁndings of my case study research of
UMC white male appropriation. What Hip Hop artists, moguls, and scholars have been
noting for years-—and more recently mainstreams society—is how Hip Hop bridges gaps,

initiates change, and proliferates varied forms of knowledge from city to city, generation

to generation, race to race, and even class to class.

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The greatest example of Hip Hop culture appropriation that adds even more
complexity to the issue is the appearance of white rap artists. While white rappers have
been present since the advent of Hip Hop (Beastie Boys, Third Base) it is the recent
emergence of controversial white rapper Eminem that has got everyone up in arms. He
has become key to granting the white community a sense of legitimacy within the rap
game but has come under much scrutiny in the black community. Much of the white
youth community see him as their entree into receiving the much coveted “ghetto pass”,
due to his talent being recognized by both respected black and white artists in the rap
game. Much of the black community calls Eminem’s “ghetto pass” into question. As Rux
(2003) states, “Eminem may have been born white but he was socialized black, in the
proverbial hood—and the music of the proverbial hood in America for the last twenty-
ﬁve years has been hip-hop music” (21). So while the black community can and does
recognize Eminem’s musical talent they still cannot seem to get past his whiteness,
therefore many argue he can truly not be of the legitimate hood, but rather the ‘proverbial
hood’. That is to say, Eminem is considered talented because be correctly and
legitimately invokes his socialized blackness and therefore his music, and talent, in not
coming from a place of whiteness. Eminem’s talent is unique and reserved for only those
white folk who do right by their black socialization, a white kid from an UMC suburb no
matter how talented could never be considered legit in the rap game. Rux (2003) argues
that Eminem, and others like him, are not real but surreal, socialized constructions of the
dominant Hip Hop culture that surrounds them.

“[Eminem] confounds Niggaz and white people alike in the multicultural

schoolyard with his mastering of Nigga language and assumption of Nigga style.
His presentation is not overtly authentic, but infused with the authenticity because

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he has lived in Nigga neighborhoods and listened to Nigga music and learned
Nigga culture...” (Rux, 2003: 27).

If this is true, then it would be foolish to think of Eminem as the consummate anomaly in
Hip Hop. There will be more like him, who have learned from him, that will continue to
baffle both white and black communities. This is not to say that white rappers spell the
demise of Black culture in Hip Hop. In fact it would take an army of Eminems to divorce
the image of Hip Hop from young Black men, who after thirty years still dominate the art
form (Kitwana, 2005z2). Eminem is merely both the prime example and the catalyst to a
world-wide appropriation of Black Language and culture and the dichotomy will only
grow more prevalent.

The aforementioned scholars have evidenced that the culture of Hip Hop is
pervasive in today’s mainstream society but what remains to be fully discussed is how
and why Black Language, a cornerstone of Hip Hop with a rich African American
linguistic history, is rising in appropriation. Speciﬁcally, the research provides insight as
to why various unique linguistic patterns of Black Language have become apparent in the
white male community. However, it is imperative to more closely examine the linguistic
and sociolinguistic research conducted on Black Language in order to fully discuss the
ﬁndings of the case study research in the coming chapters.

Black Language Appropriation

For even the most “lame” scholar, as Labov (1972) would term those who
research a culture that is not their own, it is obvious that Black Language and culture is
markedly distinct from that of other cultures and languages that have amassed in
America. In fact it was Labov that ﬁrst drew linguistic attention to the fact that Black

Language was diverging from Standard White English (Labov and Harris, 1986).

33

Whatever you want to call the it, Black English, Aﬁican American Language, Aﬁican
American Vernacular English, Black Vernacular English, Black Talk, Ebonics, etc., the
fact remains that linguistically the language is decidedly different from the Language of
Wider Communication (LWC) or Standard English. Black Language has its own patterns
and was previously used exclusively in the African American community. Srrritherman
(2000: 19) states that 90 percent of the African American commrmity uses one or more
aspects of the language some of the time.

The relatively new phenomenon is the use of Black Language in the white youth
community. There has been much speculation as to why this has occurred. Rose (1994: 5)
posits that, “whites are fascinated by black culture’s differences, drawn by the
mainstream social constructions of black culture. . .as forbidden narrative, [and] a symbol
of rebellion.” Most people would agree with the notion that what is different, exotic,
and/or foreign is a source of much interest and curiosity. However, when does fascination
become appropriation? Delpit (1995) points to the need to recognize the many voices and
discourses that communities have access to (551). This argument is helpful in thinking
about the varied approaches to language individuals take in the Hip Hop community
while still maintaining their status as members despite Slight linguistic difference. In
many ways Delpit provides an argument that supports how individuals are able to
appropriate Black discourse and thus gain limited entree into the Hip Hop community. In
essence she believes individuals can learn the “superﬁcial features” of dominant
discourses, as well as their more subtle aspects.

Hewitt (1986) further discusses the two-sided role of whites whose close contact

with Black culture makes them the reference point for its promotion to their peers. For

34

many whites this contact is not even needed anymore as the culture has become so
widespread. Evidence of this lack of connection to Black culture is most identiﬁable in
Black Language appropriation by UMC, white, young adult males with the appearance of
the “wigga”.

According to Smitherman (1994) a “wigga” (white nigga) is an individual who
wears baggy jeans, a reverse baseball cap, designer sneakers, and has a taste for rap
music. What Smitherman’s deﬁnition does not include however, is the “wigga’s” speech,
which is almost always saturated with aspects and/or patterns of Black Language. The
exclusion of the speech characteristics of wigga is likely due to the previous lack of
research done on these individuals. Tate (2003) provides perhaps the most comprehensive
deﬁnition of a wigga:

“One of the more peculiar outgrowths of hip-hop’s popularity has been the birth of
the “wigga”—the so called white nigga who apes Blackness by ‘acting hip-hop’ in
dress speech, body language, and, in some cases, even gang affiliation. Some in the

African American community see the appearance of the wigga mutant as a comical
form of ﬂattery, others as an up-to-date form of minstrelsy.”(8)

Complete with a critical overtone, Tate (2003) is clear in his characterization of the
wigga but also leads the reader to see both the altruistic promise of Hip Hop
culture/language proliferation and the complications. The wigga persona comes more
fully into view through recent research by Cecilia Cutler.

Cutler (1999) embarked on a longitudinal case study of Mike, a white 16-year old
boy from an upper class section of Manhattan (Yorkville) who uses many aspects of
Black Language. More speciﬁcally, Mike’s speech shows evidence of phonological and
lexical features but lacks the tense and aspect system (Cutler, 1999: 428). For example,
Mike and his ﬁiends were more prone to g-deletion (goin’), r-lessness (othah), and

lexical (yo, phat) patterns of Black Language versus grammatical systems such as

35

singular -S absence and habitual/aspectual be. However, Mike also was prone to using
tonal semantics depending on his social context. This linguistic variable was most likely
picked up through Hip Hop music. As Smitherman (2000) states, rappers employ tonal
semantics (“words and phrases carefully chosen for sound effects”) in order to provoke
meaning and rhetorical mileage by triggering a familiar sound chord in the listener’s ear
(222). In Mike’s case Hip Hop music has indeed triggered a form of linguistic
appropriation.

It is through research like Cutler’s that we can begin to understand how
widespread the appropriation of Black Language has become. Although, recognizing the
existence of such a phenomenon is not enough. To fully understand the variations we
must look at the roots of what caused such a proliferation of Black Language into white
male communities.

Undoubtedly, the most prominent inﬂuence on white appropriation of Black
Language is Hip Hop. Ever since “Yo! MTV Raps” went on the air in 1989, sales ﬁgures
for Hip Hop music among middle class white teenagers have exponentially increased
(Rose, 1994). Hip Hop music videos have animated a cultural style and aesthetics and
have facilitated cross-neighborhood, cross-country dialogue in a social environment that
is highly segregated by class and race (Rose, 199429). Moreover Hip Hop’s proliferation
can ﬁrrther been seen in the culture’s appearance overseas. “F ashion-conscious Japanese
teenagers who want to look cool, black, and American much like their hip-hop
idols. . .dress in funky clothes, dye and weave their hair into comrows and darken their
skin at tanning salons with makeup”(Genocchio, 2004: 36A). It is undeniable that Hip

Hop has become part of mass consumer culture, absorbing all walks of youth. Though

36

various cultures have poached from other cultures ways of dress and overall style, it is
perhaps even more interesting to look at how Hip Hop has inﬂuenced language in UMC
white males who are seemingly so far removed from the community, socially as well as
geographically.

With the lessening need for face-to-face encounters with native Black Language
speakers, access to the language is readily available by Internet, lyrics from CD cases,
and ﬁlm. The Internet is one increasingly important source for Hip Hop terms and
expressions, and young people can turn to a host of on-line dictionaries and chat lines to
improve their Hip Hop repertoires (Cutler, 1999: 434). Hip Hop lyrics available both
online and verbatim in CD cases have also provided the white commrmity with access to
authentic Black Language. Furthermore, ﬁlms that mirror the black “ghetto” experience
have become increasingly popular and with that popularity have played a role in the
transmission of Black Language to whites. “Ghetto” ﬁlms-such as ‘Boyz’n the Hood’
(1991), ‘Menace to Society’ (1993), and ‘New Jack City’ (1991) and the most recent
string of the ‘Barbershop’ (2004, 2005) series and ‘Soul Plane’ (2005) serve to transmit
views of inner-city ghetto life, in some cases a glarnorized version, from which the white
community can selectively choose to construct their stereotypes about Black and Hip Hop
culture and language (Cutler, 1999).

I would be remiss if I did not include research that points to another cause of
Black Language proliferation in the white community, that of the direct correlation
between Black Language and masculinity. As a consequence of racism, black masculinity
in the US. (and elsewhere) has long been ideologically associated with hyperphysicality

that involves physical strength, hyper(hetero)sexuality, and physical violence (Davis

37

1983), which is predominately linked more to men than women (Bucholtz, 1999).
Therefore, it can be said that many white males have adopted patterns of Black Language
for the purpose of sounding “hard” or “ghetto”. Bucholtz (1999) calls this use of Black
Language by white males Cross-Racial AAVE or CRAAVE. The acronym, she says, is
intended to reﬂect speaker’s sometimes ambivalent cultural and linguistic desire
(Bucholtz, 1999: 445). Here we see the notion that while white males look to Black
culture and language for masculinity and that they may not be aware of why they are
doing it.

This argument is more fully realized when looking at the overarching themes of
violence, oppression, and misogyny in Hip Hop. If white males had previously
misunderstood why they felt drawn to the seemingly more masculine traits of the black
man, now it is clearly laid out for them in the songs. This is not to say that rap promotes
violence—as Toop (1991: 164) said it best, “rap was at mOst the soundtrack [of violence],
not the cause”—however, it does purport an overtly masculine culture that appeals to

many males, Black, Hispanic, and white.

It is only with an understanding of the above research that one can hope to begin
to fully comprehend the appropriation of Black Language, culture, and music. It is my
belief that my research will shed even more light onto the subject as well as providing
new insights as to what this appropriation means to/for UMC white males and the Aﬁican
American community.

Conclusion
The purpose of this chapter was to introduce the predominant themes and theories

that will aid in more fully explaining the rhetoric of appropriation in the coming chapters.

38

To be sure, appropriation does not occur overnight, it is a carefully and slowly crafted
phenomenon that has deep culttual, linguistic, and social ramiﬁcations. In order to fully
comprehend the signiﬁcance of how and why UMC white males appropriate Hip Hop
culture and Black Language it is imperative to draw connections about how culture and
language are constructed and how those constructions shape identity. Chapter 2 of my
dissertation presents the theoretical research conducted with/through Hip Hop culture and
Black Language to prove the rhetorical and linguistic signiﬁcance of both. Speciﬁcally, it
will evidence how Hip Hop culture has a rhetoric of its own, in many ways calling for a
return to a rhetorics of citizenship, and how Black Language serves as a sOurce of
linguistic pride and celebration throughout this culture due to its rich and unique history
born out of oppression and degradation. Chapter 3 introduces established research
conducted on linguistic appropriation of Black Language and Hip Hop culture as well as
presenting an irrefutable argument for Black Language as a legitimate and widely
practiced language. Furthermore, this chapter will discuss the what, why, and how of
linguistic and cultural appropriation through analysis of original case study data. Chapter
4 looks speciﬁcally at the participating UMC white male’s perceptions, beliefs, and ’
attitudes concerning Hip Hop culture and Black Language and more importantly why and
how they identify and situate themselves within and through Hip Hop culture, Black
Language, and their appropriations of both. Chapter 5 seeks to Show the variance of
appropriation by rhetorically analyzing select case study units. This chapter will clarify
how deep and/or Shallow the performance and identiﬁcation of/with Hip Hop culture and
Black Language appropriation through the examination of vviggas versus neo-wiggas.

Chapter 6 builds upon the research in the previous chapters to draw conclusions about the

39

study of the rhetorical, linguistic, and literacy strategies employed by appropriators and

how these appropriations can and should be discussed in the rhet/comp classroom.

40

Chapter 2: The Rhetoric of Hip Hop

I applaud the Hip Hop nation for seeking to disturb the peace lest the chain remain the
same.

«Geneva Smitherman (2001)

Hip Hop has always been about having fun, but it’s also about taking responsibility. And
now we have a platform to speak our minds. Millions of people are watching us. Let’s
hear something powerful. Tell people what they need to hear. How will we help the
community? What do we stand for? What would happen if we got the Hip Hop generation
to vote, or to form organizations to change things? That would be powerful.

--DJ [(001 Here (2005)

In order to effectively and fully discuss how Hip Hop culture and Black Language
appropriation by UMC white males has evidenced a rhetoric of appropriation, it is
imperative to discuss the rhetorical signiﬁcance of Hip Hop culture itself. Without
exposure to the rhetorics encompassed in Hip Hop culture, these individuals would have
been hard-pressed to navigate the culture and to exhibit moves and strategies that serve to
justify their appropriations. By treating Hip Hop as “a rhetoric” I am arguing that there is
a wide audience for the mechanisms and strategies invoked in the public horatory
discourse of Hip Hop music/lyrics and political/communal involvement as well as an
ideology rooted in the culture and social constructions embedded in Hip Hop and Black
Language. Therefore, the rhetoric of Hip Hop can be deﬁned as related to both civic
discourse through logical, emotional, and ethical appeals to a growing variety of
audiences (urban youth, UMC white males, etc.) as well as an overall ideology that
formulates and supports the culture of Hip Hop, that Hip Hop is in fact a way of life, a

social stance.

41

What this means for the analysis of the data in this project is that there are deep
historical roots upon which the rhetoric of Hip Hop is based and that this rhetoric is
employed as both a sub-cultural ideology and oral/written discourse. When analyzing the
UMC white male participant responses in the following chapters and the previous
research contained in this chapter, it is imperative to establish the ideology and discourse
of the rhetoric of Hip Hop in order to fully recognize and understand how and why these
individuals are appropriating, and in many cases, changing this established rhetoric.
Furthermore, this chapter will draw connections between how ancient rhetorics work and
don’t work in imagining rhetoric in diverse, mediated, and complex publics. Though
UMC white males invoke strategies and appeals resplendent in Hip Hop rhetoric, it is
important to establish that the rhetoric of Hip Hop is steeped in many traditional
rhetorics. Therefore, UMC white males are pulling from both traditional rhetorical
methods as well as re-invented “cultural rhetorics” when formulating their rhetoric of
appropriation. The rhetoric of Hip Hop is indeed a cultural rhetoric, enjoying hybridized
status as a cultural, subcultural, and mass cultural form depending on what rhetor is
invoking it. When invoked by old school rappers Hip Hop is a cultural rhetoric, drawing
directly from African American oral tradition. Used by UMC white males who are
distinctly distant geographically from urban centers but still in touch with Black cultural
and linguistic norms the rhetoric of Hip Hop becomes appropriated and thus a subcultural
rhetoric. The rhetoric of Hip Hop takes a mass cultural form when appropriated by
mainstream media and society as a way to market products and a sense of culture itself.

There are a number of scholars who have looked at the rhetorical nature of Hip Hop

and the linguistic variations of Black Language to draw attention to their legitimacy in

42

various ﬁelds of study. It is from their previous work that I have garnered the knowledge
to evidence the need to study Hip Hop and Black Language appropriation in rhetoric and
composition.

The purpose of this chapter is to Show the rhetorical signiﬁcance of Hip Hop, that
there is in fact a rhetoric of Hip Hop or Hip Hop rhetoric. Loosely considered Hip HOp
rhetoric evidences ethical, logical, and emotional appeals to audiences worldwide, closer
to home this rhetoric seeks to invoke notions of citizenship and civic duty. More
concretely observed, the rhetoric of Hip Hop is inherently linked with Black Language,
whose creation and proliferation is steeped in African American rhetorical traditions
intended to evoke pride and constantly reminds us of the deep history of oppression and
degradation from which this rhetoric was born. As Smitherman (2001) states “Black talk
is never meaningless cocktail chit-chat but a functional dynamic that is simultaneously a
mechanism for acculturation and information-passing and a vehicle for achieving group
recognition” (61). That is to say if Black Talk/Language is integral to Hip Hop then these
same functional applications of meaning, acculturation, information-passing and group
recognition apply to the rhetoric of Hip Hop. Hip Hop rhetoric is unique in that it fully
embraces the African American rhetorical tradition but makes it contemporary, translated
to be applicable and viewable by mainstream society. In short, the rhetoric of Hip Hop
knows and echoes its roots but ain’t afraid to put its own stamp on the traditional map.
This is perhaps what makes the rhetorical strategies enacted in Hip Hop so appealing to
appropriators, it enacts both a unique culture while also being applicable to the
mainstream. Using the rhetorics that appropriators have picked up from Hip Hop culture

and music is an integral part of the rhetoric of appropriation. But before I go too far into

43

the speciﬁcs of Hip Hop rhetorics, I recognize there is need to deﬁne more fully the roots

and history that make the rhetoric of Hip Hop what it is.
Classical Rhetoric

No kind of rhetoric, traditional or modern, has ever existed in a vacuum. From
Isocrates to James Berlin to the lauded Hip Hop artist Common, philosophers and rhetors
have always posited their beliefs and teachings on and about rhetoric as a means to an
end, however varying those means and ends may have been. That being said, for many
scholars of rhetoric the notion of civic duty, citizenship, and morality are recurrent in
their works and in many ways laid the groundwork for the call of civic responsibility in
Hip Hop music and culture. In the Greek city-states the community and citizens revolved
around rhetoric. Much time was spent gathering and listening to one form of oratory or
another. This is not unlike contemporary Hip Hop culture where one can see individuals
gathering to listen to the hot new track dropped by a famous artist. Long before Plato and
Aristotle, lengthy speeches ﬁgured largely into the oral poetry of Homer and other
rhapsodes (Bizzell & Herzberg, 2001 :21). Although the means for Homer was poetry and
the ends being rooted in art, it was Plato and Aristotle that took rhetoric into a more

philosophical means to a moral and political end.

However, the rhetorics of Plato and Aristotle manifest from the individual with
very little being said about the community or civic responsibility. As Kennedy states in
his translation of Aristotle’s 0n Rhetoric, “Aristotle shows a greater sense of urgency
toward knowing and doing what is morally right and gives higher priority to the
contemplative life than to active political life” (62). For Aristotle in Rhetoric, it is more

important to better oneself than to improve one’s community. However, it is important to

note that in his other works Aristotle does indeed stress the need for democratic
participation. This representation argues that “Aristotle’s view is sometimes cited by
advocates of cultural studies as the view of rhetoric promoting participatory democracy”
(Porter, 1997233). Through these varying perspectives, it is difficult to deﬁnitively
conclude as to how Aristotle truly viewed and portrayed the ideas of civic mindedness in
Greek society. That is to say, much about Aristotle’s rhetoric is still open for

interpretation.

It is in the work and philosophies of Isocrates that ideas of citizenship and civic
duty are fully realized. Isocrates has long been considered the ﬁrst educator of rhetoric,
through his creation and maintenance of a school for the purpose of training men to
become effective and ethical political leaders. By becoming a professional educator,
Isocrates believed that education could improve the natural talents of all men and most
importantly that it be useful to the state (Bizzell & Herzberg, 2001125). Unlike Aristotle,
Isocrates’ end for rhetoric was ﬁrmly rooted in the common good. He sought to move
people to action in order to better not just themselves but also their community/state.
Isocrates believed that it is imperative for one to participate in public life and their
rhetoric should reﬂect that. As he states, “men who are the most conscientious in their
dealings with associates, whether in their homes or in public life, are themselves
esteemed as the noblest among their fellows” (Isocrates from Antidosis in Bizzell &
Herzberg, 2001278). Therefore, it is not enough to be a good man, one must also use his
attributes to better the public. Ultimately, Isocrates believes that one cannot be socially

isolated, that the community has an undeniable claim on the philospher-rhetor. He must

45

try to be a useful citizen and in turn make useful citizens of his students (Bizzell &

Herzberg, 20012 71).

In Cicero’s De Oratore he further stresses the notion that rhetoric should be used
for the common good. As the character Crassus, Cicero states that rhetoric makes civil
order possible. Therefore, without rhetoric the civic space becomes at best chaotic and at
worst null and void. Cicero goes on to state that the eSsential concern of the orator is style
that is digniﬁed and graceful and in conformity with the general modes ofjudgrnent and
thought (Bizzell & Herzberg, 20012297). For Cicero it is imperative that the rhetor not
only speak well, but also speak on issues and terms that the audience is familiar and
concerned with. If the speaker does not conform to the general beliefs and notions of the
community than it is highly probable that his rhetoric will serve no purpose. Through
Crassus as his mouthpiece Cicero implores young men touse their rhetoric to not only
better themselves but also to establish institutions in the republic stating “Go on,
therefore, as you are doing young men, and apply earnestly to the study in which you are
engaged, that you may be an honor to yourselves, and advantage to your friends, and a
beneﬁt to the republic” (301). Again, we see the stature civic mindedness and citizenship

holds in classical rhetorics.

Though not as speciﬁc about the need for civic involvement, in many ways
Quintilian echoes the beliefs about moral and civic responsibility in his work.
Quintilian’s philosophy on rhetoric begets from the idea of the good man speaking well.
Therefore, it is not enough for a man to be moral and ethical he must also be able to
effectively portray these characteristics to his audience in order to raise their moral and

ethical standing. Like Isocrates and Cicero, Quintilian’s notions of education were rooted

46

in the practical. Students should be taught declamation in order to suit practical political
and social life. While Quintilian is much more directive in and about his pedagogy, the
basis of his rhetoric is always the practical and always student-centered. Like Isocrates he
does not wish for his student’s skills to exist in a vacuum but rather to be used in the

public space to better inﬂuence civic discourse.

In these classical philosophers and rhetors, we can see the basis for contemporary
notions of citizenship and civic duty. Isocrates, Cicero, and Quintilian in a myriad of
prose and means illustrate that at the heart of their rhetoric is the needs of the state or

community. So how does this connect to the rhetoric of Hip Hop?

Though the connection may be difficult for those outside the culture to recognize,
Hip Hop artists in many ways embody the same characteristics in their communities as
classical rhetoricians. Aristotle, Isocrates, Cicero, and Quintilian were lauded for their
roles in society, they were revered as the teachers who would guide their students to
moral civic duty. Today that same ideology is pressed upon Hip Hop artists, mostly
leaving out the moral, but nevertheless steeped in the call for a return to citizenship in the
modern hood. Those both affiliated with and appropriating Hip Hop culture rank the
words of these performers as the highest representations of their own personal identity

within both urban and suburban communities.

For example, when Quintilian implores his audience to be “good men speaking
well”, they are inspired to reﬂect on the power of their words and to understand the
implications their rhetoric has for both them and their community. This is not so unlike
the lyrics of ﬁve time Grammy winner Lauryn Hill when She asks her community in

“That Thing”, “how you gon win when you ain’t right within? Uh-uh, come again”. This

47

is to say, what good are you to your family, friends, and community if your rhetoric is
fronting—portraying a rhetorical facade when the truth is really hidden deep inside your
person. It is not enough to be good/moral if you do not Share and spread those qualities
clearly and effectively for the beneﬁt of your community. Both Quintilian and Lauryn
Hill were/are highly respected in the their respective communities, both their words

were/are taken seriously and in many instances literally.

Perhaps the parallel is better made between the classical female rhetorician
Aspasia and female Hip Hop artists like Lauryn Hill, Lil Kim, and Mary J. Blige. Despite
all odds these women were heard. After centuries of being buried beneath the rhetoric of
men, Aspasia emerged to be lauded as the one who taught rhetoric to Socrates. Though
her pupils and greater audience were almost certainly men, Aspasia was able to ﬂourish
as a respected rhetor and orator, evidenced by her teachings being included in the
Rhetorical Tradition. Like Aspasia, female Hip Hop artists have struggled to be heard
and respected but not until recently have they begun to reach the pinnacle of mainstream
success. When they rap about the trials and tribulations of women on welfare, people in
the communities, both urban and suburban, now sit up and take notice. These female Hip
Hop artists put women’s issues on the table, clear and unapologetically, in order to draw
attention to their plight as women, to mobilize men and women as citizens to stop the
cycles, cycles of poverty, drugs, welfare, and other pressing issues concerning civic
responsibility in the community. As Pough posits, artists like Eve in her song “Love is
Blin ” and Queen Latifah in her song “U.N.I.T.Y” inspire the desire for collective action
and build on the diva qualities of bringing wreck in that they offer testimonies aimed at

changing the world, or at least the way we think about women’s place in it (2004: 91).

48

Unfortunately, as the tradition of rhetoric stretched and broadened through the
Renaissance, Middle Ages, and the Enlightenment the stress on civic responsibility and
discourse waned considerably. With the rise of Christian doctrine and later scientiﬁc
modes of knowledge and invention, the importance of these rhetorics as they apply to the
community was largely limited. Stress instead was placed on the speciﬁc individual mind
and more broadly on the church. However, with the rise of contemporary methodologies
stemming from feminist and cultural perspectives, we are once again seeing a return to
rhetoric as a means to an end of citizenship and civic mindedness.

Rhetorical Tradition of Hip Hop: Resistance and Empowerment

What helps to bridge the conceptual gap between traditional notions of rhetoric
and Hip Hop rhetoric is the ﬁeld of African American rhetorics, the study of the Aﬁican
American oral tradition. Richardson and Jackson II (2004) deﬁne African American
rhetoric as “the study of culturally and discursively developed knowledge-forms,
communicative practices and persuasive strategies rooted in freedom struggles by peOple
of African ancestry in America” (ix). This deﬁnition clearly establishes the legitimacy of
a unique rhetoric in the African American community, one that is based on the culture,
language, and struggle of Black folk in America. Because Hip Hop is decidedly a culture
and musical genre of color, predominately African American, it is no surprise that Hip
Hop rhetoric is based upon the discursive and communicative practices of African
American rhetoric. Therefore, Hip Hop rhetoric can be considered, and often is
portrayed, as an off-shoot of African American rhetoric, embracing the rhetoric of the
African American community while blending it with contemporary linguistic, cultural,

and political ﬂavor creating a rhetoric of Hip Hop.

49

As stated in Chapter 1, I subscribe to Kenneth Burke’s view of rhetoric as a
means to examine and determine identity. Therefore, I consider rhetoric a way/tool for
individuals and communities to determine and present their cultural, linguistic, and
economic afﬁliations and leanings. Rhetoric is the heuristic with which we examine
ourselves and our place in this world. It is also a way in which we can express and
perform those ruminations of our mind and body, how we choose to speak and act to
justify our existence, where we sit and stand. To be clear, when I address rhetoric as a
conceptual frame and/or heuristic I am holding to Lindquist’s (2002) argument that:

The problem with approaching class culture ethnographically once again returns

us to the uses of rhetoric as a conceptual frame. It is in this interpretive domain—

that is, in the space between class and culture, between the structural and the
phenomenological—that “rhetoric” is activated as a key term in what might
otherwise appear to be a traditionally sociolinguistic approach to communicative
practice. . .Though “rhetoric” is a construct more traditionally associated with
humanistic approaches to culture, I ﬁnd it useful here to foreground processes of
conﬂict and identiﬁcation and to describe tensions between the poetic and
horatory in accounting for these processes. “Rhetoric” helps us to account for how
the Smokehouse conceives of itself as a political culture, implying strategic
positioning, public presentation, and persuasion. To suggest “rhetoric” as heuristic

allows for the agonistic as well as the consensual in culture (8).

In short, rhetoric is how we go about deciding who we are and then showcasing that
decision by acting and living accordingly.

To be sure, rhetorics can be both intrinsic and extrinsic. We examine our place in
society internally and our actions are based on those examinations manifesting
themselves externally. From this deﬁnition of rhetoric it is clear how Hip Hop culture
qualiﬁes as having its’ own rhetoric. Hip Hop culture is a reﬂection of the internal strife
of inner city youth in determining who they are and their place in this world. The external

result is the music, fashion, and politics that showcase this struggle and pride.

Furthermore, rappin—the linguistic performance of Hip Hop—can be seen as the verbal

50

art that is deﬁnitive of rhetoric in the Aﬁican American vernacular (Campbell, 2005: 24).
There are few scholars that explicitly term Hip Hop as rhetoric, but most players in the
scholarly game come correct in discussing the importance of the rhetorical appeal,

history, and effectiveness of Hip Hop culture.

Richardson (2003) states that “Hip Hop is an example of African American
creativity; a merger of African American oral tradition” and that “the American version
of Hip Hop mixes Anglo American literacies with Afro-American literacies to create the
dynamic literacies of Hip Hop” (68). In this way, Richardson is positing that Hip Hop is a
rhetoric in its own right, part of African American literacy but part of white literacy as
well. For Richardson Hip Hop not only encompasses a unique literacy and rhetoric but
also an entire culture. She argues, “It is important to view Hip Hop as a total
culture. . .and thus, the music and lyrics must be considered in relations to beliefs, values,
mores, and complex ideologies” (69). Therefore, Hip Hop music cannot and should not
be abstracted from its history, to do so would be a complete disservice to those seeking to
understand the complex rhetoric entrenched in the language and culture. The rhetoric of
Hip Hop is the ideology, beliefs, and values that the Hip Hop culture embraces as well as

the physical evidence of those ideologies portrayed in music, fashion, and politics.

To understand the rhetoric of Hip Hop culture and language one must understand
where it came from, the tradition Hip Hop is built upon. Smitherman (2001) provides the
most comprehensive breakdown of how Hip Hop music and the Hip Hop artists

speciﬁcally have come to be rhetorically signiﬁcant, albeit from a linguistic standpoint.

Rap music is rooted in the Black Oral Tradition of tonal semantics, narrativizing,
signiﬁcation/signifyin, the Dozens/playin the Dozens, Aﬁicanized syntax, and other
communicative practices. ....The rapper is a post-modem African griot, the verbally

51

gifted storyteller and cultural historian in traditional Aﬁican society. As African
America’s “griot,” the rapper must be lyrically/linguistically ﬂuent; he or she is
expected to testify, to speak the truth, to come wit it in no uncertain terms (269).

Hip Hop is a contemporary manifestation of centuries of struggle and the complex
rhetorical moves and strategies that were developed in order to navigate that struggle.
Just as African Americans employ Black Language as part of their linguistic, discursive,
and communicative heritage, rappers/Hip Hop artists act as the modern day griot, or
prophet/keeper/storyteller of that language and the embedded historical struggle and pride
it represents through Hip Hop. In this way “the rap music of the Hip Hop Nation
simultaneously reﬂects the cultural evolution of the Black Oral Tradition and the
construction of a contemporary resistance rhetoric” (Smitherman, 2001: 283).

The argument of Hip Hop as resistance rhetoric is perhaps the most effective way
to fully position Hip Hop rhetoric writ large. Pough (2004) discusses Hip Hop in terms of
how black females and Hip Hop artists alike invoke wreck or “bring wreck”, a term used
in Hip Hop to signify skill and greatness; the rapper is so good, has so much skill, that he
or she wrecks the microphone (77). However, Pough focuses on how wreck can best be
described as “a rhetorical act that can be written, spoken, or acted out in a way that shows
resistance” (78). Therefore, Hip Hop rhetoric entails a component of resistance to
mainstream, oppressive ideologies through the linguistic choices made by those fully
entrenched in Hip Hop culture. Speciﬁcally, Hip Hop music is the mouthpiece for this
rhetoric of resistance. It was indeed created to Showcase the cultural values and struggles
of people of color. To be sure, what began in basements, on street corners, in public
parks, and throughout the still of the night would furnish young people fertile spaces for

crafting new identities, explosive art forms, and whole industries (Watkins, 2005: 9).

52

However, it is important to note that though resistance rhetoric is indicative of Hip Hop
culture and music it is not exclusively a Hip Hop trait.

In her resonating ethnography of African American literacy in an urban
community, Ellen Cushman (2004) talks speciﬁcally about what makes these individuals’
rhetoric so signiﬁcant and unique. She posits that the language used to navigate
gatekeepers of power in the inner city community is institutionalized and thus can and is
mitigated rhetorically for the purpose of gaining access and empowerment as well
evidencing resistance to the dominant power structure. She states that:

Institutional language does indeed include both resistance and accommodation,

and as a result, community residents’ language neither entirely subverts nor

wholly reproduces the structuring ideology of institutions (9).

Using institutional language is a tool many individuals in the Aﬁican American
community use to both side-step rules and regulations that have been put in place to
frustrate their progress and empower themselves and their communities in the struggle to
transgress these gatekeeping strategies. This is to say that African Americans often use
institutional language as a form of resistance and empowerment, a rhetorical strategy that
often appears vibrantly in Hip Hop culture and music.

Artists like Public Enemy, N.W.A., and more currently The Game and Kanye
West all rap about resisting various forms of dominant power structures. Looking
speciﬁcally at lyrics from Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power”, we can see an awareness of
institutional language blended with Black Language to form a type of resistance rhetoric:

Cause I'm Black and I'm proud

I'm ready and hyped plus I'm amped

Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps

Sample a look back you look and ﬁnd

Nothing but rednecks for 400 years if you check
Don't worry be happy

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Was a number one jam

Damn if I say it you can slap me right here

(Get it) lets get this party started right

Right on, c'mon

What we got to say

Power to the people no delay

To make everybody see

In order to ﬁght the powers that be
The rhetoric employed in these lyrics can be considered Hip Hop rhetoric because it
combines aspects of institutional and Black Language to convey a message of reSistance
and empowerment. It explicitly appeals to the audience to ﬁght the institutional powers
that have oppressed Black America for so long. Implicitly, there is a logical appeal
displayed in the group’s knowledge of American history of Black oppression (“my heroes
don’t appear on no stamps”). Furthermore, these lyrics clearly evidence a Black
vernacular voice, employing syntactical and lexical items of Black Language. In all, these
lyrics are an excellent example of Hip Hop rhetoric, conveying a message of resistance
and empowerment through Black Language in rhetorically savvy ways.

Kanye West further displays evidence of embracing institutional language as a
form of resistance rhetoric in the following rhyme from “Heard ‘Em Say”:

And I know the goverrnent administered aids,

So I guess we just pray like the minister say,

Allah Akbar and throw em some hot cars,

Things we see on the screen is not ours,

But these niggas from the hood so these dreams not far,

Where im from, the dope boys is the rock stars,

But they can't cop cars without seein' cop cars,

I guess they want us all behind bars.

I know it.
West recognizes that for Aﬁican American men to get ahead they need aid from the

government, but that it is not enough for them to fully succeed because these individuals

are chasing a dream that was not meant for them. Therefore, he uses a combination of

54

institutional (government administered) and Black Language (nigga, so these dreams not
far) to explain how these individuals are wronged and offers a rhetoric of resistance to
Show his displeasure with the current state of power held by gatekeepers. Though the
lyrics of Hip Hop artists like Public Enemy and N.W.A are far more explicit in their
claims against Black oppression, West’s lyrics also lend to forms of awareness of the
current Black struggle, empowerment of the Black community, and resistance to
dominant power structures.

In some ways Hip Hop rhetoric can be considered a rhetoric of survivance (Powell,
2002), how a community and/or individual seeks to legitimize their culture through
writing/rhetoric. As earlier established Hip Hop artists and moguls are considered modern
day griots or carriers of Black Language, history, and pride. In this way they use Hip Hop
rhetoric in their music/speech to call attention to the messages resonant in Hip Hop
culture, in essence to Show the legitimacy and importance of their work and ideologies.
Hip Hop rhetoric also dispels the “myth of Americaness” that Powell discusses. That Hip
Hop, despite all the negative Black connotations presented in the media, is a decidedly
American genre, born and produced here. Hip Hop rhetoric strives to convey that Hip
Hop is a culture rife with contradictions and conﬂicting messages, but a robust culture
nonetheless, and the existence of such rhetoric is what serves to protect its legitimacy.
Furthermore, Richardson (2003) clearly points out that Hip Hop is a “means of survival”
and that “literally in the African American tradition, rap and rappers made a ‘way outta
no way’ when they took elements of their pain and struggle ‘along with stray
technological parts’ and brought into being a subculture of resistance and creativity that

has commanded global respect” (72). In this way, the rhetorical movement of Hip Hop as

55

a form of resistance and survival is similar to Native Americans who employ Native
rhetorics for the same purpose.

Much of what is presented in Hip Hop music and lyrics is indeed indicative of the
culture of Hip Hop. As both Pough (2004) and Boyd (2002) contend, rap is the act/music;
Hip Hop is the culture. Looking more closely at many Hip Hop lyrics, speciﬁcally how
they are rhetorically crafted, provides evidence of resistance, unrest, and struggle. At the
same time the music also echoes messages of hope, faith, and redemption. To be sure, rap
lyric subjects that present both positive and negative messages are equally valuable to
understanding how and why Hip Hop has formed its own rhetoric. Like anything we
encounter in this world, nothing is all bad or all good, and Hip Hop is no different.
Whatever the message may be, it is imperative to recognize that the message is there, that
this culture has a deﬁnitive voice that in many ways has become the representative of Hip
Hop culture and community and calls for involvement. The savvy rhetoric evidenced in
Hip Hop music is used to invoke anger and action, it calls to those who seek identity
within communities, churches, families, and ﬁiends. Boyd paints a picture of this rhetoric
stating:

With Hip Hop being so vocal, so visible, so empowered through the success that

the culture has had, this becomes the dominant mode of address and the primary

way in which we can possibly start to make sense of how Blackness functions in

the present (xxi).

To be sure, the growing popularity of Hip Hop rhetoric has become a means for
disenfranchised youth and urban communities to be heard and empowered through these
proclamations and motivations.

There are some scholars that echo Boyd’s notion of making sense of constructions

of Blackness through the study of the conscious choice of language in Hip Hop rhetoric.

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Speciﬁcally, H. Samy Alim (2003) looks at transcriptions of Hip Hop artists speech and
lyrics to determine if there is a conscious copula variation present. He ultimately suggests
that these Hip Hop artists target members of the African American street culture as their
audience and also believes that they modify and vary their speech accordingly (52). That
is to say that there are very Speciﬁc rhetorical moves and strategies being performed in
Hip Hop culture and Black Language and it can be clearly seen through the transcriptions
Alim discusses. While this work clearly evidences conscious rhetorical choices made by
those in the Hip Hop community it also proves that there may in fact be certain themes of
topic and/or variances in speech patterns that UMC white males display while
appropriating Hip Hop culture and Black Language and this knowledge can lead to a
better understanding of how and why they appropriate. As scholars it is our duty, as Alim
states, to consider the use of language to not only construct our worlds but also to
construct our very beings (55), to recognize that it is our responsibility to discuss these
complex intersections of language, culture, and politics so as to gain insight into
humanity as a whole.

Old School Rhetors to New School Rappers

One way to recognize the value and importance of Hip Hop rhetoric on society is
to evidence the growing trend of political and social rhetoric that is becoming indicative
of Hip Hop culture and music. Watkins (2005) contends:

Hip hop’s mostly symbolic moves against established authority illustrated how
politics can often reach beyond familiar methods and venues. . .The idea that hip
hop can be a political resource is not unique. Afrika Barnbaataa, one of the
movement’s pioneers, experimented with the notion that Hip Hop could and
should use its sway to inspire young people to be agents of social change. Despite
the corporate takeover of Hip Hop, the movement’s die-hard troops have
continued to maintain that Hip Hop still belongs to the people and communities
that inspired its formations (149).

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As earlier established, Hip Hop has always been rooted in struggle. However, until the
past ten years, that struggle has been underground, buried in the streets of New York, the
ghettos of LA, the projects of Detroit. Though the rhetoric of resistance and
empowerment has long been apparent in Hip Hop music and culture, with its growing
popularity in mainstream society and constant media attention, Hip Hop now has a world
forum in which to embark upon active rhetoric. This facet of Hip Hop rhetoric calls for
audiences to become more involved in their communities, to become activists in the ﬁght
against racism, inequality, and poverty. The fact that Hip Hop culture, artists, moguls and
Black Language are pimped and pushed on every American consumer and viewer has
made it clear to those in the rap game that this mass consumerism, once reviled as an evil,
whole-sale appropriation, can be used for good. Watkins recognizes this potential stating:
The desire to develop a more urbane political sensibility within the Hip Hop
movement is growing more robust and reﬂects a certain degree of maturity and
introspection. The idea that Hip Hop can—and even should be—a political force
has compelled many in the movement to begin thinking more seriously about how
best to realize such a vision (151).
It is these political rmninations that posit a distinct call for civic responsibility in Hip Hop
rhetoric. When so-called “culture warriors” like Bill O’Reiley sit on the Oprah Winfrey
Show and spew rhetoric concerning how rapping about “ho’s, glocks, and slinging crack”
is detrimental to American society, I point to those exact lexical choices as proof of
authentic and effective rhetoric that exists in the inner city to legitimize Black struggle
and resistance to “traditionalist” notions of what it means to be active. It is in these gansta
rap lyrics that one can truly see a call for empowerment to rise up against the dominant

power structures, to take control of one’s community for the beneﬁt of one’s community.

Let’s face it folks, Hip Hop artists are not rapping about sunshine and daisies because

58

that’s not what is reﬂected in their daily lives. The majority of these men and women are
rapping about struggle, real hardships that many would argue are a result of our country’s
on-going ignorance towards inner-city poverty, violence, and mis-education. Hip Hop, in
essence, provides these individuals the best possible forum for change and they’re
looking to draw attention to that call for change by any means necessary. Perhaps Pough
most clearly argues my point when she states that:
[There] are Hip Hop activists, Raptivists about change. In the words of that rap
entrepreneur Master P they are ‘bout it, bout it’. And that ‘bout it, bout it’ extends
further than clocking dollars, mackin’ hos and what have you. That ‘bout, bout it’
is deeply tied to community building and change. . .the negative press and outrage
against the music and culture should be seen as much bigger than anyone could
imagine (284).
Hip Hop music and rap lyrics, and the messages embedded within them, do in fact come
from somewhere, they are not abstracted from culture and society. It is in all forms of rap
music and Hip Hop culture that we can hear the call for action and feel the embedded
cultural meanings. Smitherman (2006) most recently states that:
Those of us in the Old Skool were ecstatic about the potential of this new musical
art form to embed deeper social meanings into rhymed couplets. This third genre,
while stamping its own, unique aesthetic imprint on the Game, was clearly
grounded in and often revisited the Black Musical Tradition. Activists from The
Movement days embraced Hip Hop’s artistic re-connections to Black cultural
roots, applauding this rhetorical strategy that triggered cultural memory in the
service of political awareness (84-85).
This is clearly an argument for the societal beneﬁts of Hip Hop rhetoric, that the
messages embedded in these lyrics not only carry on the Black Oral Tradition but further
that tradition by announcing it to the world.
I argue that it is in Hip Hop rhetoric that we can hear and see the call for civic

action. Whether it is to better our cities, our communities, our families, or ourselves as

political, social, and religious activists, Hip Hop has provided a space for predominately

59

marginalized people to make their voices heard. Hip Hop has also appealed and Spoken to
those within the margins, namely white males—viewed as the paramount symbol of
privilege—and sparked in them notions of civic duty and responsibility. It could now be
argued that Hip Hop has simultaneously embodied the ethos of the marginalized speaker
and gone mainstream in the proliferation of the message(s) portrayed in the music and
culture. We see these notions reﬂected in the words of one of the founding fathers of Hip
Hop, DJ Kool Here:
To me, Hip Hop says, ‘come as you are’. We are a family. It ain’t about security.
It ain’t about bling-bling. It ain’t about how much your gun can shoot. It ain’t
about $200 sneakers. It is not about me being better than you or you being better
than me. It’s about you and me, connecting one to one. That’s why it has
universal appeal. It has given young people a way to understand their world,
whether they are from the suburbs or the city or wherever (in Chang, 20052xi).
What DJ Kool Herc alludes to is that there is a cultural revolution occurring right now
through Hip Hop, one that is bringing people who were once racially, socially, and/or
geographically divided together. What is not speciﬁcally mentioned here is the rhetorics
is takes to build such communities, nor where these ideas of social cohesion were formed.
I argue that Hip Hop encourages a return to a rhetorics of citizenship (Bruch & Marback,
1996). Thus it is imperative—albeit surprising—to look back to old, dead, privileged men
in order to examine the manifestations of modern Hip Hop rhetorics of citizenship
through the eyes of young, urban, largely marginalized rappers and poets.
Though the masses that the classical rhetors appealed to were vastly less diverse
than the ones Hip Hop artists appeal to today, their roles and messages are strikingly
similar. As the paragons of their communities these men (Isocrates, Cicero, Dr. Dre,

Chuck D) and women (Aspasia, Lauryn Hill) were/are the mouthpiece for the youths they

set out to “educate”. Granted the classical rhetors took a more conventional approach to

60

educating, forming schools and study centers. Hip Hop artists and moguls on the other
hand revel in the unconventional, preaching their teachings concerning civic duty to the
public by any means necessary. The Hip Hop/Rap artists is a modern day griot “a kind of
orator, a master in the art of eloquence” and what one recognizes in the speech of both
classical and contemporary griots is a narrative form of oratory that in the African
American vernacular one might call storytelling or, more loosely, rapping (Campbell,
2005231). To fully understand how Hip Hop rhetoric came to invoke social change it is
imperative to evidence how traditional rhetoricians envisioned the purpose of effective
rhetoric.

Ancient Civics to the Modern Hood

Composition’s recent turn toward cultural studies as a research ﬁeld and as a
pedagogy grows out of an interest in imagining the democratic potentials of rhetoric
(Bruch & Marback, 19962156). That being said, one can draw many connections between
classical rhetorics and those of contemporary Hip Hop rhetorics. Contrastingly, rhetorics
that are most clearly visible today, like Hip Hop, are based in cultural and feminist study,
methodologies that represent marginalized and oppressed voices throughout history,
whereas the ancient rhetorics represented only men of privilege and stature. Even when
one historicizes the construction of classical rhetorics we are hard pressed to ﬁnd
representations of civic responsibility as they relate to women or people of color. Though
the audiences are varied we can see that cultural studies in many ways echoes the call of
civic duty once voiced by the ancients. That one must not only be a good
person/researcher but also that their rhetoric should do something—better society,

improve the state of a community.

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James Berlin was a forerunner in making the connections between ancient civic
discourse and contemporary cultural studies rhetoric clear. He explains that the goal of
education is to create students who are vested in their life and community, stating that
“students must come to see that the languages they are expected to speak, write, and
embrace as ways of thinking and acting are never disinterested, always bringing with
them strictures on the existent, the good, the possible, and regimes of power” (Berlin,
1992:24). In this way he urges teachers and students to be cognizant of cultures in order
to act as “good” citizens. As citizens, he posits that we must challenge the dominant ideas
and power structures, to reexamine our roles as both educators and students within our
communities as active members of those communities. As I’m sure Isocrates would
agree, those who do not choose to educate themselves will exist in isolation and thus be

useless to the community.

Berlin goes on to speciﬁcally address the connection between the signiﬁcance of
civic space to rhetoric in ancient Greece and our modern day cities, remarking that “the
ability to read, write, and speak in accordance with the code sanctioned by a culture’s
ruling class is the main work of education, and this is true whether we are discussing
ancient Athens or modern Detroit” (Berlin, 1987252). What is most interesting for the
purposes of this work is the belief that the urban civic space is centrally important to the
way rhetorics are taught and enacted within the walls of the classroom as well as on the

streets. And the soundtrack of the urban space is undeniably Hip Hop.

Rap music takes the city and its multiple spaces as the foundation of its cultural
production. In the music and lyrics, the city is an audible presence, explicitly citied and

digitally sampled in the reproduction of the aural textures of the urban environment.

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(Forman, 2004: 203.) For me, Berlin’s choice of Detroit in his juxtaposition is dually
telling. While Athens has long been lauded as the birthplace of rhetoric, Detroit has long
been condemned as the primary example of a failed city. So how does one expect to Show
that Detroit has anything redeemable concerning civic mindedness in comparison to

Athens, the city based on civic discourse?

I must admit, it may be easier for me to see this connection. Like Berlin, I grew
up in and around Detroit witnessing ﬁrst hand the brief triumphs and frequent
shortcomings of the city and its citizens. One would expect that after 50 plus years of
civic disappointment following the race riots, that Detroiters would look and sound
nothing like the citizens of ancient Greece, let alone its most exalted city of Athens.
However, unlike modern cities perceived to be success stories like Chicago and New
York, citizens of Detroit are constantly reminded that they are from/of Detroit and that
what they do and say reﬂects directly onto the image of the city. Much like the citizens of
ancient Athens, modern day Detroiters have a reputation to protect. Detroiters wear their
grittiness like a badge of honor and the Hip Hop artists that come out of Detroit have a
unique style and sound that reﬂects that attitude. Detroiters are constantly reminded that
it is up to them to improve the city’s condition and that just as the burden of failure rests
on their shoulders so does the spoils of success. Win or lose, Detroiters will take all the

praise or blame.

In this way, even though the circumstances of civic participation in contemporary
Detroit have changed due to late capitalism and the subsequent civil unrest, education in
Detroit is like education in ancient Athens in that it is still an education in citizenship

(Bruch & Marback, 1996). This parallel is perhaps why so many Hip Hop artists and

63

moguls see and embrace the potential of Detroiters and other urban settlers as civic
engagers, individuals who can relate to Hip Hop’s call for responsibility and engagement
in matters of citizenship and community. Neal (2004) his belief about the power of

rapping about the urban center:

Rappers emphasis on posses and neighborhoods had brought the ghetto back into
the public consciousness. It satisﬁes poor youth black people’s profound need to
have their territories acknowledged, recognized and celebrated. While much of
this activity was driven by the need to give voice to issues that privilege the local
and the private within the postindustrial city—thus the over determined
constructions of masculinity, sexuality, criminality, and even an urban
patriarchy—Hip Hop’s best attempt at social commentary and critique
represented traditions normalized and privileged historically in the Black Public
Sphere of the urban North (371).

Encouraging students in the urban space to become more civic minded is one way is to
appeal to their sense of comfort and familiarity, which is where the rhetorics of Hip Hop
come in. Using Hip Hop in these urban centers to relate to the youth sparks interest and
understanding about citizenship that may have been unattainable when working with the
“old” canons of literature. This notion of Hip Hop pedagogy is more thoroughly

discussed through the work of Morrell and Duncan-Andrade (2004) in Chapter 6.

Overall, African American rhetorics in Hip Hop being identiﬁed as part of the

urban center is nothing new. It is imperative to note that:

Since it’s inception in the mid-to late 1970’s Hip Hop culture has always
maintained ﬁercely defended local ties and an in-built element of competitions
waged through Hip Hop’s cultural forms of rap, breakdancing and graffiti. This
competition has traditionally been staged within geographical boundaries that
demarcate turf and territory among various crews, clique, and posses, extending
and altering the Special alliances that had previously cohered under other
organizational structures, including but not exclusive to gangs. Today a more
pronounced level of spatial awareness is one of the key factors distinguishing rap
and Hip Hop culture from the many other cultural and sub cultural youth
formations currently vying for attention (Forman, 20042203).

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Hip Hop rhetoric has always been a way of recognizing and deﬁning local and regional
afﬁnities but more contemporarily these rhetoric are being used to ﬁnd ways to uplift the
urban center, to not just recognize but to preserve these spaces as valuable cultural
entities evidenced through Hip Hop’s attempt to “keep it real”. AS for Detroit, admittedly,
there are many who strive for an education to “get out” in order to better themselves
personally. However, there are still many that yearn for education to not only improve
their personal space but also their civic space (not so unlike those citizens of ancient
Athens), to aid their community in bridging the gap from disgraced city to lauded urban
center. To date the most prominent factor that breeds hope to close this chasm is Hip Hop

music and culture and the rhetoric embedded within it.
Rhetorics of Citizenship in Hip Hop

The rhetoric of Hip Hop indeed has always called. for resistance to dominant
institutions, empowerment of marginalized communities, and more contemporarily active
involvement in those communities. It is my belief that this research only further validates
the need to see Hip Hop as more than a fad but as a cultural revolution that has

implications for ourselves and our communities.

That being said, to better understand the rhetorically charged nature of Hip Hop
music and culture that sparks civic mindedness in many communities, it is imperative to
look to those that have previously noted and substantiate these notions of civic duty in the
modem city. Taking cities such as Detroit into account, we ﬁnd that Hip Hop appeals to
those who will one day lead, i.e. urban youth. Smitherman clearly posits that “Hip Hop
refers to urban youth culture in America” (19992268). This is to say that Hip Hop refers

not to one speciﬁc race or economic strata but to wide range of youth that live in urban

65

spaces. To be sure, Hip Hop is embraced most commonly by those who relate on some
level to the lyrical messages of oppression, disenfranchisement, and urban street culture.
For many it is the soundtrack of the streets and inextricably their lives. This then points to
the varied messages about civic duty and citizenship that are available in Hip Hop culture
and music. On some levels Hip Hop simply portrays the notion that “living large” is the
only viable form of citizenship (Bruch & Marback, 1996). This portrayal in many ways
brings hope and meaning to those in urban spaces whose lives are currently void of these

beliefs.

While these ideals are universally seen as positive, sometimes the results are
resoundingly negative. When Dr. Dre raps “I’m expressin’ with my full capabilities/now
I’m livin’ in correction facilities” (N .W.A. “Express Yourself”) he means that what gives
him hope and meaning in life is doing what is capable for him as a young, black man in
the ghetto which most likely includes in addition to rapping, illegal activities which can
get one thrown in prison. Depending on how you analyze it, these lyrics do indeed

provide hOpe or they provide a foreshadowing of bleaker days ahead.

I would posit that Dre’s lyrics do both. They implore the listener to understand
that he is doing the best he can with what he’s got, but by doing so runs the risk of being
incarcerated. At ﬁrst glance these lyrics would not seem like rays of light guiding
wayward youths towards a life of civic duty. However one must ﬁrmly root themselves in
the urban space and ask, where and who are the alternative voices? The truth is that the
few hopeful voices from the postmodern city such as KRS-One, Chuck D, and other Hip
Hop ﬁgures do in fact provide positive images of Aﬁ'ican American history and the

possibilities for urban futures in their music. As Walser (1995) suggests, “dialogue and

66

other aspects of rhythmic rhetoric demand social explanations, for notes produce meaning
only as they unfold in communities” (206). As Bakhtin has previously posited, all
utterances are socially organized, no one utterance is original (Bizzelll & Herzberg, 20012
1215). Therefore, to fully weigh the impact that Hip Hop music and culture create in the
civic mindedness of those living in an urban space, one must understand those lyrics are

socially constructed from that space.

It must be said that by showcasing Hip Hop as a rhetorical means to increasing
civic responsibility in the urban space is to unfortunately broadly sweep past the civil
rights movement—THE movement for civic awareness in black culture. However, many
would argue that Hip Hop music and culture is the modern version of the civil rights
movement. Todd Boyd maintains that the new generation, having grown up in the
aftermath of both civil rights and black power, rejects these old school models and
instead is asserting its own values and ideas. He states, “many black people still think we
are in the 19608, stuck on ‘We Shall Overcome’. They cannot imagine themselves, or any
other black people for that matter, doing anything but suffering” (Boyd, 20022vix). This
is where Hip Hop comes in as the voice of those who are tired of suffering and who wish
to lament and/or celebrate their lot in urban life. It is Hip Hop that provides a catalyst to
both celebrate and improve the urban community through social and political activism. In
this way Hip Hop has taken the spirit of the civil rights movement and applied it to

increasing civic responsibility today. Boyd supports this notion in the following excerpt:

Hip Hop has not completely forgotten civil rights though. No, as a matter of fact
Hip Hop has done a great deal to ﬁrmly place the moments of this era in a larger
historical context. The music and culture have always attempted to remember the
past, yet have also urged us to move forward. What Hip Hop has done is taught us
that true freedom and liberation can begin only if we move beyond being
concerned about doing things the “right” way. Hip Hop continually embraces

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contradiction as opposed to trying to make everything seem perfect, trying to
make everything conform to a dominant moral idea. . .Hip Hop also allows us to
begin to understand how this generation might make sense of their future. . .(20022
151)

Here we see evidence of deviation from the ancient ideas of civil discourse. For Isocrates,
Cicero, and Quintilian rhetoric was indeed rooted in the community, to do public service.
However, their rhetoric was also planted ﬁrmly in the moral, that it is not enough to be a
good speaker serving one’s state, one must also be a good/moral individual. What Boyd
purports is that the rhetoric of Hip Hop is fashioned to impact the minds of this
generation in order to think positively about their communities and their own future,
however these communities and citizens are not burdened with a strict moral code in
which to do so. For Boyd things are not as right or wrong, black or white as they were for
the classical rhetors. While the rhetorics of Hip Hop push this generation to succeed for
both themselves and their communities, it is understood that this success may have to be

achieved by any means necessary, which in many ways would not be considered moral.

To connect back to our classical rhetors let me put this another way. Historically, Hip
Hop music and culture was the representational epitome of the marginalized voice. While
this still may be true in many aspects, as those mentioned above, the growing push for
Hip Hop into the mainstream makes these voices heard on local, regional, and even
global scales and has limitless potential for social change as evidenced by the excerpt

from Kitwana below:

Until Hip Hop is recognized as a broad cultural movement, rather than simply an
inﬂuential moneymaker, those who seek to tap into Hip Hop’s potential to impact
social change should not expect substantive progress. A uniﬁed front between Hip
Hop’s commercial and grassroots sectors on the issue of sociopolitical action would
change the nature of the dialogue. For example, I the same way that the Hip Hop
community as a cultural movement inherently answered the question “what is Hip
Hop culture?” a new inclusive framework would answer the question “what do we

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mean by politicizing the Hip Hop generation?” Is our goal to run Hip Hop
generationers for office, to turn out votes for Democrats and Republicans, to form a
third party, or to provide our generation with a more concrete political education?
(2004: 345-346).

If what Kitwana suggests is true then those who identify with Hip Hop culture and enact
Hip Hop rhetorics can ostensibly become a new and powerful social, political, and
cultural voice that has long been unheard if it can organize and be recognized as
legitimate by mainstream society. That is to say that the rhetoric entrenched in Hip Hop is
strong enough and persuasive enough to impart real social change, to move people that
largely had no interest or investment in civic duty because it largely did not appeal to
them. This movement is not so unlike how traditional notions of rhetoric came to be
valued. Ultimately, I am arguing that as the power of Hip Hop grows and strengthens so
does the connection between these modern day rappers and classical rhetors. Aristotle,
Isocrates, Cicero, and Quintilian were the classical examples of men with great power
and wealth. Their followers/students envisioned them as the learned, the educated, the
truth. For students today, Hip Hop artists are the personiﬁcation of the truth. They may
not be classically educated, but these artists deﬁnitely have the power and the wealth to

impact civil discourse.

Perhaps the greatest example of Hip Hop’s inﬂuence on notions of citizenship is
the recent push within and throughout the culture to vote. During the 2004 presidential
election one would be hard pressed not to see a Hip Hop musician or mogul of some sort
encouraging the citizens between the ages of 18-30 to get out and vote. Hip Hop culture
was undoubtedly the ﬁrst movement in the past 20 years to take into consideration this
generation of individuals and to value their political and social opinions. No longer did

this generation wish to be associated with the lackadaisical Generation X of the early

69

ex}

uh‘

the

 

1990’s. This generation was and is Hip Hop and this can be shown by the incredible
impact Hip Hop/rap moguls like P. Diddy and Russell Simmons had on voting numbers.
Like the civil rights generation before them, the Hip Hop crowd is worried about the lack
of job creation and vanishing opportunities to make it into middle class, and the ongoing

expense of war in Iraq (Powell, 2004: 27).

To be sure, all of these concerns are directly related to this generation and their
communities. However, it must be said that without Hip Hop campaigns like P.Diddy’s
“Vote or Die” and “Citizen Change” or BET TV’S “Rap the Vote” these citizens may not
have considered the importance of voting, the ultimate civic responsibility. Like Aristotle
and Isocrates increased democratic participation with their rhetoric so does P.Diddy and
Russell Simmons with theirs. For example in 2001 Simmons launched the Hip Hop
Summit Action Network (HSAN). The organization in his words was dedicated to
“helping provide a voice for those who did not have a voice” (Watkins, 2005). I argue
that these Hip Hop artists and moguls are held in the same esteem today that was
previously reserved for white men of wealth and power, those not unlike our classical

rhetoricians.

Conclusion

The rhetoric involved in Hip Hop has been somewhat established in the ﬁeld but
the strategies and moves involved in appropriation of Hip Hop and Black Language have
yet to be fully examined. Speciﬁcally, I want teachers, researchers, and students in the
ﬁeld to look to this work as a new and engaging way of approaching cultural studies in
composition and rhetoric, as a complex means to a simple end of garnering meaning and

understanding. In short, studying the rhetoric of appropriation of Hip Hop culture and

70

Black Language will Show how various communities and individuals navigate cultural
and linguistic norms and practices to achieve varied ends and more importantly that these
navigations can help us as teachers, scholars, and students to decode these previously

misunderstood relations between, within, and throughout language and culture.

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Chapter 3: (Socio)Linguistic" Appropriation
So, if you really want to hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin
skin to linguistic identity—I am my language. Until I can take pride in my language, I
cannot take pride in myself

--Gloria Anzaldua (1987)

Today, Mailer ’3 “white Negro” has morphed into Eminem and dozens of lesser known
(and lesser talented) White Hip Hop artists and millions of Wiggas (“white niggas ”). In
appropriately saggin gear, they be [yin and signiﬁ/in, talkin and testifyin, trash talkin,
snappin, and hoopin all over the place. This too is generational continuity, as

contemporary White Americans borrow ﬁ'om African American Culture as did their
foreparents during enslavement and on down through the generations. Same song.

«Geneva Smitherman (2006)
Same song indeed, and they’ll be damned if they don’t speak the same language too. Of
course the language of UMC class white males who appropriate Hip Hop culture and
Black Language is not always a wholesale appropriation but that doesn’t mean they
aren’t trying their damnedest to get it right, make it tight, and keep it real. That is they
often do not appropriate all lexical, semantic, and phonological items of Black Language
but that they evidence just enough parts to attempt to linguistically pass as down with Hip
Hop. For many of the participants in this study their language is a sore spot, an Achilles
heel that points to their conﬂicting identity in the Hip Hop community, that they are
upper middle class and white yet act as though they are urban and black. So they’ve
hedged, adapted, and ostensibly learned to code-switch and take pride in that ability.
UMC white males are seeking ethnic identity through linguistic identity, they are seeking
the twin skin that Anzaldua speaks of so passionately. By appropriating Black Language
many UMC white males knowingly choose to associate themselves with contemporary,

mainstream ideals of blackness and this performance gains them partial membership in

 

‘ I am situating the terms sociolinguistic and linguistic as (socio)linguistic to Show ﬁrst and foremost that I
will be looking at hard linguistic data of the participants responses but am always cognizant of the inherent
links between language and society and how that link affects my data.

72

the Hip Hop commtmity. What many of the participants in this study are not aware of
however, is the reality of blackness, what it really means to be a black male in 2006
America past the MTV hype, let alone the history of Black Language.

In this chapter I will showcase how and why many UMC white males appropriate
Black Language. My argument is based on case study data gathered from recorded
interviews with these UMC white male individuals. This type of (socio)linguistic study is
important because it evidences a kind of language appropriation that occurs as a result of
identity formation largely inﬂuenced by societal trends that in turn affect how
mainstream society perceives and performs Hip Hop culture and Black Language. That is
to say that UMC white male appropriation of Black Language is a cyclical phenomenon,
they model what they see in mainstream media representations of blackness and in turn
are shaping mainstream society’s perceptions by their appropriations.

Linguistically, all language can be recognized as Socially constructed, that
language in all it’s forms is affected by the culture and society surrounding it and vice
versa. Language is shaped by experience, history, by the people who speak it and where
and when they choose to do so. As Bahktin posits that utterances are socially organized
(1215), the way we speak and what we say is inextricably linked to who we are socially
and culturally. Bahktin’s overall argument is that language and the forms it takes can be
properly understood only as dialogue, as utterances that take place within social
situations and that at least partly constitute them.

To complicate Bahktin’s view on language to more closely examine the
participant’s language in my study, I look to a more critical view of socioloinguists

through Alastair Pennycook’s (2001) discussion of critical applied linguistics (CAL). He

73

argues CAL is a way of thinking and doing, a "continuous reﬂexive integration of
thought, desire, and action” (3). That is, sociolinguists are correct in their recognition of
the importance of culture and society in the construction of language but that we must
also be cognizant of the personal idiosyncrasies that are often at play when analyzing
language. Pennycook also entertains the connectedness of power and language. That by
critically studying sociolinguistics we can come to an “understanding of how power
operates on and through people in the ongoing tasks of teaching, learning languages,
translating, etc” (28). In this way, Pennycook’s work will help me to examine how
dominant power structures in society help to shape and shift language appropriations,
speciﬁcally the UMC white male participants in this study.

If we use these deﬁnitions and theories to look at why and how UMC white males
appropriate Black Language, we can see how these appropriations relate to language
issues in society. That these appropriations are direct reﬂections of the cultural and
societal contexts surrounding these individuals and are also directly connected to
constructions of whiteness in America. Despite the fact that they are physically removed
from the Black Language community they still live in a world where this language has
been appropriated on a grandiose scale by mainstream society through mass media. In
essence, UMC white males have learned to create Spaces within their own social enclaves
to share and thus perpetuate certain linguistic appropriations. If reality is not merely
socially, but sociolinguistically constructed, as Smitherman (2001 :43) posits, then the
participants in this study have been constructed by mainstream society to appropriate

Black Language and vice versa. In order to Show how UMC white males use Black

74

Language, it is imperative to discuss the linguistic and sociolinguistic qualities of Black
Language itself.
Black Language Roots and Appropriation
What I call Black Language goes by many names—Ebonics, African American
Vernacular English, Black Vernacular English, African American English—but one thing
is clear, it is a language unto itself. Black Language can be broadly deﬁned as “a set of
communication patterns and practices resulting from Africans’ appropriation and
transformation of foreign tongue during the African Holocausts” (Smitherman, 2001: 20).
Steeped in traditions imported from the African continent, Black Language has its own
unique linguistic qualities which are deﬁned by speciﬁc lexical and semantic traits. The
following is an example of patterns of grammar and pronunciation in Black Language
offered by Smitherman’s Talking That Talk (2001: 23):
0 Use of invariant be for future
0 Example: “I be there in a minute”
0 No copula is and are for equative structures and present tense actions
0 Example: “She ready.” “They laughing.”
o Ain but and for limited negation
0 Example: “She ain nothing but a kid.” (She is only a kid)
0 They and yall/yall’s for possessive
0 Example: “It’s yall’s bid.”
0 Initial voiced th realized as d

0 Example: “dem” (for “them”)

 

5 Term used by Black activists, writers, Hip Hop artists, and other Blacks to refer to the European
enslavement of Aﬁ'ican people in the United States and throughout the Diaspora (Smitherman, 2006221)

75

0 Final th realized as j: t, or d
0 “down souf” (for “down south”); “wit” or “wid” (for “with”)
o Ing and Ink realized as ang and ank
0 Example: “It’s a Black thang.”; “I don’t thank so.”
0 Front shifting of stress
0 Example: PO-lice; HO-tel
o Unstressed initial affixes not realized
0 Example: “bout it, bout it” (for “about it, about it”); “member” (for
“remember”)
The participants in this study do indeed invoke many of these linguistic patterns as well
as varied forms of tonal semantics. However, in no way do they evidence wholesale
appropriation of the language, they pick and choose which aspects to invoke during
particular times. To be clear, the participants in this study do not speak Black Language
ﬂuently. Therefore, they can be considered categorically to exhibit characteristics
commonly invoked by most second language speakers.

On a more soulful and historic level one must also recognize Black Language for
what it means to the African American community, that it is a source and performance of
linguistic pride and racial struggle. Rickford and Rickford (2000) draw attention to these
aspects of Black Language calling it Spoken Soul to more robustly invoke the life behind
the language. They posit that:

Most Aﬁican Americans. . ..are ﬂuent Speakers of Standard English—still invoke

Spoken Soul as we have for hundreds of years, to laugh or cry, to preach and

praise, to shuck and jive, to sing, to rap, to shout, to style, to express our

individual personas and our ethnic identities, to conﬁde in and commiserate with
friends, to chastise, to cuss, to act, to act the fool, to get by and get over, to pass

76

secrets, to make jokes, to mock and mimic, to tell stories, to reﬂect and

philosophize, to create authentic characters and voices in novels, poems, and

plays to survive the streets, to relax at home and recreate in playgrounds, to render
our deepest emotions and embody our vital core. The fact is that most African

Americans do talk differently from whites and Americans of other ethnic groups

or at least most of us can when we want to. And the fact is that most Americans,

black and white, know this to be true (3-4).

Many people are passionate about and take pride in their language, it is a Sign of their
identity, ethnic and linguistic. However, what Rickford and Rickford point to here is that
African Americans have had the unique obstacle of having to defend their language time
and again as language, something most of us take for granted. Another unique factor of
Black Language that they bring to light in this excerpt is that their language is one of
community, of inclusion and exclusion. To speak Black Language is to be part of a
history of struggle, both linguistic and racial. To speak Black Language and to argue for
it as language is a form of resistance and survivance, to prove to others the legitimacy,
sustainability, and most of all the resiliency of a whole people.

Perhaps the most unique characteristics of Black Language is not its lexical traits
but its style and rhetorical qualities, speciﬁcally: exaggerated language (unusual words,
High Talk), mimicry, proverbial statement and aphoristic phrasing, punning and plays on
words, spontaneity and improvisation, image making and metaphor, braggadocio,
indirection (circumlocution, suggestiveness), and tonal semantics (Smitherman, 2000:

216-217). These aspects are most repetitively and clearly seen in contemporary spaces

and places through Hip Hop music and lyrics.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. (1988) is a prominent scholars who studied Black
Language semantic qualities and draw attention to its rhetorical power, speciﬁcally

through his discussion of signiﬁcation. He posits that “signiﬁcation is a complex

77

rhetorical device that has elicited various, even contradictory deﬁnitions from linguists”
(1581). Signiﬁcation is complex indeed, as signiﬁcation is one of the most deﬁning
characteristics in Black Language and perhaps the most difﬁcult to deﬁne. For the
purposes of clearly deﬁning, I am working with Smitherman’s (2001) argument as she
establishes “signifyin” as “indirect language used to tease admonish, or disparage” (138).
Perhaps this rhetorical quality is most clearly seen in the oral performance of black
preachers, politicians, athletes and of course rappers as described below:
A clever rapper can talk himself out of a jam, and in sessions of ritual insult such
as “playing the dozens” (talking about somebody’s momma and/or other kinfolk),
tension is relieved and ﬁghts often avoided. Those who are verbally adept at the
art of “selling woof (wolf) tickets” (boasting) often do not have to prove anything
by action. It is believed that the African American concept of Nommo, word
power, can indeed “psych your opponent out”. Thus, when [Muhammad] Ali
engages in the art of black braggadocio, the louder and badder he talks, the more
black applaud him, but the more whites lacking culture experience in this
tradition, censure him. Ali symbolizes a cultural value manifested in Black
Language behavior, suggesting that we are dealing with more than surface dialect
differences (Smitherman, 20002138).
Now, even at the risk of generalizing I must pose the query as to which of these groups of
individuals do you think UMC white males are most privy to the oral stylings of? I must
admit I’ve never seen any UMC white boys streaming into Detroit’s First Baptist Church
on a Sunday morning, or had to beat back the droves of them attempting to get a seat at a
political rally hosted by prominent and controversial black politicians. However, I
continue to see tons of white guys bumping Hip Hop music in their cars while wearing
throwback jersey’s of famous black athletes. Therefore, I think it is fair to say, and has
been previously established, that UMC white males get their rhetorical and linguistic
guidance from Hip Hop artists, black athletes, and especially from the mainstream media

portrayal of both. So if signiﬁcation is a markedly Black Language trait and is most

78

13.’

30-

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mi

rampant in Hip Hop lyrics, music, and sports than it should come as no surprise that this
sociolinguistic characteristic has been picked up by UMC white males.

This “linguistic crossover” as Smitherman (2006:112) terms it is visible virtually
everywhere. MTV’S hit show “Yo Momma” is ostensibly dedicated to playing the
dozens, where participants of all ages and races compete to see who can signify the most
effectively. More so, evidence of Black Language semantics is seen in titles of shows and
TV commercials (MTV’S “All up in the Grarnmy’s” pre Show and the cell phone
company Boost Mobile’s “Where you at” campaign). To be sure, Black Language
appropriation has become commercialized, hence making it easier to proliferate such
appropriations in mainstream, white America as will be clearly shown through my case
studies of UMC white males.

Due to Hip Hop’s increasing popularity and visibility through commercialization
in mainstream society this myriad of unique rhetorical devices are readily available to
UMC white males. Furthermore, some of the participants in this study actually address
their linguistic and rhetorical choices, aware of the speciﬁc choices they are making and
are not afraid to discuss the when’s and why’s of their selective appropriation. To be
sure, these theories will be more closely examined through actual participant case studies
later in this chapter.

Welcome to My Study

As stated earlier in Chapter 1, this study was conducted in suburban Detroit
because of white suburb proximity to Detroit proper and its historical connections to the
music industry. Speciﬁcally, the participants at the time were residents of the upper

middle class (U MC) communities of Troy, Sterling Heights, Rochester Hills, and

79

Rochester all of which are located within a 30 mile radius of Detroit proper. While
portions of these areas can certainly be considered middle class, the participants in this
study self-identify themselves as upper middle class. To more clearly deﬁne what I mean
by upper middles class my criteria relied upon the majority of families living in these
areas having a combined income of between $200,000 to $300,0006 per year.
Furthermore, the majority of the residents in these areas are white with a small minority
of Hispanic, Asian, Arabic, and Indian families. African Americans are the smallest
minority, making up only 1% of the population in these cities compared with Detroit
which is 83% African American7.

Both the class level and markedly non-diverse factors of these cities made them
attractive for the purposes of this study. Most of the participants were solicited by me to
participate in this study in social situations with acquaintances at local bars and coffee
shops due to my knowledge of their proﬁle and status through mutual ﬁiends. Others
were approached in classrooms and hallways of Michigan State University as they are
former writing students of mine. Some participants approached me after learning about
the study and volunteered to participate or solicited participation as a chance to have a
conversation about Hip Hop. However, it should be known that participants were chosen
based ﬁrst on" their race, then on their socioeconomic status, then on their affiliation with
Hip Hop music, culture, and Black Language. That is to say that all participants in this
study are ﬁrst and foremost white, upper middle class Hip Hop lovers. I must admit I was
shocked by not only the availability of the individuals in these communities but also the

eagerness at which they approached the interview process. All participants were engaged

 

“http://factﬁndercensus.gov/
7 http://www.census.gov/prod/200lpubs/c2kbr01-5.pdf

80

in the interview and seemed passionate enough about Hip Hop to agree to discuss their
beliefs, opinions, and attitudes towards Hip Hop culture and Black Language.

As far as the rhetorical situation of the interviews, I positioned myself as both
peer and researcher. It was made obvious to the participants that I too am a Hip Hop head
and that the impetus for this research is steeped in my deep love and respect for the genre.
Of course my race is visibly on display and they are aware of my status as a Ph.D. student
at a relatively large Research I institution. Being white, I feel I was at a distinct advantage
when interviewing these participants. If I were black, I have to assume that these
participants would have been far more apprehensive about discussing issues of blackness
surrounding Hip Hop culture and Black Language. A white upper middle class male
discussing Hip Hop culture and Black Language, let alone appropriating it in the presence
of an unknown black woman is highly unlikely, and might be viewed as borderline
hostile and racist in the presence of a black man.

The issues and problems surrounding participant observation I encountered are
more directly and articulately dealt with in Gilyard’s (1991) argument conceming
Labov’s (1972) groundbreaking study in Black Language. Though Labov is a premier
linguistic scholar, Gilyard contends that his positionality in his urban, linguistic study is
problematic considering the fact that Labov may have been recognized as a “lame”
within his participant community. Gilyard states that “Labov, being a lame himself, was
susceptible to being fooled by any Regular or Cool Cat who wished to entertain him,
especially when his method of study of study was suspect to begin with” (118). That is to
say that Labov was a strict supporter of studying validity of language only if one has

access to normal social discourse but “the chance that Labov was put on to a great extent

81

is very real” (119). As a white female, I believe I posed no physical threat and there was
no way I could be thought to be “judging” them being a white person interested in Hip
Hop culture and Black Language myself and therefore did not run such a high risk of
being “put on” like Labov. I do recognize that my femaleness probably did provoke
performances of some kind. However, UMC white male performances of Hip Hop
culture and Black Language was exactly what I was hoping to elicit in order to better
understand their rhetoric of appropriation.

What was not made transparent to the participants in this study was my
socioeconomic status. They are not aware of my adolescence spent in highly diverse,
poorer communities or of my difﬁcult transition to suburban upper middle class life.
During my analysis process I often wondered how the interview dynamic would have
changed if I had made my past more explicit—would it have caused them to invoke a
more “ghetto” performance to more concretely form their legitimacy in the Hip Hop
music and linguistic community? Or would it have caused them to be more guarded in
their responses, worried that I may call them out as a fake, poser, wigga, or wanksta? Due
to these initial, and subsequently ongoing, trepidations I chose not to include my life
history as part of the interview process. I did not want to taint their responses whatsoever
with my past biases and opinions on Hip Hop and Black Language, let alone race, class,
and/or politics writ large.

As previously stated all of the participants identify themselves as avid
fans/followers of Hip Hop music. Most answer my questions in a relatively carefree and
unguarded manner perhaps because being white and privileged their words and actions

have never been scrutinized for racial and economic stereotypes. From my experience

82

conducting these 30 interviews, all of these young men were willing and to speak about
their likes, dislikes, and opinions on a wide variety of topics dealing with Hip Hop
culture and Black Language. Not only were they engaged in the interview process, many
of them evidenced rhetorical savvy in justifying their appropriations as part of their
identity within/through Hip Hop culture and Black Language. That is, they used Black
Language and complex rhetorical strategies and appeals to attempt to prove their
knowledge of and legitimacy in the Hip Hop community, almost like a performance of
their own identity formation. I ﬁnd these results to be the most proliﬁc and intriguing for
the ﬁeld of cultural studies and rhetoric/composition writ large.

I attribute the participants’ seeming comfort level to a few factors, most notably
my personal approach to the interview and the interview space itself. For all the
interviews, I approached the participants with a focused list of questions. Ultimately, I
was trying to create a conversational environment focused to the topic of Hip Hop and
Black Language but a conversation nonetheless. Therefore, it should be noted that more
often then not only a few of my focused questions were explicitly stated. This
development was due to my attempts to keep the natural progression of conversation
ﬂuid and open while also remaining generally on topic. For example, if a participant went
off on a tangent about the use of the term “nigger” versus “nigga” deSpite not being
prompted to do so (which did occur and will be discussed in greater detail later in the
chapter), I still engaged the participants to continue their explanations. I did this because I
recognized that these discussions may be far more rhetorically and linguistically
signiﬁcant than a discussion shaped by one of my previously devised interview questions.

I feel this method led to more robust and introspective discussions that many times

83

exceeded my expectations as to what a participant would divulge to an interviewer. Also,
the fact that the majority of the participants were either acquaintances or former students
of mine deﬁnitely raised the assumed comfort level in the interview. I was not a stranger
and I hOped to infer no judgment as to their responses.

The interviews were always held in a familiar space. For former students we met
in unoccupied classrooms on MSU’S campus, similar to the ones they occupied as
students in my class. For acquaintances we would either meet at a local coffee house or
the participant’s home. The coffee house space provided a neutral ground, while going to
a participant’s own private space probably put them most at ease. Leveling the playing
ﬁeld on both accounts, in my opinion, is key to creating a familiar and comfortable
interview space.

Interpretation of the data

While this chapter will focus on the nuts and bolts of lexical and semantic Black
Language appropriation and analysis of those appropriations, Chapters 4 and 5 will
provide more detailed background data for the featured participants to more clearly Show
justiﬁcations and rhetorical strategies involved in both their linguistic and cultural

appropriations. This chapter will crib data from all 30 participants.

In situating the data analysis in this chapter as well as the data in Chapter’s 4 and
5 it is imperative I discuss my methodological choices further. For this chapter I mention
using predominately sociolinguistic scholars as a basis for my methodology, however
while I continue to echo their strategies I also am also borrowing from the methods of
other scholars in the ﬁeld of composition and rhetoric such as Deborah Tannen (1984)

and Wendy Bishop (1999) to support my methodological choices.

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From Tannen’s work I am using her version of “accountability in interpretation”
to justify my interpretations of the participant responses. She clearly states:

The objection will be raised: how do you know this is what is really going on? It

is just your interpretation. To this I have three replies: (1) the multiplicity of

interpretations, (2) internal and external evidence and (3) the aha factor (48).

For the purposes of my work I am relying on the ﬁrst two replies from Tannen, the
multiplicity of interpretation which states that “I do not offer mine as the explanation of
what is going on. It is simply one explanation, an account of certain aspects of mass
components of interactions” (49) and her reply concerning the internal an external
evidence. For the latter I focus on my ability to recognize “evidence in the data in the
form of recurrent patterns” (49) and not basing my interpretation on phenomenon that
appear once but that reoccur proving that they are “demonstrably motivated, not random”
(49). That is, I have drawn my conclusions about what constitutes a wigga versus a neo-
wigga in Chapter 5 based on reoccurring patterns in the data compiled from my
participant pool.

Though Bishop’s (1999) work is largely geared toward ethnography She provides
useful guidance on the issue of using case studies concerning my participant’s response
as narrative.

The crucial elements of narrative in case study reporting are sequence and

consequence. Through an aggregation of details, we produce a sense of

verisimilitude, lifelikeness, trustworthiness. A satisfactory account. Although case
reporting is not the only way to shape narrative. . .it is one of the most common
methods, and decisions made in this form may be applied to narrative decision

made throughout your report (141).

Therefore, I am using these works as guidelines and justiﬁcation as to how I am coming

up with the interpretations and explanations concerning my participant data. In this way I

am making explicit what I can and cannot garner through my methods. I am, as Bishop

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state’s, striving to make “a satisfactory account” and more ﬁrlly explain the components
that go into appropriation of Hip Hop culture and Black Language. Because much of my
participants responses can be considered narrative I ﬁnd Bishop’s work to be
complementary and applicable to my work in that it lends legitimacy or “hard” evidence
to the validity/honesty of their responses.
Evidence and Analysis of (Socio)Linguistic Appropriation
The following evidence and analysis of my case study data reﬂects a meta-

analysis of participant responses evidencing lexical and semantic appropriation of Black
Language. More speciﬁc cases study data will be discussed concerning attitudes and
assumptions about Hip Hop culture and Black Language in Chapter’s 4 and 5. This
section seeks to clearly show how Black Language is appropriated by UMC white males
as well as how these appropriations are justiﬁed and mitigated as part of identity
formation by these participants.
Lexical appropriation

Without even prompting many of the participants they evidence appropriation of
Black Language lexical items. The ﬁrst two participants, Bryan and Jeff, commonly use
g-deletion and various words that have been markedly poached from the black lexicon.
Both Bryan and Jeff are UMC white males residing in Sterling Heights (and have done so
for the greater part of their lives), living at home with their mothers while working ﬁrll
time jobs in the service industry. Bryan is a tall, blonde, mild-mannered guy who speaks
in a slow deep cadence. He laughs easily and is considered to be the most malleable and

easy going of his group of friends. Bryan’s most notable quality is his ﬁerce loyalty to

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Jeff, despite many rough patches in their friendship he is J eff’ s most steadfast companion
and conﬁdant.

Jeff is tall, haltingly thin, with a large tattoo of Jesus Christ on the cross Spanning the
entire length and width of his back. Initially, Jeff comes off as an extremely polite and
stoic individual, all seriousness mixed with hints of bravado. However, spend any amount
of time with him and he becomes the goofy, fun-loving guy of the group. It is not
uncommon to see Jeff stroke his red-tinted goatee while thinking about answers during
the interview and use the same gesture to mock the overall affect of old men in academia.
Jeff certainly has a sense of charisma and charm but often these qualities seem to be
dampened by attempts to hide his self-esteem issues. Both Bryan and Jeff seem genuinely
comfortable in their skin, perhaps because they have not questioned their identity too
much. Perhaps this is why they tend to seem the most open and honest of all the
participants about their opinions on Hip Hop culture and Black Language. At the time of
the interview Bryan was 21 and Jeff was 22. The following excerpts come from our
general conversation about Hip Hop artists:

Bryan (age 21): ..... killin’ people whatever and then of course all rappers gotta bring
in how much money they make.

Jeff (age 22): We’re talkin’ they blame it on rap music
Bryan: ..... what’s up brotha?

Jeffz. . . .what up nigga? what’s crackin? .....

There is clear evidence here of g-deletion (talkin’, killin’) as well as terms normally
reserved for native speakers of Black Language (nigga, crackin). These few excerpts

illustrate that while the participants have appropriated some Black Language patterns in

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their speech, they in no way speak Black Language ﬂuently. There is no evidence of
aspectual/habitual be or tonal semantics. However, it was evident through the course of
the interview that the participants do indeed recognize their use of these patterns. The
participants are fully aware that many of their peers perceive them to “talk black” and
that some of these peers place negative connotations on them due to their speech. Despite
the fact that there are negative connotations associated with “talking black” Jeff and
Bryan still continue to do so because they feel it is part of who they are, perhaps what
differentiates them from the homogeneity of white suburban life. Later in the interview
this argument is more fully realized when 1 directly address the issue of Black Language,
speciﬁcally whether or not they think they “talk black” here are some of those responses:

Jeff: A lot of the words I use, any kind of slang or anything like that, or even

when I was in the military I was havin’ an accent real bad because, you know the

way that I was hearin’ words, was using different phrases.

Jill: Can you give me an example.

Jeff: Um, dope, fresh, uhh ......
It is evident here that the participants are aware of their language and do in fact recognize
it as Black Language. What is most interesting about these lexical appropriations is that
they recognize some of the terms they use as “black” but identify their tone or semantics
as “havin’ an accent” or using “different phrases”. In no way do they see Black Language
as a language—to them it is just a ﬁnite number of terms that are predominately used in
the Black community that they have heard in Hip Hop songs and mainstream media
portrayals of that community.

To more fully shape this argument we can look to another participant’s response

concerning use of Black Language. The following interview excerpt comes from Charlie,

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a self promoting white rapper from the UMC Detroit suburb of Troy. Charlie is a sturdy,
somewhat stocky 24 year old with a sharp widow’s peak of dark hair cropped close to his
scalp. He wears black rimmed glasses and more often than not is sporting a baseball cap,
a large hoodie (hooded sweatshirt), and baggy pants—classic wigga attire. However,
Charlie’s demeanor is in strict contrast to how he dresses. He in not thuggish, or wigga-
ish, in any way. Actually, he portrays an absence of these stereotypical qualities. Charlie
is earnest, honest, straightforward and sometimes guarded in his answers, most likely due
to a stable and loving adolescence in suburbia that taught him to be politically correct and
polite. The following conversation took place in a local coffee shop in Troy, close to
Charlie’s former high school.

Jill: Do you think the language of Hip Hop is predominately inﬂuenced by Black
Language?

Charlie: Oh, yeah (laughs) without a doubt!

Jill: Do you think you affect any of those language patterns? Do you think some
people think you talk black?

Charlie: Oh, Yeah! But I mean it’s really not I mean I don’t think it’s talkin
Black. It just it is what it is you know. Like I like to think that especially because
they sell so many records now just in general you know like people like Hip Hop
it’s not like white or black anymore it’s all sorts of stuff. I mean it’s like derived
from black culture obviously but like to me there shouldn’t be any culture in rap
particularly. I mean that’s the whole point trying to like be against that sort of
noise, against artistic oppression I don’t know if it’s from that. When someone
comes to me and is like “Yo, you speak black or whatever that’s just ignorant
commenting. Because it depends on who you’re talking to. If I’m talking to my
mom I’m probably not gonna you know be droppin muthafucka yeah. I just
wouldn’t do that, it’s my mom, my grandmother or some random person I don’t
know. You know if I’m with my buddies I might have a little bit more slang than
with just anyone. That’s really it.

I mean if you’re in a certain area you might Speak a little different than if you’re
in a different area. I mean that sounds almost two faced or if you’re like not being
accurate or representing yourself right or whatever but I don’t believe that I just
think that around certain people you might weight the way you speak a little bit

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more than not. I mean my 9 to 5 is waiting tables I’m not gonna go like “what up
dough” or “what can I git y’all to drink” I don’t speak like that anyways.

Jill: When you rap do you invoke any of that?

Charlie: Yeah, but not really not as much as you think. I’m pretty much just rap
straightforward just like how I speak, like plain and simple.

Jill: So how much do you think Hip Hop culture is influenced by black culture?
Do you still think it’s a predominately black culture inﬂuence?

Charlie: Yeah, I mean it’s always going to be because that’s where it came from.
If that’s like what it’s derived from you know. What I mean that’d be like if you
speak Spanish like the language is always gonna be Spanish it doesn’t matter who
speaks it you know what I mean it’s always gonna be a certain part of a certain
culture. You can’t like change the language that it was brought forth from. You
know what I mean, like that’s the people who started it.
It’s like reggae music was formed in Jamaica and it’s all over the place but it’s
derived from Jamaica you know what I mean, plain and simple. There’s people
like Shaggy who are straight fakers, fakin the funk, and he speaks perfect English.
There is obviously much to be analyzed and discussed concerning Charlie’s rhetorical
choices in this excerpt but ﬁrst let’s deal with his linguistic ones. In addition to the
common Black Language appropriation of ﬁnal g-deletion he is also uses clearly Black
lexical terms evidenced in the the example of saying “what up doe (dog)” as part of his
Black lexical characteristics. In the same explanation he uses the Black lexical yall/yall’s
in stating “what can I git y’all to drink”. In both of these instances he is providing
examples of how he doesn’t talk at work or at home but may in fact invoke these Black
terms and phrases when he is performing, literally with his rap group, or in casual
conversation with his peers. This is strong evidence of how UMC white males construct

identity through linguistic means. Charlie recognizes that people in social circles perceive

him to “talk Black” but he pushes this perception aside saying the way he talks “is what it

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is”. He even goes so far as to call people who perceive his speech as markedly black as
“ignorant commenting”.

For Charlie, language is not as loaded as it is for Bryan and Jeff. Bryan and Jeff
use Black Language to Show affinity for Hip Hop and to identify and authenticate
themselves as knowledgeable of this culture and music. Charlie is more concerned with
the Hip Hop mantra of “keepin it real”, that his language is his alone and it has roots in
nothing but his own experiences with Hip Hop as an UMC white guy. This sentiment is
further argued in Charlie’s comments concerning “straight fakers” like the reggae artist
Shaggy who speaks Jamaican Creole in his songs but is actually from New York and in
his daily life speaks perfect Standard English. I ﬁnd this comment doubly telling. For
one, it again shows that Charlie is deeply concerned with authenticity, keeping it real
concerning his own identity and that how he speaks and acts today is only a response to
the environment he grew up in. Shaggy is not authentic andtherefore is “fakin the funk”.
The other side of that fence is that Charlie addresses his own hypocrisy stating “I mean if
you’re in a certain area you might speak a little different than if you’re in a different area.
I mean that sounds almost two faced or if you’re like not being accurate or representing
yourself right or whatever but I don’t believe that, I just think that around certain people
you might weight the way you speak a little bit more than not” but shows no interest in
changing the way he constructs himself. He truly feels that his performances, social,
linguistic, and musical are strictly real, that they are not appropriating any culture. He
distances himself from an artist like Shaggy, who fakes a persona to gain notoriety while
failing to recognize that in many ways he is doing the same exact thing, albeit to a much

smaller degree.

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Charlie, just like Jeff and Bryan, is appropriating Black Language to create an
identity that is different or unique from the UMC white community surrounding him. All
of these participants use Black Language as a way to stand out and/or draw attention to
the identity they are crafting. To be sure, Charlie evidences a rhetoric of appropriation by
fully explaining how, when, and why he uses Black Language when he does and in doing
so is crafting what he deems to be his own language and culture, one that is an
appropriation of Black Language and Hip Hop culture. Of course Charlie is not the only
participant who places such stress and importance on “keeping it real”.

Adam (from Livonia) and Aren (from Rochester) are both 20 years old and
former writing students of mine at Michigan State University. Adam is a big guy, my
guess would be about 6 foot 3 and around 210 pounds, but is largely (pardon the pun) the
gentle giant type. Extremely respectﬁrl and engaged in class, he approaches the interview
with the most trepidation I’ve seen out of all the participants. 1 think this was due mostly
to the teacher/student dynamic hangover from our previous interactions. Aren is the
picture of the typical fratboy without actually being one. He has shaggy blonde hair, a
quick, sarcastic wit and was often perceived as the class clown. Despite his antics
however, Aren was a good student and obviously took pleasure in being able to straddle
the cool guy/smart guy binary with ease. The following is an excerpt from my interview
with them held in an empty classroom quite Similar to where their class with me was
held.

Adam: I don’t really listen, all that much like, on the radio but like artists like

Snoop Dog, old Snoop, old Dre, Tupac, Biggie, and the recently I just started

listening to Kanye, I respect Kanye the most because he’s not all about what all

other rap artists are about today about money whatever. He’s like talking about,

like promoting, he’s keepin’ it real to the elements of Hip Hop, talkin’ bout his
struggle, not talkin’ about that much fame and fortune, he does like his catchy

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songs, like Gold digga, whatever but that’s just to like help sell his records but his
other songs kinda like Hey Mamma, that’s just like speakin’ the truth. Like how
his mom’s always sayin’ stuff

Aren: like He’s just keepin’ it real for himself. He’s like into telling his story not
like really into making everybody else happy.

Here again we see cursory Black Language appropriation with g-deletion (“keepin”,
“talkin”, “Speakin”) and also an example of unstressed initial affixes not realized (“bout”
for “about”). However, what warrants closer analysis is the emphasis on keepin’ it real.
Both Adam and Aren agree that Kanye West is a more authentic Hip Hop artist because
he’s not just “about money” but he’s “keepin’ it real to the elements of Hip Hop, talkin’
bout his struggle, not talkin’ about that much fame and fortune”. As established in
Chapters 2 the rhetoric of Hip Hop is deeply embedded with the importance of Nommo,
or the power of the word, as provided by the griot or in this case the rapper. Largely this
word power is rooted in the belief that these individuals are speaking the truth, a trait that
is obviously coveted by many UMC white males who align themselves with Hip Hop
culture and music. Adam and Aren explicitly state a respect for Kanye West for his
ability to speak the truth and keep it real but implicitly they are inferring a need to be like
that as well. That is to say that through their admiration of Kanye West and other Hip
Hop artist’s language they are venturing into appropriation of historically black struggles.
Adam and Aren believe that Hip Hop artists evidence more authentic topics and language
and have in a sense become cultural critics. Therefore, their appropriations are justiﬁed.
It’s as if they are saying it’s cool to like Kanye West, Biggie, or Tupac because they
stand for something but leave all that other “ghetto” rap to less reﬁned connoisseurs of

Hip Hop music and Black Language.

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Overall, by appropriating Black Language by their own rules and rhetorical
choices these UMC white males are forging a new dialect or creole of Black Language,
one based largely on appropriation of the original but like all reproductions and copies is
a bit off, faded, and sometimes fake.

Appropriation Recognition

In many of my interviews and conversations with the participants there is
evidence of recognition of something going on behind the scenes of Hip Hop culture and
Black Language, that there may in fact be engendered and loaded issues culminating
behind these cultural and linguistic powerhouses. Speciﬁcally, the participants tend to
recognize that Hip Hop has something to do with black culture that “black talk” does in
fact exist and comes from the black community, etc. However, what is most interesting
for the purposes of linguistically establishing the rhetoric of appropriation, is how UMC
white males recognize and rhetorically negotiate their appropriations. The following is an
excerpt from my extensive interview with Adam and Aren concerning their use (or lack
of) of Black Language:

Jill: What about like the language aspect? Do you think you use Hip Hop
language or code?

Aren: I mean, I use slang but I don’t think I use a lot of Hip Hop terminology
necessarily

Jill: Why not or why?

Aren: I try just. . .cause I can use like normal language to get by. I don’t have to
like talk a certain way or anything to like try to convey my ideas.

Adam: It’s like you could get the point across without like... cause all this
language now is like mainstream. You know it’s not like saying all of this is like a
set language it’s more . There is like no like set language. Like everybody is
comin’ up with their own. Like fo-shizzle whatever, Snoop Dogg he just made
that word up. It’s not Hip Hop. He just made that up. It’s all catchy and

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everybody is using it. To me it’s like, I don’t believe there’s like a real slang to

Hip Hop. If you listen to these records they’re not like sayin’ all these words you

don’t understand, whatever. It’s all poetry.
During this conversation I made no mention of the fact that much of their speech is rife
with Black Language lexical items and allowed them to speak freely about their
perceptions on their own language. Aren clearly establishes that he has no interest in
using black “slang” and that he uses “normal language” to get by because he doesn’t
“have to like talk a certain way or anything to like try to convey [his] ideas”. In essence
he recognizes what Black Language is and assumes that he chooses not to use it because
it doesn’t positively serve him. That is to say that there is an underlying assumption that
many UMC white males who afﬁliate with Hip Hop do in fact appropriate the language
because they feel it serves to get them what they want or craft an alternative identity, one
that is not “normal” but different. Adam ﬂat out denies that Black Language is a language
at all saying “There is like no like set language. Like everybody is comin’ up with their
own”. Furthermore, this statement infers that the only language that he recognizes is an
appropriated language that he feels people like him create, devise, and speak however
and whenever they want.

What is interesting is that cerebrally, they get it. They understand that much of the
Black Language they are privy to is fake, a mass marketed, watered down version of how
people in the Hip Hop community Speak. This is shown when Adam says that “all this
language now is like mainstream”. By positing his recognition of both appropriation and
what he believes to be real Hip Hop, Adam is in effect crafting an identity that is “real”,

that he knows the difference. He says that using Black Language is “all catchy and

everybody is using it” assuming that he has not fallen into the mainstream appropriation

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trap as well. This analysis posits an interesting theory, that perhaps Black Language
appropriation has become so pervasive that the mainstream society has actually crafted an
entire new creole of Black Language and it is being proliferated by individuals like those
in this study. Adam and Aren are quick to establish they don’t speak Black Language for
varying reasons, hedging and justifying their linguistic choices in rhetorically savvy
ways. For Aren he juxtaposes Black Language against “normal” what Smitherman (2001)
calls the Language of Wider Communication (LWC). Adam evidences even more
effective rhetorical strategies by appealing to my sense of logic. Adam doesn’t use Black
Language because it’s fake and mainstream and he doesn’t see himself as either of those
things therefore he consciously chooses not to buy into the hype.

Of course they both do appropriate Black Language as clearly shown in their
everyday speech but they honestly do not know it. I assume that when and if they do so in
social circles that it is a clear linguistic and rhetorical choice to do so, to ﬁt into a social
context of situations. UMC white males are indeed making conscious decisions about
their Black Language appropriations, and even justifying these decisions rhetorically, to
more clearly identify themselves within/throughout Hip Hop culture. Perhaps the most
controversial lexical appropriation can be seen in the next section.

Bryan and Jeﬁr take on the nigger/nigga debate

The term “nigger” has a long and tumultuous past ﬁlled with racism, racial
tension, degradation, and oppression. Webster’s Dictionary deﬁnes it as an “offensive
term for a black person” but that doesn’t do much to construct what it really engenders.
As Smitherman (2006) writes “dictionaries don’t make language, people do” (54). There

is no amount of words in the world that can describe the feelings that “nigger” emotes

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when implied, let alone spoken out loud. The term was most recently put on shout when
famed “Seinfeld” comedian Michael Richards went into a racist rant, repeatedly shouting
“nigger” at two black hecklers. Richards apologized profusely on any media outlet that
would give him access, but outrage in the African American community ran deep. This
recent outburst for many goes to show that all the hatred and oppression that “nigger”
implies is alive and well in today’s society.

The term “nigga” on the other hand has just as much a controversial past
depending on who you talk to. Some people will tell you it’s a term of endearrnent
between black folk, others will tell you it’s just a modern day way of connotating all the
horrible oppression that’s wrapped up in “nigger” in a playful, seemingly more socially
acceptable way. I’m not about to personally touch this debate with a ten foot pole (I’ll
just say that I never use either term because they do not belong to me), but that doesn’t
mean my participants didn’t go there. i

What this section aims to Show is how UMC white males navigate the delicate
mineﬁeld of using or not using the terms “nigger” and “nigga”. Speciﬁcally, how they
rhetorically illustrate their considerations and musing about when to use and not use such
terms and why. To be sure “nigger” is a white man’s word established for derogatory
purposes but “nigga” has settled more in a grey area. While it is predominately socially
acceptable in young circles of the black community and widely accepted in Hip Hop
culture “there are some Aﬁican Americans, particularly those who are middle-aged or
middle class, who abhor this public language practice” (Smitherman, 2006250). The use

of “nigga” has been covered in the mainstream press, Eminem doesn’t use it but J. Lo

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does, both catch hell from the media either ways. Let’s take a look at what Jeff and Bryan
had to say about the matter:

Bryan: a lot of people use the word nigga and um, it’s not meant to be racist or
anything like that but um,

Jill: What do you think about that? Do you think that you should be able to use
the word nigger vs. nigga? Do you think there is a difference?

Bryan and Jeff: There is a difference. . ..
Jeff: There’s a huge difference because...
Bryan: Big borderline there. . ..

Jeff: There, there’s,. . ..

Bryan: Well, one’s callin’ out a certain race as a bad, you know, as a bad thing,
you know, I mean, if uh, if 1 walk up to Jeff here and I say “what’s up brotha?”
and you know I slap his hand ﬁve, and uh, you know, it’s kinda like the same
thing. It wouldn’t be any type of, you know, racial, racism in that you know. . .me
saying that so. ..

Jeff: My only opinion on that, I guess is, if you straight up and call somebody a
nigger, you know n-i-g-g-e-r, versus, n-i-g—g-a, which is more like a big slang
term which means African American that’s why a lot of white people don’t use it.
1 use it every now and again between my friends but only people that use it
themselves. I got a ﬁiend that lived in a city all his life and he was around black
people all the time and that’s a thing that he’ll say, almost every one says nigga,
you know, it just, it just uh, ‘what’s up nigga?’ What’s crackin’? How you doin’
man?’ You know. Just a way to say what’s goin’ on man/how you doin’? How’s
things, basically. But if you come up on somebody and say, you know, it. . ..it’s
only racist to me if I, you was gettin’ in a ﬁght with somebody and said you
know, ‘listen here nigger’ you know

Bryan: (yeah, yeah)

Jeff: That’s a lot more harsh then you know talkin’ with uh, you know, between
friends and everything. Yeah, some people take offense to it, you know, a white

 

8 That debate sounds something like this: Eminem who appropriates every aspect of Black culture, being
socialized black himself should have a right to use “nigga” right? And J.Lo, well, she’s barely Puerto Rican
enough let along black and street enough to have cultural capital to use the word. These are just some of the
cursory mainstream conversations swirling around that many of my participants draw from in constructing
their identity through Black Language lexical appropriations.

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man sayin’ it, but a lot of people understand hey, that’s a word that’s used and
every. . .everything, every rap song almost uses it in Hip Hop

Jill: Except Eminem
Jeff: Yeah, except, except Eminem
Jill: He refused to use the word because he doesn’t think it belongs to him

Bryan: Although, although, he did say it in his previous records, his underground
albums and then he realized he could get into a little bit of trouble because people,

people...

Jeff: It’s somethin’ that ......

Bryan: People may think that it is being used as a racist, racist term, you know,

but which it’s not, but people will perceive it to be a racist term and it won’t you

know agree with that an it’ll just get him in trouble and that’s why he doesn’t use

It anymore
In this excerpt, we can see how they recognize the danger or “burden” of this largely
black lexical term “nigga”; however they show no signs of a deeper understanding of
why white use of this term can be especially troublesome fOr the black community. For
them, their use of “nigga” is not racist because they feel that it is as much part of their
social identity as it is for someone who lives in an urban, predominately black
community. However, they fail to effectively show how they constructed this bridge,
considering that they have never lived in these areas or become part of the black
community. What they do succeed in rhetorically explaining is that these words are
different and not necessarily interchangeable. “Nigga” and “nigger” for Jeff and Bryan
are terms largely socially constructed and contextually used. In this way they are
knowingly crafting an identity for themselves by using this term, they recognize that it

differentiates them from more mainstream society in fact, they strive for this difference.

They do touch on the negative connotations of the word “nigger” as “callin’ out a certain

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race as bad” but Jeff infers that he is not opposed to it’s use if someone is “gettin’ in a

ﬁght with somebody and said you know, ‘listen here nigger’ ”.

From a sociolinguistic perspective, what I ﬁnd most pertinent about this
conversation is the fact that they never entertain my suggestion that these words do not
belong to them. They feel that they are entitled to use these words because it is part of
their identity, Hip Hop speaks to them the same as it does to the black community,
therefore their struggle in UMC white suburbia is ostensibly the same (this argument will
be further entertained in Chapter 4). This is not an uncommon belief, in fact is it shared
by the majority of the participants in this study. Even as UMC white males who have
nothing do with black culture and community they feel that by performing what they see
and hear through Hip Hop culture and music that they too are entitled to appropriate
Black Language freely and are doing so at an alarming rate. These appropriations and
discussions are changing perceptions about Black Language and Hip Hop culture. AS you
can see from these interviews, UMC white male appropriations of Black Language and
Hip Hop culture are largely uninformed, they have little to no understanding of the

culture and language, they only know what they see on TV and hear in Hip Hop lyrics.

At this point I realize I must be clear in stating that I do not believe appropriation
is an all together negative phenomenon. Appropriation can serve to introduce cultural and
linguistic traits to society in positive ways, think American appropriation of Japanese
technology or immigrant appropriation of American culture in order to assimilate while
also keeping their own culture vibrant. In this way UMC white male appropriation of Hip
Hop culture and Black Language is not simply negative or positive, in many cases it just

is what it is, a reaction to mass corporate marketing of a popular music. What is

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problematic about UMC white male appropriation of Black Language is their inability or
ignorance of Black Language as a language and the use of offensive terms without
knowledge of the offense. What I think best sums up the push and pull of appropriation in
the shortest amount of space is an excerpt from a play by Eisa Davis entitled “Umkovu”
that appears in Tate’s (2003:43) work on white appropriation of black culture. In this
excerpt two characters Darryl (Black, president of a record company, 305, dressed to
impress) and Shmoove (Asian, veejay, 203, and a ladies man) have what starts out as a

cursory discussion after Shmoove interviews one of Darryl’s Hip Hop artists.

Darryl: Got everything you need?

Shmoove: Always. Wish I could stay and parlay but I’m goin’ east side for a little

sushi with this new group. Rock band. Bunjee jump while they play guitar.

They’re each like seven years old. Hot. Ah-ight, nigga, check you later.

Darryl: 1 don’t think I heard you correctly.

Shmoove: Nigga, please.

Darryl: That word is not yours.

Shmoove: Nigga, I’m the only Asian man on TV! So forget you. You burned

down my parents’ store in ’92 so I’m a loot all your language and all your gear

and your hair and I’m a work it. Who the hell is buying your daddy’s jazz record

anyway? Better recognize. Coltrane? Wu-Tang? Y’all as bad as white folks.
While this excerpt involves appropriation of Hip Hop culture and Black Language by an
Asian man and is ﬁctional, I nonetheless ﬁnd it telling that the same rhetorical moves,
strategies, and justiﬁcations that occur in many of my participants appropriations. Darryl
is obviously offended by Shmoove’s use of the word “nigga” in his lexicon which Darryl
feels is an exclusively black term for use only by black folk. Despite the obvious

caricature of the Asian MTV generation veejay, Shmoove has some valid points in

supporting his right to use “nigga”. First, he establishes that he too is a minority and had

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to endure struggle to get to where he is now as “the only Asian man on TV”. Though the
participants in this study cannot seemingly claim racial oppression, they do hint at
dealing with negative stereotyping by their families and greater society by using Black
Language and being thought to “talk black”. In this way they feel entitled to appropriate
Black Language because they are taking on some of the negative burden that is placed on
Hip Hop music, language, and culture by the older generations in UMC society.

Shmoove’s next rhetorical appeal is that black people have done him wrong
referring to the 1992 LA riots. These riots included the looting of many Asian businesses
by predominately Black and Hispanic individuals and therefore he is entitled to take and
appropriate whatever he wants ﬁom black culture stating in Black Language nonetheless,
“I’m a loot all your language and all your gear and your hair and I’m a work it”. This
sentiment of entitlement is often echoed in my participant’s responses. For example,
when Charlie states “I mean its like derived from black culture obviously but like to me
there shouldn’t be any culture in rap particularly” he is obviously establishing his right to
appropriate Hip Hop culture and Black Language. Because Hip Hop culture and Black
Language have gone so mainstream that it no longer belongs just to black culture
anymore, that it is just as much part of UMC white male’s identity as it is part of urban
minority’s identity.

The ﬁnal rhetorical appeal Shmoove posits is two-fold. He argues both that
without people like him buying Hip Hop records then there would be no success for Hip
Hop artists and the culture as a whole and that black artists have been appropriating
other’s musical styles for some time. John Coltrane was obviously inﬂuenced by various

cultures to achieve his unique style of j azz, and the Hip Hop group Wu Tang Clan

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parlayed their fascination with Asian culture into a supergroup sporting a traditional
Chinese name. This reverse of appropriation strategy is also seen in Charlie’s and
Adam’s beliefs that Black Language and Hip Hop are now part of the mainstream and
therefore pimping white culture to achieve ﬁnancial success, getting guys like them to
buy their records, clothing, lexicons, etc. In some part they believe that they are
responsible for Hip Hop’s success and proliferation to the masses.

Of course, Shmoove ends his justiﬁcation by stating that “y’all as bad as white
folk” leaving the audience with the idea that appropriation may be acceptable between
other minority groups but no one is as thieving and malicious as the appropriations of
white people. While this may be so, it is interesting and important to explore arguments
surrounding appropriation if only to understand their roots and effects more ﬁrlly.
Conclusion

This chapter points to the need for discussion of such language appropriations and
the implications they have on language and culture in mainstream society. Most of the
participants in this study are unaware of the linguistic and historical roots of Black
Language, and this lack of knowledge may in fact lead to appropriations that are based in
misunderstandings. In many ways, they are appropriating a language for their own
purposes and in doing so are changing perceptions of that language based on their
appropriations. As a teacher of composition and rhetoric who focuses on language issues,
I witness time and again negative and debilitating attitudes directed towards Black
Language from both white and minority students. What is decidedly most disappointing
and disturbing is how most students need convincing that Black language is a language

let alone a language worth celebrating, studying, and preserving.

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Like Gail Okawa (2003), I too am calling for the resurfacing of the roots of our
language attitudes and that it is after all a “matter of social justice” (110) to do so. As
scholars and teachers, it is vehemently important to recognize these appropriations so as
to educate ourselves and our students about the roots and shifts of Black Language.
Okawa further posits that ignorance of language as systemic social behavior with
historical roots is one of the greatest co-conspirators of linguistic chauvinism and
internalized linguistic imperialism (111). To allow this ignorance to fester and breed in
our society is tantamount to encouraging language discrimination on all levels—social,
class, race, gender, etc. What I admire most about Okawa’s work is that it points out that
while language can become a point of alienation, it can also become a point of
reconciliation and reunion—for the individual and the group (127). This is to say that we
don’t always need to “problematize” language, we can use (socio)linguistic studies like
mine positively, as a bridge to history and society, community and politics, family and
friends. If UMC white males want to continue to appropriate Black Language then they
should do so in an educated and positive way, as a means of evidencing linguistic
knowledge, to be viewed as bi-lingual. If this shift is to occur it is our job to change the
way society views Black Language. My contribution in this study is to show how
widespread Hip Hop culture and Black Language appropriation is in UMC white male
communities and the linguistic and rhetorical power in these appropriations and
ultimately to devise a pedagogy that not only showcases these appropriations but more
importantly to spark analytical discussion about language and culture writ large. These
appropriations and others no longer need to remain “problematic” if the academic

community can help to change language attitudes and perceptions.

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What 1 hope this chapter served to prove is not only how UMC white males
appropriate Black Language but also why they do so. These individuals are indeed
making conscious linguistic choices in order to construct a more ethnic identity. To be
sure, white Americans have always felt inferior culturally, always striving to align
themselves with nations who could lend them some sort of cultural cache (Italian
American, Irish American, etc). In many ways what UMC white males who appropriate
Black Language are doing is attempting to appropriate a language to make them feel
more cultured, more ethnic, and ultimately more unique and different from the
homogenous suburban society that surrounds them.

It is my belief that the study of this linguistic appropriation phenomenon has
important implications for the dicipline of cultural studies in the ﬁeld of composition and
rhetoric. If we can learn to more fully understand how and why language is appropriated
in this way, perhaps we can mitigate the problematic effects that these appropriations
bring to the native language, in this case Black Language. We need to educate our
students and ourselves in the ﬁeld about the history, rhetorical and (socio)linguistic
qualities of Black Language so that these appropriations do not continue to be the only
examples of the language in mainstream society. To make meaning of Black Language
appropriation and to proliferate that knowledge is to show the world that Black Language
is a language that should be respected and protected. To continue to allow these
appropriations to go unstudied is to watch them morph and stretch the language into
unrecognizable forms, becoming a caricature of the authentic language.

Analyzing UMC white male appropriation can also teach us that effective rhetoric

can and does occur in the most unlikely of places. The rhetoric of appropriation

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embodied by the participants in this study to justify, mitigate, and navigate their
appropriations evidences that these individuals are not just doing this for fun, that there
are valuable and legitimate rhetorical choices occurring in their appropriations. Of
course, none of these appropriations would be possible if not for the widespread and
growing popularity of Hip Hop culture in mainstream society. The next chapter will show
how these inﬂuences have affected UMC white males in their pirating of Hip Hop culture
and Black Language and more importantly their opinions, perceptions, and attitudes

concerning why they be doing the things they do.

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Chapter 4: The Rhetoric of Appropriation: Flippin the Script

As young people worldwide gravitate to Hip Hop and adapt it to their local needs,
responding to the crisis of our time, they are becoming equipped with a culture that
corporate and political elites can ’t control. It ’s a youth centered culture that is self-
motivating and only requires its participants to have a mouth, the ability to listen and
ﬁustration with business as usual.

--Bakari Kitwana (2005)

A close-knit circle of housewives in the suburbs of Cleveland, all in their late twenties
and early thirties, plan a girls night out—a three hour drive to Detroit for a sold-out
Eminem concert. “We spend our entire days trying to ﬁt into a perfect little bubble, ” a
thirty-three year old stay at home mom told me. “The perfect $500, 000 houses. The
perfect overscheduled kids. The perfect husbands. We love life but we hate our lives. And
so I think we identify more with Hip Hop ’s passion, anger and ﬁustration than we do this
dream world

--Bakari Kitwana (2005)

One of the least understood communicative practices in AAL is the manipulations of
European American English ’s (EAL) semantic structure. Often inappropriately dismissed
as ”Black slang, ” this rhetorical maneuvering amounts to what linguist Grace Holt
(1972) called “semantic inversion. " Today Hip Hoppers call it ﬂippin the script. It is a
process whereby AAL speakers take words and concepts from the EAL lexicon and either
reverse their meanings or impose entirely diﬂerent meanings.

--Geneva Smitherman (2000)
What Kitwana alludes to in these excerpts is that appropriation of Hip Hop culture is
certainly out of control. It cannot be governed or policed and includes anyone who is
interested. These appropriations have spread so far, so wide and have morphed and
stretched the Hip Hop culture to its maximum capacity, sometimes making it
unrecognizable to those who knew it best and were part of its creation. While this study
does not look at how and why suburban moms have taken a shine to Hip Hop as
described above, the reasoning behind how and why UMC white males’ appropriate Hip

Hop culture and Black Language seem eerily similar. They have indeed equipped

themselves with Hip Hop culture to express opinions, to form identities that expose the

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passion, anger, and ﬁ'ustration that suburban white America teaches them to push down
to the deep, dark places of their souls. Whether right or wrong, UMC white males feel
that Hip Hop speaks to them despite their economic and racial makeup and are not afraid
to stake their claim and justify their involvement.

What this chapter aims to show is not only how and why UMC white males
appropriate Hip Hop culture and Black Language but more importantly how they enact
savvy rhetorical moves and strategies—in essence, ﬂip the script on widely held views of
Hip Hop culture and Black Language—in their explanations, attitudes, and perceptions
on/about Hip Hop and their appropriations. As stated earlier in Chapter 1, I believe that
these individuals are enacting a rhetoric of appropriation, crafting a new version of Hip
Hop culture and Black Language through their appropriations, that can and is shaping and
changing culture and language in American society. They are using what they’ve learned
and appropriated on and about Hip Hop culture and of Black Language communicative
practices to ﬂip the script and create their own interpretation of Hip Hop culture and
Black Language that may in fact be detrimental to the cmrent positive shift Hip Hop has
been enjoying over the past 5 years. Therefore, what UMC white males are doing in this
study is not just “semantic inversion” but cultural inversion as well. If Bazerman’s
(1988) belief that rhetoric is “a study of how people use language and other symbols to
realize human goals and carry out human activities. . .ultimately a practical study offering
people great control over their symbolic activity” (6) is correct, then the explanations and
perceptions evidenced in the following case study interviews is deﬁnitely an example of

rhetoric as a way to identify oneself through appropriated cultural and linguistic behavior.

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WI]

311

C111;

In conjunction with the presentation of original data, this chapter will more
robustly discuss the deﬁning characteristics of the rhetoric of appropriation, speciﬁcally
how symbolization, institutional language, and cultural capital serve as means to
construct identities and justify appropriations of various participants in this study.
However, before we can understand the rhetoric of appropriation we need to brieﬂy
consider the historical forces behind appropriation writ large.

Appropriation Contextually Considered

In Chapter 1 I provided a host of scholarly arguments and critiques of culture and
language appropriation as it applies to Hip Hop culture and Black Language. But as most
linguists, especially sociolinguists, will tell you, words don’t mean a thing when uttered
out of context. For example, to say the word “blue” evokes a myriad of abstract notions
and connotations (color, sky, water, etc.) but to say “I feel blue” constructs a vastly more
concrete understanding of personal emotion, mental state, and evocation of feeling. I
argue that the same is true of the kind of Hip Hop word appropriation exhibited by the
participants in my study; alone it is just a word but considered in context it has extremely
powerful connotations and can elicit the strongest emotions connected to culture and
language. Narrowly deﬁned, appropriation merely means a seizure or assimilation of
concepts, for most people a justiﬁed means to a justiﬁed ends. To be sure, there are many
positive forms of appropriation that have beneﬁted society throughout the ages. However,
when it comes to appropriating cultures and languages to such a degree that those
appropriations are proliferated to the masses and sold as “authentic” versions of that
culture and language is when it becomes highly problematic. It is problematic for both

the home culture and language and the community or society that accepts these new

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manifestations born out of appropriation as real and legitimate. In the introduction to The
Rap Attack (1984), Tony Van Der Meer aptly discusses the binaries often encountered in
cultural appropriation:

There is nothing wrong with one community learning the cultural forms produced

by another, if it respects their speciﬁc shapes and meanings. There is something

horribly wrong with a dominant community repeatedly co-opting the cultural
forms of oppressed communities, stripping them of their vitality and form, the
heritage of their creators and then popularizing them. The result is bleached Pepsi
culture masquerading as the real thing. This is what threatens to dilute the real
feeling and attitude of Hip Hop preventing its genuine forms the freedom to fully
develop. The expression of Black people is transformed when it is repackaged

without any evidence remaining of the Black historical experience (4-5).

This is my point exactly. In many ways the UMC white males in this study are
celebrating and learning cultural forms, meanings, and shapes from Hip Hop however,
they are also prone to co-opting these same aspects, diluting them, and reselling them as
the real thing. I believe Gloria Anzaldt'ra (1990) sums this notion up best stating that "the
difference between appropriation and proliferation is that the ﬁrst steals and harms; the
second helps heal breaches of knowledge” (xxi). Of course this begs the question how do
we know the difference?

One of the goals of this study to do just that, to clearly show the difference
between appropriation that harms and the proliferation of culture and language that heals.
The way I achieve this goal is by evidencing appropriation in context, by presenting case
studies of real people in the act of appropriating (or discussing acts of appropriating) Hip
Hop culture and Black Language and their justiﬁcations/explanations of that

appropriation. To shine the spotlight on an abstracted example of appropriation is one

thing but to be able to analyze and discuss the implications of both the conscious and

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unconscious rhetorical strategies and appeals involved in discussing and supporting that
appropriation is what leads to a healing proliferation of knowledge.

For me culture is both nature and nurture, in some ways a culture can be an
amalgamation of learned behaviors but there are some aspects of culture that I believe are
inherently linked to our DNA, that the color of our skin, our physical features, the tenor
of our voice helps determine what culture we adhere to, belong to. That is, culture can be
something we are intrinsically born with and also something we learn, are taught, or
pursue in order to feel more accepted in our family, clan, group, and/or society.
Jacqueline Jones Royster (2000) argues a similar point concerning African America
women writers and the “ancestral voice” that culturally binds them all stating, “perhaps
African American women have perceived ancestral voice instinctively. Perhaps habits of
knowing might actually become so ingrained that such ways of knowing come to be
grafted into the socio-bio system and passed along” (88). That is to say both literacies and
the rhetoric used in those literacies may be sociobiologically embedded in our psyches,
passed down from one generation to the next. Historically, Aﬁican Americans are
culturally rich, sharing oral and literate traditions. On the other hand the UMC white
males in this study feel they are culturally barren9 and in many ways are attracted to the
rich culture embedded in Hip Hop and Black Language. In order to claim a piece of that
culture and language for themselves they appropriate, and in justifying that appropriation
enact a unique rhetoric to appeal both to themselves and society writ large.

Still, I can clearly recognize how white males can effectively code-switch

between the Language of Wider Communication (LWC) and Black Language, as I

 

9 It is important to note here that 1 don’t believe white culture is barren, however many of the participants in
this study do.

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wholeheartedly agree with Delpit (1995, 2002) that discourses can. be learned despite
economic and racial boundaries. However, I experienced ﬁrsthand living in Japan that
learning about a culture will only take you half way to being part of, belonging to, that
culture. No matter how much I know, assimilated to, or appropriated Japanese culture, I
will never be a part of that culture because I am not nor ever will be Japanese. So can the
same be said for UMC white males, can they ever truly become part of Hip Hop culture if
they are not minorities residing in urban areas? The individuals in this study certainly
believe they are part of Hip Hop culture and by studying, analyzing, and discussing the
varied contexts of their appropriation and the rhetoric used to explain and justify those
appropriations I believe we will be able to discover some of the reasons why.
Rhetoric of Appropriation

The rhetoric of appropriation is a concept I devised to explain how and why upper
middle class white males speak about and justify their involvement/interest in Hip Hop
culture and use of Black Language and in doing so are shaping the contemporary face of
Hip Hop culture and Black Language. That is, during the two year course of interviewing
these 30 individuals I recognized patterns emerging in the way they spoke about Hip Hop
and Black Language. Not that they speciﬁcally used the same terms but that many of the
participants had the same tone and attitude when discussing their interests in Hip Hop
music and culture. All of them seemed brutally honest in their beliefs and attitudes about
Hip Hop, Black Language, and issues surrounding the two topics (gender, violence,
culture, socioeconomic status, etc.) and were eager to divulge them. More interestingly,
and perhaps more important for this study, are the rhetorical strategies and moves they

performed in justifying their interests and speciﬁc appropriations. They all spoke clearly

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and persuasively, employing many of the traditional rhetorical appeals (pathos, logos,
ethos) to convince me of the truth and validity of their answers. Sometimes these
responses bordered on performance and other times some participants were so
rhetorically articulate that I was impressed by how reﬂectively and analytically they
responded to questions or carried on conversations. Namely, they were able to clearly
explain why they feel drawn to Hip Hop culture and what their use (or perceived non-
use) of Black Language means to them and how they think these affmities are perceived
by others.

The three most common denominators in the rhetoric of appropriation evidenced
by the participants in discussing Hip Hop, Black Language, and their appropriations of
both were symbolization, use of institutional language, and pursuit of cultural capital. At
some point all the participants in this study used these concepts either consciously or
unconsciously to rhetorically appeal to their audience (me and at times each other). To be

6‘

clear, many of the participant’s believe they are doing what’s real” but in fact are
engaging in abject appropriation. Ultimately, I believe their appropriations are forms of
identity formation. This is what makes them unique and sets them apart from others in
UMC society and that these appropriations are conscious decisions. What is sometimes
not cognizant for them is the rhetoric of appropriation that is consistent through all of
their responses, that they all use these methods to portray their beliefs, attitudes,
assumptions, and perceptions about Hip Hop culture and Black Language. For

consistency, I will continue to analyze and discuss samplings from the data of participant

interviews from the previous chapter (Charlie, Adam, Aren, Jeff, and Bryan) to evidence

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their rhetoric of appropriation through symbolization, institutional language, and pursuit
of cultural capital.
Symbolization

Symbolization, both (socio)linguistic and physical, is integral to understanding
how and why UMC white males appropriate Hip Hop culture and Black Language. All of
the participants either looked the part or spoke the part of an interloper into the culture of
Hip Hop. That is, they used symbols through actions, dress, or linguistic markers to
construct their identity through Hip Hop and Black Language. To be sure, their symbols
varied. Some participants looked like Wiggas, wearing the tmiform of baggy jeans,
backward cap, and large, ﬂashy jewelry. Others were linguistically savvy in their
symbolization, using terms and semantics largely reserved for native speakers of Black
Language.

When I discuss symbolization in this section I am relying on previous work done
by Eckert (1989) and Cohen (1972) that posited symbolization as part of the process of
identity formation. That is, they argue that the way we dress, gesture, and Speak can all be
considered symbols that are consciously chosen to “perform” or display our identity. The
participants in this study are both consciously and unconsciously using symbols to craft
an identity based on their perceptions of Hip Hop culture and Black Language. In many
ways these forms of symbolization are based upon their veiled appropriations of
Blackness. They wear what they consider to be Hip Hop and/or Black clothes, hairstyles,
accessories, etc. and appropriate Black Language in order to identify themselves in/with

Hip Hop culture and communities. Furthermore, the way in which they explain their

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symbolization clearly evidences a rhetoric of appropriation in that they are willing and
often persuasive in their responses.

Resting on the belief of language as a Sign system (Bahktin, 1929) the words and
strategies these participants choose to use in their explanations/responses are telling of
much deeper perceptions than can initially be seen on the basic utterance level. That is,
there are many times in the course of these interviews that the participants would utter a
phrase or word ﬂippantly but for me held great embedded meaning concerning their
identity formation through Hip Hop. On the other hand, the participants would carefully
choose their language, seemingly mulling and rocking the ideas around in their minds
before responding to questions so as to construct the image clearly to their audience.

The following excerpts were taken from my lengthy interviews with Charlie, the
white rapper from the previous chapter. I found Charlie’s response ripe for analysis of
symbolization. He categorizes himself symbolically one way in how he dresses (like a
stereotypical wigga) but linguistically and rhetorically is extremely savvy in his
responses (unlike stereotypical Wiggas), making sure to validate and legitimize his
presence in Hip Hop culture at every turn.

Jill: Would you consider them all of 3 Hip Hop/rap genre?

Charlie: It’s kinda like alternative rap. Sorta, neo-rap. Atmosphere is the prime

example sorta like the High and Mighty, Method Man, Red Man, House of Pain

Cypress Hill. Early 90’s but not like crazy with the violence. Sometimes it’s like

frat rap, usually it’s not usually it’s like clean your house music you know what I

mean. Oh, I mean we’ve been compared to the Beastie Boys so many times.
Here we see how Charlie is carefully crafting and categorizing his identity through Hip

Hop by dropping the names of various Hip Hop artists that seem to deﬁne his position in

Hip Hop culture. This can be considered symbolization because each of the artists he

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mentions carries a cache of its own and he is using them as signs in his signifying system.
The sub-cultural Hip Hop group Atmosphere symbolizes the alternative areas of Hip
Hop, a more socially conscious and musically open group. By afﬁliating with their brand
of Hip Hop music Charlie is ostensibly saying that he identiﬁes with their brand of Hip
Hop and embraces some of what Atmosphere represents as a symbol of the Hip Hop he
feels is “real”, i.e. right. By dropping the names of “old school” rappers like Method Man
and Red Man of Wu-Tang clan he is representing his knowledge of artists who are highly
respected in the ﬁeld as visionaries, again using these individuals as a way to situate his
identity within rap as a visionary himself. Perhaps most telling is his mentioning of
famous white and Hispanic Hip Hop artists House of Pain, Beastie Boys, and Cypress
Hill, respectively. This shows that he recognizes and embraces the validity of white
rappers and feels the need to mention those who have been critically acclaimed and
successful in order to construct and legitimize his own identity as a white rapper.
The following excerpt from my interview with Charlie evidences what Eckert
(1989) would call categorization through symbolization. In her study in/of a suburban
Detroit high school Eckert observed that:
The simpliﬁcation of choice within the category system leads to an
oversimpliﬁcation of values, and the overwhelming judgments of “good” and
“bad” associated with the categories prevent individuals from recognizing the
independence of many of the decisions they are faced with. The close associations
of traits with in either category is powerful enough to force individual decisions,
not on the merits of the issues at hand, but as simple requirement and expression
of category afﬁliation and participation in adolescent society (71).
For many UMC white males the rhetoric of appropriation is all about the wafﬂe. They

tend to view their appropriations as black/white and right/wrong binaries when dealing

with others in their own peer group but at the same time prove rhetorically crafty when

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explaining these appropriations to individuals outside their social groups, to members of
UMC white society who do not feel any afﬁnity to Hip Hop culture. By assigning
categories to their symbolizations of Hip Hop culture and Black Language they are able
to make sense of how they View the world, how they identify themselves within the UMC
white community that surrounds them. In our discussion about Hip Hop culture, Charlie
clearly categorizes Hip Hop as a way of life, something you choose to embrace not
something that is culturally embedded in you.

Jill: What do you think Hip Hop culture is?

Charlie: 1 think it’s just that, I mean it’s culture. It’s like the way you talk, the way

you walk, it’s the way you dress, the way you speak, it’s the way you hit on girls,

it’s the way you eat your food. I mean it’s really whatever you are trying to be. To

me so much of what Hip Hop is, is that whatever you are trying to be it’s that. It’s

not something that someone else tells you it is I mean that’s just BS. 1 mean how

do they

know.
Here we see how Charlie is providing his broad deﬁnition of Hip Hop culture but at the
same time he making a strong emotional appeal to those who may question his
involvement in Hip Hop. First, he establishes that Hip Hop is a chosen way of life saying,
“To me so much of what Hip Hop is, is that whatever you are trying to be it’s that” but
then becomes mildly agitated by the thought, or perhaps past experience, that some
people try to dictate one deﬁnition of Hip Hop that could in many ways exclude him
stating, “It’s not something someone else tells you it is 1 mean that’s just BS. 1 mean,
how do they know?” In many ways Charlie’s obtuse categorization of Hip Hop can be
seen as what Eckert believes is an oversimpliﬁcation of values for many youth in UMC

suburban society. Charlie expounds on his beliefs about Hip Hop culture in the following

excerpt.

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Jill: So you don’t think that Hip Hop is any one culture?
Charlie: Not at all. To me it’s like, everyone’ got a little bit of style so Hip Hop is
like your own personal touch to things like if you’re a cook like the way you
cook. If you do it a little different from someone else it’s like your style. I mean
that to me is Hip Hop everyone’s got there’s so many like sub-genres and stuff
but like a guy like Mike Jones or whatever. He’s not like dope lyrically or
anything but that’s his whole style. His whole style is shouting out his number,
refraining his lyrics, that’s his style. I mean another group like that is like Three
Six Maﬁa. 1 mean they’re not trying, that’s their style and then there’s guys like
ASOP Rock and you don’t know what the hell he’s talking about he’s so like
metaphorical and like and then you got guys like Tino Excel who’s like
straightforward and lyrical it’s like his style.
Just whatever you do is. . .I mean if you’re doin’ something a little bit different
that to me is like your Hip Hop side. 1 mean you don’t have to listen to it to really
be involved in that sorta thing but maybe people don’t realize that it doesn’t affect
them because of stupid things they might say or whatever.
Here it appears Charlie is attempting to support his earlier comments concerning Hip Hop
culture through symbolic choices of various artists he feels are indicative of the “anything
can be Hip Hop” argument. There is no denying that Charlie knows his Shit, he is a wide-
ranging Hip Hop connoisseur and is performing his knowledge a little bit in this excerpt
by Showing his expertise. This is a great example of the rhetoric of appropriation because
he is manipulating what most would consider the true roots of Hip Hop by establishing
his own deﬁnition, one that will undoubtedly be proliferated to his peers and spread
widely into UMC white society. It is rhetorical strategies like these that can serve to
either broaden understandings of Hip Hop culture and Black Language or completely ﬂip
the script on the perceptions of others to believe that this is the authentic and original
deﬁnition of Hip Hop culture. Again, 1 am not saying that appropriation in all its
manifestations is wrong. What I am positing is that these appropriations are changing the

way society views Hip Hop culture and Black Language and in many ways replacing it

with the appropriated versions at least in particular social spaces.

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More evidence of symbolization can be seen in my interviews with Jeff and
Bryan. While they too evidence categorization through symbolization in their rhetoric of
appropriation their strategies are a bit different. For Jeff and Bryan binaries are clearer,
you either are Hip Hop or you’re not. Eckert observed similar behavior in her study
stating:

The clear association of any piece of behavior with one category will lead to the

adoption of opposing behavior by the other. As more domains and details of

behavior are incorporated as category symbols, the oppositions become mutually

reinforcing, developing a structured symbolic system with its own impetus

(Eckert, 19892 69)
Therefore, when talking about Hip Hop culture and Black Language Jeff and Bryan feel
that because they identify with Hip Hop that they are then placing themselves into one
category and by symbolizing behavior in that one category they are ostensibly excluding
themselves from being participants in many others. They recognize that their affinity for
Hip Hop culture and Black Language sets them apart from other peer groups in UMC
white society and they embrace that difference as part of their identity. Furthermore, their
not belonging to other peer groups is equally as responsible for craftng their unique
identity because it in many ways what excludes them from one group equals inclusion
with another.

Jill: What do you think about kids who are, you know, or your own generation

who emulate this culture? Because it’s not just about music anymore it is a

culture.

Jeff: oh yeah, oh yeah

Jill: There’s politics involved, society, way to dress, way to talk. . ..

Jeff: Oh yeah, I totally agree with that. I mean 1 got hung up with that when I was

in high school and I mean I still, in certain cases, dress the same as, look upon the
rappers as ‘oh, that looks, you know, a dressy fashion’. I mean it’s, 1 don’t have to

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wear any big chains or anything like that or wear hundred thousand dollars
watches or rings. . ..

Jill: Yeah, but you did. You did used to have a really big chain. You did have that
kind of stuff.

Jeff: I did yeah, go through a stage like that but now I, uh, I still wear jerseys, and
things like that but mostly, you know me, because of the teams that I like but also

because 1 think it looks coordinated. I like to look coordinated. And every rapper
you see is always color coordinated.

Bryan: right, right

Jeff: I mean no one’s gonna come out there in a plaid shirt and black pants and
you know, a uh, you know, orange vest on, it ain’t gonna happen.

Bryan: ha, ha

Jill: Well, unless you’re Outkast.

Jeff: yeah, unless, you’re Outcast or uh, maybe Old Dirty Bastard
Here we see Jeff talking speciﬁcally about symbolizing his affinity for Hip Hop culture
through the clothes and accessories he wears when he says “I got hung up with that when
l was in high school and I mean I still, in certain cases, dress the same as, look upon the
rappers”. For him, his appropriation is justiﬁed because that is his chosen way of life, this
is how he symbolizes his identity. The conversation below more clearly posits the use of
symbolic categorization to make sense of their appropriations.

Jill: Alright, what about the idea hip-rap as part of black culture do you think hip-
hop and rap is black music?

Jeff: 1 think that’s a bunch of shit (Bryan: I know) That’s a whole crock right
there.

Bryan: You don’t think. I mean, for a lot of years it really. . . ..
Bryan: You know what.

Jeff: yeah

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Jeff: Rap right now that’s making the most money right now is Eminem. He’s
fuckin’ from Detroit and you know he’s like inﬂuenced many, many white people
and I guarantee he’s like, not about being black but also like the black people he
also, like, brought out the white race saying ‘hey, it’s not just for black, African
Americans, it’s not for that’

Jill: OK

Jeff: I mean, people listen to music and they like what they hear. I. .. you like
what you hear then why would you be, you know, looked down upon, looked
upon as oh, he’s an evil seed ‘cause he dresses with matching jerseys and gear and
listens to Hip Hop music, some people kick their ass.

Bryan: Oh yeah, it was a big controversy in high school anyway, I mean this was
before when Eminem. You speak about Eminem and it was right around when he
way you know, starting, you know, making CD’S, you know I mean.

Jill: Yeah, but what about people before him? When is was really thought that Hip
Hop and rap was...

Bryan: maybe. . ..

Jill: People will argue, scholars will argue, that Hip Hop and rap was born out of
oppression, was born out of street culture? '

Bryan: mm, hmm.

Jill: So do you think that’s true? Do think it’s only born out of oppression and
street culture?

Jeff: well, I look at it as, rap really, if you take it back to Run DMC and uh,
N.W.A. and all that it’s a lot of their music. A lot of people were breakers to it,
breakdancers, and that’s what they used the music for, it had bass and it had a beat
to where you could dance to it. So, 1 don’t agree with that, that it’s out of
oppression or anything. That’s um, I don’t. . .1 mean I like this music right here
and it doesn’t matter to me if I’m white, black, Mexican, Asian, it don’t matter.

Obviously this excerpt is rife with issues surrounding Hip Hop culture, Black Language

and appropriation. First we must discuss both the participants belief that Hip Hop has

nothing to do with Black culture, speciﬁcally when Jeff states in response to my positing

the widely held belief that Hip Hop has to do with Black culture that “That’s a bunch of

shit. . .That’s a whole crock right there”. This is a perfect example of how the rhetoric of

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appropriation used by these participants to justify their appropriations can in fact be
problematic for Hip Hop culture and Black Language writ large. By stating that Eminem
is “fuckin’ from Detroit and you know he’s like inﬂuenced many, many white people and
I guarantee he’s like, not about being black but also like the black people he also, like,
brought out the white race saying ‘hey, it’s not just for black, Aﬁican Americans, it’s not
for that’” Jeff is proliferating rhetoric that is changing the way many people in
mainstream society view Hip Hop culture and Black Language. He is echoing a growing
suburban white male belief that Hip Hop’s past and future need not have anything to do
with Blackness. Furthermore, he believes he is ﬁrmly supporting his belief that Hip Hop
is not inherently linked to Black culture. For him, Eminem is a symbol he invokes to
justify his appropriations of Hip Hop culture and Black Language.

To be sure, Eminem may be white but most scholars would argue that he is
socialized Black, that he willingly embraces Black culture and African American oral
traditions to perform his music as authentically as he knows how. With UMC white
males like Jeff and Bryan promoting the belief that Eminem and Hip Hop writ large is
divorced from Black culture is misinfonned at best and detrimental to the entire culture
and language of Hip Hop at worst. Jeff employs an ethos of growing up as a Hip Hopper
in an UMC white school to defend and justify his beliefs about Hip Hop by stating that
those around him “looked upon as oh, he’s an evil seed ‘cause he dresses with matching
jerseys and gear and listens to Hip Hop music, some people kick their ass.” Again this is
a clear example of invoking the rhetoric of appropriation through category making by
symbolization. Jeff legitimizes his perceptions by saying he knows that dressing a certain

way places you in a marked category, which instantly separates one from others in

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society, much like what Eckert observed in a suburban Detroit high school. However, it
must be noted that this choice of symbolic clothing is conscious as is the fact that by
wearing such clothes he knows he will incur some type of negative stigma.

Like Charlie, evidence of oversimpliﬁcation of values and ideas is evident in Jeff
and Bryan’s responses concerning the link between Hip Hop music and oppression. For
Jeff, Hip Hop is more about beat than the historical struggles and oppression of Black
folk which is of course a problematic assumption. Jeff calls upon the symbolization of
such rap artists as N.W.A and Run DMC for support as to why he believes Hip HOp is
more about sound than Black culture and oppression. This is both an interesting and
uninformed choice considering that much of N.W.A. and Run DMC’s music was both
socially and politically charged and obviously came from a place of feeling marginalized
and oppressed. If this kind of rhetoric of appropriation continues to proliferate there is no
doubt that many people will be confused as to which version of Hip Hop culture and
Black Language is authentic and legitimate, thus mush-faking an appropriated version as
real.

Like Jeff and Bryan, Adam and Aren also venture commentary as to the
appropriateness of Eminem but go farther in commenting on appropriation as it relates
speciﬁcally to them. In this excerpt we see again how symbols carry embedded meaning
and value for these individuals in structuring their identity.

Jill: What do you guys think about appropriation? Do you think that Eminem is an

appropriator? Do you think that in some way you are appropriating that culture

because you listen to Hip Hop music or you feel a connection to Hip Hop music?

Adam: I mean like certain people, like why do they even like Hip Hop artists it’s

like a particular connection. Uh, Like when Biggie’s Juicy came out people could

like relate, cause some of us could like not be able to afford fancy clothes and
P82, Nintendo whatever and it’s like, most people just like listen and feel ‘em

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because they go through the same shit like him. Like sharing bowl of cereal with
your brother because you don’t have enough money

Jill: Do you feel that way? Do you feel on some level that you can relate to that?
Adam: Yeah, I mean yeah.
Aren: Yeah, I mean on some level Hip Hop is about struggle and everyone has
their struggle and stuff. I don’t really feel like I appropriated anything by listening
to the music, I mean I don’t go around acting all ganster. So I mean, it’s just
music it’s no different than like listening to like Bob Dylan. 1 think it’s just soul
and poetry.
Adam: Hip Hop is just, I would say Hip Hop is like a mixed genre of everything.
Hip Hop not like, rap/Hip Hop not just like, ....... they’re all talking about the
same thing, they’re all talking about struggle but like Hip Hop’s just for like more
up-tempo and sticking to the vibe. Hip Hop’s like everywhere now.
Unlike Jeff, Aren admits that aspects of Hip Hop are about struggle however he hedges
that belief by saying “everyone has their struggle and stuff”. He also categorizes himself
as not being an appropriator simply because he doesn’t act “gangster” which I infer in
this case he means “urban” or “ghetto”. This is a problematic assumption considering
that in the excerpt above both Adam and Aren posit that they identify with the ideas and
values of Hip Hop music but yet not enough that someone would consider them
appropriators of that culture or language. Therefore, it is fair to say they recognize
appropriation but are rhetorically savvy in negotiating their own appropriations to me in a
positive light or perhaps on a much lesser scale compared to others in their UMC peer
group. As if they are saying “Sure, I like Hip Hop and speak a bit of Black Language, but
it’s not like I’m Vanilla Ice or anything.”
Institutional Language

The following section provides case study data and examination of that data

concerning how the participants embrace institutional language as a means of entree into

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Hip Hop culture and Black Language. Furthermore, to appeal to my sense of logic in
their responses/explanations they would effectively use language that has clearly been
institutionalized in them through UMC education. Therefore, my deﬁnition of
institutional language is similar to Cushman’s (1998) in that the oral events described in
this chapter are often highly political in nature and through them these individuals have
learned to assert themselves in the face of long-standing institutional inﬂuences in their
daily lives. Many of the participants in this study view themselves as “others” in their
UMC white communities and therefore use the literacy and rhetorical tools they’ve
learned in their privileged education and other institutional inﬂuences to justify their
appropriations. While many would contend that these individuals are in fact purveyors of
dominant institutions, they believe that their interest in Hip Hop culture and Black
Language sets them apart from mainstream society, that it is emblematic of their
uniqueness. However their use of institutional language is not a means of survival like
those in Cushman’s (1998) work, it is merely a component of their rhetoric of
appropriation used to impress upon an interviewer and others in mainstream society their
perceptions and beliefs about Hip Hop and Black Language and about their
appropriations. In short, they are well versed in the politics of institutional language
because it is part of their daily lives and despite their need/want to appear as “Hip Hop”
as possible they resort back to the institutional language that surrounds them in order to
justify their beliefs and actions.

To clarify this component of the rhetoric of appropriation further it behooves us to

look directly at how Cushman qualiﬁes institutional language. She states that:

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...these language events also offer us an understanding of just how politically
strategic institutional language can be. To we well versed in the politics of
institutional language, in short, means that a person uses a variety of signs

to construct power relations between one’s self and others, particularly

institutional representatives;. . . .to use language persuasively in trans-institutional

contexts, that is, to be linguistically strategic in encounters with many of wider

society’s institutions (117-1 18).

In these excerpts we will clearly see how these individuals situate themselves to construct
power relations between one another and the interviewer. To them I am still considered
an institutional representative with both my graduate school backing and instructor status
always looming in the interview. Furthermore, they evidence use of persuasive language
through their knowledge of the institutions that surround them in wider society—like
schools, churches, etc—to Show that they recognize how others view their afﬁnity to Hip
Hop culture and Black Language but know how to either deﬂect that negativity or
qualify/justify it is some way.

In the ﬁrst set of case study data excerpts we will look at Charlie’s institutional
language as a means of exhibiting how man UMC white males construct and navigate
their identity through the rhetoric of appropriation. In this case Charlie is clearly invoking
institutional language to more concretely persuade his audience to understand his
knowledge of Hip Hop culture. Charlie’s educational background is based on experience.
While he was not enrolled in higher education courses at the time of the interview he
attended one of the premier UMC high schools in Troy, Michigan. His high school is
widely known for it’s commitment to excellence in scholarship as well as a robust range
of extracurricular activities funded by the school. This is important to note because even

though Charlie is not likely considered “educated” by mainstream society, he is in fact a

product of the top 10% of American schools. Furthermore, Charlie has established

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himself in and around the Detroit area as a Hip Hop artist and therefore is hip to the game
of self-promotion and performance. The following excerpt Shows how Charlie is using
institutional language in linguistically strategic ways.

Jill: Do you think that if there was no MTV VH1 and BET that there wouldn’t be
such a spread of Hip Hop?

Charlie: I think yes and no. I think it’d be a lot less watered down I think it’d be a
lot better. I mean when there weren’t so many outlets for people to hit a lick. Now
you just hit a lick and sold a whole bunch of records but I mean like it used to be
about how good you were like lyrically. Just rapping and having an overall talent
now it’s just like, just putting it together and like trendy to talk about and just
hittin a lick off the fact that you’ve got something trendy and played on the radio.
Just because it’s on the radio doesn’t mean it’s good. If it’s on the radio it
probably means it blows.

Here Charlie is embracing both Black Language (“hittin a lick”) and the Language of
Wider Communication (LWC) or institutionalized language (“outlets for people”, “less
watered down”) to convince his audience that Hip Hop has become commercialized but
in many ways that commercialization has blazed a trail for individuals like him in the rap
game. He is negotiating his appropriation with institutional language, invoking both his
native language and Black Language in rhetorically savvy ways to appeal to others sense
of logos. Speciﬁcally he logically appeals by saying “just because it’s on the radio
doesn’t mean it’s good.” More invocation of institutional language can be seen in the
excerpt below.

Jill: Do you think Hip Hop’s gone mainstream or do you think mainstream’s gone
Hip Hop?

Charlie: I’d say Hip Hop’s gone mainstream just cause people aren’t doin, they’re
not doin, what they want to do as much as they as what they’re supposed to be
doin to like get a hit. I mean I know guys who like talk about how they love Hip
Hop but when they rap they’re talking about the same things that other people
want them to talk about so it’s almost like they’re not doing what’s in their heart
they’re doing whatever they thinks gonna make them a buck. Like, that’s kinda
wrong.

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Jill: Do you think that because Hip Hop’s gone mainstream it’s given you the
ability to better exist in this genre or do you think you’d be doing this regardless?

Charlie: 1 mean I like to think I’d be makin music regardless of what kind it
Would be. I try to make any sort of music it’s just like the only avenues I’ve
approached have been Hip Hop it’s like someone who’s into folk music. I mean
that’s just what they’re into. I know I could be into that. . ..
Charlie is using institutional language for the purpose of constructing power relations
between himself and others, particularly institutional representatives like me and others in
UMC white society (Cushman, 1998). By comparing himself with others in his UMC
peer group, drawing binaries between their “wrong” ideas about Hip Hop only serves to
Showcase that his beliefs about Hip Hop are right. You see, Charlie truly believes that he
is an original, that his views on Hip Hop and his appropriations of Hip Hop culture and
Black Language are progressive and justiﬁable because he is moral and pure in his
pursuits. This can be evidenced by his statement that “the only avenues I’ve approached
have been Hip Hop” clearly invoking an educated, rational ethos to appeal to his
audience. Ultimately, it can be said that Charlie knows the game, he knows he is
privileged, traditionally institutionally educated and is not afraid to use these rhetorical
devices to construct an identity that is more cerebral white rapper than gansta wigga.
Jeff and Bryan on the other hand don’t think they belong to the institution; they
believe they are raging against the same machine as Black folk and marginalized Hip
Hop headz. Like Charlie, these guys were not enrolled in higher education but were also
privy to an excellent K-12 education in a highly recognized school district in Sterling
Heights. Their sometimes contradicting view and use of institutional language can been

seen in the following conversation regarding their views on Hip Hop and later on the

topic of violence in Hip Hop.

I28

Jeff: a few of my favorite artists, not in any order would have to be Brother
Lynch, Mr. Doc, all the artists from black market.

Jill: Oh really? Who the hell are they?

Jeff: Well, um, Brother Lynch is from Sacramento so is Mr. Doc. They’re all uh,
from the same area, same hood as all their blocks, they got the garden block, the
stuff they talk about. They’re just um, very, uh, their lyrics are very gruesome.
Jill: Violent?

Jeff: Very violent, but the beats that go along with that are real smooth and old
school beats. Also, that’s one of them. Right now I’ve also been listening to a lot
of Cash Money, Little Wayne.

Bryan: Number 2 on his CD is like, his music, the background music and
everything it just goes with the ﬂow of his vocals, it just goes perfect with the
beat. That’s like one of the things

Jill: Do you like them too?

Bryan: Yeah, my favorite songs like the most recent albums that came out.

Jeff: And then of course you have to support our Detroit rappers, Big Hurt. . ..
Jill: And that’s underground too considering.

Jeff: All the uh, underground rappers, M.O.B. ..

Bryan: The black Lagoon, that just came out, that’s smooth...

In this conversation it becomes apparent that Bryan and Jeff are both invoking

institutional language (“Brother Lynch is from Sacramento”/ “And then of course you

have to support our Detroit rappers, Big Hurt. . .”), using signs to construct power

relations. They are both citing underground Hip Hop artists as their favorites which I

believe they do to prove their legitimacy in Hip Hop culture and to Show the institution

(me) that they know their shit. Their rhetoric of appropriation is even more apparent

when Jeff states “then of course you have to support our Detroit rappers”. His use of

“our” is strategic because it explicitly situates him as part of Detroit Hip Hop culture

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despite the fact that he predominately exists in UMC white suburbia. I argue that Jeff
and Bryan draw the most parallels to the participants in Cushman’s ethnography because
they are using institutional language in much the same ways as the residents of Quayville,
speciﬁcally to gain entrée through authentic gatekeepers of Hip Hop culture. For them,
the institutional language is not based on their UMC education but on their ghetto-cation,
how much they can prove that they are knowledgeable in and part of Hip Hop culture.
The following excerpt pushes this concept ﬁrrther by evidencing politically strategic
institutional language to more concretely endear them to the Hip Hop cause and
community.

Jill: OK, you said something about the violence. What do you think about that?

What do you think about violence and rap music? Do you think Eminem goes

overboard sometimes?

Jeff: I think the way that he puts things. . .it doesn’t make me want to be violent.

No if ands or buts or what not. It’s just how he ﬂows, how he puts his rhythms

together and whatnot. It’s just very, uh, it just intrigues me I guess. How he can

think of off the wall Shit and put it on a record. Like Brother Lynch he’s just more

underground. Same thing as Tripple Six, Three Six Maﬁa they are like that a lot

too they’re very violent and talk about selling weed, selling dope, drugs,

trafficking, the whole nine yards, killin’ people whatever and then off course all

rappers gotta bring in how much money they make.

Jill: Yeah, of course

Jill: So what do you think about that? Do you think that violence and rap are

related. A lot of people say that rap purports violence, that it’s the reason for

violence. Do you think that’s true?

Bryan: No

Jeff: 1 think that’s a bunch of bullshit. Um,. .

Bryan: You turn on your basic cable and you can see violence in uh, you know,
you can actually see it and not just hear words about it

Jeff: We’re talkin’ they blame it on rap music. You got video games, movies,
promote violence and sex. .

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Bryan: (oh, everything)

Jeff: ..... with rappers and everything

Clearly Jeff and Bryan are taking a stand against the predominantly UMC white
media view that Hip Hop/Rap begets violence. By aligning themselves with such a
rudimentary and essential belief in the Hip Hop community they feel they are further
cementing their existence and legitimacy in Hip Hop culture. Their use of institutional
language can be seen in the ways they support their claims. When Bryan says “you turn
on your basic cable and you can see violence...actually see it and not just hear words
about it” he is invoking the ethos and logos of institutional language because he is privy
to that objective view. This is to say he can easily take the stance supporting Hip Hop,
despite overtones of violence, because he is an UMC white male who has the privilege of
seeing both Sides of the argument and the ability to decide to identify with Hip Hop and
he uses his knowledge of institutional language to do so. This same argument can be
heard in many UMC white conversations around the country, without even knowing it
Bryan is relying on his institutional savvy to prove his Hip Hop credibility.

Adam and Aren represent the smaller half of the participant pool by being
actively enrolled in a higher education institution and their rhetoric of appropriation
surely reﬂects that fact. These individuals have been instructed in the art of rhetoric and
understand how to appeal to and persuade others both in and out of their peer group.
They knowingly embrace institutional language in their rhetoric of appropriation to
justify their likes and dislikes and their overall opinions about Hip Hop culture and Black

Language.

131

Aren: Hip Hop is just whatever you want it to be. You can rap about whatever
you want.

Aren: I mean, I think technically you could rap about whatever, I mean you could
be like this guy Atmosphere who’s like a white rapper from Minneapolis

Adam: Oh, he’s good

Aren: Yeah, that’s like one of my favorite rappers. He doesn’t rap about being
ganster it’s just about every day struggles and the way he grew up and like a
suburb where everybody’s just like diggin’ his stuff. Just like stuff, like white
people grow up, I don’t know, it’s crazy

Jill : So you don’t think it’s a race thing?

Aren: 1 don’t think it’s a race thing, I mean it’s deﬁnitely more like an African
thing but I think anybody can rap if they decide they want to rap

Adam: It’s more accepted among Africans but it’s like if you put them in a
classroom or whatever, but just like people prejudge. That’s how it is with Hip
Hop if you’re not Black, you have more to prove. It’s all about ﬁrst impressions
you can’t be telling people like your whole life story, like why you dress like that.
Here we see a perfect example of what Cushman calls “using language persuasively in
trans-institutional contexts”. To be sure, Aren and Adam are not wholesale appropriators
of Hip Hop culture and Black Language. As seen in previous excerpts they are largely
more selective in whom, what, and how they choose to appropriate. Also, however, it is
important to note that they do not think they are appropriating anything whatsoever. Aren
uses logical institutional language persuasively in this trans-institutional context (the
interview setting) to explain that he appreciates rap that is not “gangster” but at the same
time recognizes the overall theme of “everyday struggles in Hip Hop”. What is most
interesting is that he is rhetorically savvy enough to hedge that statement by saying these
struggles can and are parallel to how “white people grow up.” Aren is careful to walk a

tight rope between loving Hip Hop and unconsciously appropriating Hip Hop culture and

Black Language while also maintaining a deﬁance that always seems to imply “Sure, I

132

like Hip Hop but I’m not one of them” which I infer to mean “I know enough
institutional language to Spin my appropriations any way I want”.

When I prompt Adam about race he walks a similar line but is much more
rhetorically effective in enacting his institutional language to persuade me than Aren.
Adam recognizes that this world is harder to navigate for Black folk stating that, “like
people prejudge”. Here he is reﬂecting and using institutional language (the ideas of
prejudging based on race, class, etc.) and knowledge (knowing that he has to be
politically correct for fear of sounding racist). However, Adam goes one step further and
ﬂips the script, inverting the long held truth of Black struggle and prejudgrnent when he
states “That’s how it is with Hip Hop, if you’re not Black, you have more to prove. It’ s
all abut ﬁrst impressions, you can’t be telling people like your whole life story, like why
you dress like that.” Adam is using institutional language to persuade his audience that
the current assumption in Hip Hop is that it’s the white folks who have to struggle to
make it, to be recognized as legit. He is using both semantic and cultural inversion in his
response, ﬂippin the script on the long held knowledge of Black oppression in America
and placing that burden now on white people trying to make it in Hip Hop.

For all of these participants, institutional language is just another rhetorical device
that helps them to identify with Hip Hop culture and Black Language and justify their
appropriations. What the next section will Show is not just another piece of the rhetoric of
appropriation pie but also will lend more support as to why these UMC white males do
this appropriation thing they do.

Cultural Capital

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Perhaps the most striking data in this study is the way the participants use Hip
Hop culture and Black Language as a way to gain cultural signiﬁcance, to identify
themselves with a culture and language that is historically, racially, and socially removed
from them. Seeking acceptance is perhaps one of the most basic human conditions. In
spite of ourselves most of us want to belong, to a group, a family, a religion, a culture and
in this belonging we build self-worth, conﬁdence. In essence we feel special and unique
in our identity by belonging where others don’t. This argument stems again from Eckert’s
notions of when “oppositions become mutually reinforcing”. That is you feel more “in”
because others are excluded or “out”.

But that forces the discussion of how and why these groups or cultures form. For
insight into that conundrum I look to Bourdieu’s (1977) argument of culture as capital.
He posits that our internal habitus produces individual and collective practices that often
are in accordance with historical generations of similar practices. That is to say that as
humans we are internally and intrinsically propelled to do the things we do, to seek
identity and ways of deﬁning ourselves within/throughout culture(s). To be sure, the
UMC white males in this study are no different. They too are only human and thus in the
most simplistic and basic form are also seeking identity but what makes them unique in
this seemingly mundane human pursuit is that they do not look to their family and/or clan
to produce their individual or collective practices. They appropriate Hip Hop culture and
Black Language to craft an identity that is far different from the “historical generations of
similar practices” that Bourdieu speaks of.

The participants in this research all appropriate Hip Hop culture and Black

Language for the simple purpose of gaining cultural capital. For them, their white-

134

washed, suburban lifestyles do not appeal to them, the homogeneity is at times stiﬂing
and they yearn for a belonging that will set them apart, will form a unique identity. Hip
Hop has certainly provided that space, place, and culture complete with a language.
Furthermore, in mainstream society’s growing acceptance to the point of obsession
of/with Hip Hop culture, these UMC white males have been given a handbook of sorts, a
mass marketed guide on how to be different in UMC white society while at the same time
gaining acceptance in/through Hip Hop.

While older generations may view Hip Hop culture as far from their notions of
capital and worth as possible, the younger generations (for the purposes of this study ages
18-30) sec Hip Hop as the epitome of gaining social, economic, and ethnic capital
through Hip Hop culture. My experience interviewing the individuals for this case study
analysis fully proves this assertion. During this process I have found cultural capital the
most simple but powerful motivation behind the rhetoric of appropriation. Simply, the
individuals in this study appropriate to gain culture and by appropriating that culture they
gain uniqueness and in turn admiration from those stuck in the UMC white homogenous
society that surrounds them. The following excerpts clearly show how the participants in
this study are claiming identity in their pursuit and sometimes possession of cultural
capital through their use of Hip Hop culture and Black Language appropriations.

Jill: Why do you think so many UMC white males follow Hip Hop?

Charlie: I just think sometimes that people like admire people who are just willing

to say, just lay it on the line so to speak, just willing to say whatever, however, or

how much just because that’s where they’re from. They don’t know how to say it
any better than just like this is what I’m gonna say. I think that people are here to
remind us of that because you’re all goin through the same thing. 1 mean maybe
you’re not like goin through the same personal struggle but everyone deals with

money, I mean they’re all like dealing with love, with family, with their job, with
whatever. I mean those are topics that are relatable.

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In the above response Charlie is clearly setting up a rhetorical appeal that will serve to
justify his identity through Hip Hop. To make others believe his existence and
appropriation of this culture and language is justiﬁable he uses broad and common
human uniﬁers, saying “everyone deals with money. . .they’re all dealing with love, with
family, with their job, with whatever”. He has to construct Hip Hop as a culture of the
people, all people, in order for his argument—and more so his rhetoric of appropriation—
to be effective.
Jill: Do you think a lot of UMC white males try to emulate Hip Hop culture?
Charlie: Oh, for sure. 1 mean but that’s the difference between. I wouldn’t say
because they’re emulating it they’re to use that phrase again ‘faking the funk’ I
mean some people are doing because that’s just the way they were like what they
feel and there’s other people doing it because they think that’s cool. I mean they
get like the SUV with like the 24 inch rims and all that stuff. I mean some people
are just really into all that stuff and some people are just doing that because that’s
what’s expected of someone who listens to all that stuff or is trying to play like a
character. 1 mean I like always relate rap to like wrestling. Like I mean people
have like a persona. I mean Hulk Hogan is not always Hulk Hogan he’s like only
hulk Hogan when he’s in the ring. I mean when you’re rappin you have to affect
that personality. I mean I don’t think those guys in ICP are like going home with
the makeup on like that’s just the character. You’re gonna do what you gotta do to
entertain people. It’s all just trying to keep it relatable and real to yourself.
He might as well have said “it’s all just keeping it commercial” rather than “relatable and
real to yourself”. In this way he is painting a new picture of Hip Hop, one that is not born
out of marginalized peoples oppression and struggle but one that is based on “persona”,
that it can be morphed and stretched to ﬁt any person, place, or thing as long as “people
are doing because that’s just the way they were like what they feel”. To be sure, this is
exactly how Charlie serves to justify his identity through Hip Hop. He can readily use
this argument when his legitimacy and authenticity in Hip Hop is in question. Charlie

craves a culture other than mainstream whiteness but to gain access to that culture he has

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to do so on his own terms, thus he uses the rhetoric of appropriation to craft a Hip Hop
culture that ﬁts for him.

Charlie’s musings evidence a pursuit of cultural capital with the mention of
“when you’re rappin you have to affect that personality” hinting that he may approach his
own performance and real life identity in the same way! If Hip Hop is like professional
wrestling that means everyone is fake and everyone is participating in the facade for a
buck and that inauthenticity is totally acceptable. The problem is that most Hip Hop
headz, scholars, and artists would argue that Hip Hop culture thrives on the authentic,
was born out of the real. That rap is the music, Hip Hop is the culture (Pough, 2001). For
UMC white males like Charlie to deﬁne it as fakery in order to more easily ﬁt into a
culture for the purposes of gaining social and cultural capital in their peer groups or in
greater Hip Hop culture is highly problematic and in many cases offensive. Here again
we see an instance of the rhetoric of appropriation serving to ﬂip the script on what Hip
Hop culture and Black Language really are and strives to maintain.

It’s in Jeff and Bryan’s continued discussion about violence in Hip Hop that we
see exactly how much cultural capital Hip Hop holds. Unlike Charlie, Jeff and Bryan are
not trying to become legitimate in the Hip Hop community because they feel they already
are. Their love and interest in Hip Hop culture stems from a much clearer pursuit for
cultural capital, that is they are more “hard” and masculine by associating with and
appropriating Hip Hop culture and Black Language.

Jill: Do you think that our generation, that through this music, do you think that

they treat women differently? Do you think some men who don’t have any other

men in their lives, they listen to this music and think it’s ok to treat women in that
way? Or do you think it’s the same as violence?

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Jeff: I think that, they uh, they focus just too much on. . .some guys in rap portray
the way they rap as the way they portray how they live, that doesn’t mean they
don’t know how to live. It doesn’t mean that anyone who listens to it, hip-hop and
rap, are gonna try and portray the same things, the same type of life.

Jill: OK

Jeff: Especially, if things with underground rappers. That’s all they know how to
do. Run the streets, hustle. That’s it.

Jill: Yeah

Jeff: Me, personally being a suburban white kid, I’m not gonna try and go out and
run the streets.

Jill: So you don’t identify. . .Do you identify with what they’re rapping about? Do
you feel that some of it speaks to you directly?

Bryan: Oh, well yeah, I’m sure you know. I know that we’ve both seen, I mean,
things that they do rap about, you know people gettin’ killed and, you know, I’ve
seen, you know, people die and I mean, ﬁghtin’ you know, selling drugs,
whatever. I’ve seen it all, it’s just not intertwined with my life style as much as it
may be with theirs because they see it everyday, you know, it’s a difference
between a community and where you live and it’s like uh, I guess it’s based on
where, you know, where you live, where you’re brought up and how things were
when you were a child, you know.
When Jeff says “That’s all they know how to do. Run the streets, hustle. That’s it” he is
invoking a rhetoric of appropriation to both support his appropriated community despite
some negative stereotypes and crafting his own identity by ethically appealing to the
audience that he is “hard” enough to know that a hustler’s way of life is not a choice but a
product of culture. Even more rank with the pursuit of cultural capital is Bryan’s belief
that his situation and struggles are equitable to those rapped about in Hip Hop music.
By positing that “we’ve both seen. . .you know people gettin’ killed. . .and ﬁghtin’
you know, selling drugs” he is establishing his cultural capital, a culture nor a capital that
would be possible if not for his appropriation of Hip Hop culture and Black Language.

Here, Bryan is asserting his masculine/ghetto identity through experiences that are largely

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thought to be predominant in urban Hip Hop culture. By observing these things he feels
that he has then gained entree into the culture of Hip Hop. Of course, it has been shown
through previous evidence that he has attempted to enter the culture and speak the
language largely through appropriation. This is just another example of the rhetoric of
appropriation that surrounds the justiﬁcations and explanations of UMC white males who
are so starved for culture they have to steal another’s and when that isn’t enough they
have to make it theirs, again ﬂippin the cultural script.

It is only fair to counter the overtly obvious appropriation of Hip Hop culture and
Black Language with evidence from Adam and Aren our resident college co-eds. They
too crave belonging to a more interesting and exotic culture, if only to belong to the
growing masses of appropriators everywhere, but they don’t think they are part of the
culture at all despite their Hip Hop culture and Black Language appropriations evidence
in earlier excerpts.

Jill: Alright, would you guys like consider yourselves part of Hip Hop culture or
no?

Aren: 1 mean, I don’t really think so, I mean I grew up in Detroit so I’ve always
grown up with this taste for like Bone Thugs N Harmony and like Tupac. I mean
that’s still like one of my favorite cd’s of all time. Like, I mean I’ve always grown
up with Hip Hop and rap but I mean 1 don’t go around like acting like I’m
something I’m not, technically

Adam: Yeah, same. It’s like, just like by staying true to your culture, like staying
true to your Hip Hop culture, it’s like trying to express yourself or whatever like if
somethin’ goes down or something, not like talkin’ like your in a rap battle but
basically it’s just like. I don’t feel it necessary to like dress how like I see in the
videos today or whatever. I try to like, get real.

The fact that Aren says “I grew up in Detroit” is an excellent example of his rhetoric of

appropriation. Detroit proper holds considerable cultural cache for white folk, to be white

and from Detroit is incredibly rare and holds a certain amount clout with certain Black

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communities. This is because white people who have remained in Detroit after the “white
ﬂight” of the 60’s and 70’s or those who have returned to the city during the early 21st
century Renaissance are seen as contributors to the well-being of the city, and the citizens
left behind to ﬁght for it. However, Aren did not grow up in Detroit, he was born and
raised in the northwest suburbs and the fact that he invokes Detroit as his home followed
by the symbolization of various Hip Hop artists is indicative of a pursuit for cultural
capital. Aren knows that saying you are from Detroit proper and “always grown up with
Hip Hop and rap” is synonymous for many Hip Hoppers with being part of Hip Hop
culture and being down for the cause—both of which Aren speciﬁcally states he is not.
This begs the question, why invoke Detroit and Hip Hop artists? I argue Aren chooses
this rhetorical strategy as a way to gain cultural capital within his peer group and
dominant society without going all the way like Jeff and Bryan. Therefore, Aren is what I
would call a neo-wigga, versus Jeff and Bryan who cOuld easily pass as wigga").

At ﬁrst Adam seems to agree with Aren’s take on Hip Hop culture but then
virtually negates everything Aren posited in his response. Adam’s pursuit of cultural
capital is clear when he states “It’s like staying true to your culture, like staying true to
your Hip Hop culture” because he obviously feels he has some part in/of Hip Hop culture
by arguing his need to “get real”, a common element in Hip Hop. Furthermore, Adam
appropriates Black Language in his explanation of Hip Hop culture saying “if somethin
goes down” a common Black Language phrase for a negative occurrence or happening.
His use of Black Language at this juncture clearly shows his need to stand up and identify

himself as legitimate in Hip Hop culture. For all of these individuals appropriating Hip

 

'0 Both these terms, and my categorization and analysis of their personiﬁcations will be discussed at length
in Chapter 5.

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Hop culture and Black Language is a way to get culture, to identify oneself outside of
UMC suburban-hood.
Conclusion

The rhetoric of appropriation of UMC white males is indeed ﬂippin the script on
Hip Hop culture and Black Language. The responses of the participants contained in this
chapter are much more than vague musings about likes and dislikes. They are powerful
portrayals of how the phenomenon of appropriation is seeking, and in many cases
succeeding, in changing the way Hip Hop culture and Black Language is viewed by
mainstream society. These individuals are crafting identities based on how they view,
deﬁne, and use Hip Hop culture and Black Language and are thereby negating many of
the basic principles and tenets long held in Hip Hop and Black oral tradition and history.
Ultimately, they are invoking a rhetoric of appropriation to create and maintain their own
versions of Hip Hop culture and Black Language and in doing so are changing the very
basic elements of what they seek to appropriate. Whether they are deﬁning themselves
and their appropriations through symbolization, invocation of institutional language,
and/or a pursuit of cultural capital they are becoming more rhetorically savvy in how to
justify and mitigate their appropriations to not only their peer groups but to the larger
audience of mainstream society.

True, many of the participants appropriations seem mundane, however much of
how they justify and deny aspects of long held beliefs about Hip Hop culture, minority
oppression and marginalized struggle is problematic for the future of Hip Hop culture and
Black Language. If this small sampling of UMC white males is a foreshadowing of how

the commercialization and “mainstreaming” of Hip Hop will affect the overall culture

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and language then it is our duty as scholars and teachers to research the rhetoric of
appropriation more fully so as to educate ourselves and our students concerning both the
positive and negative consequences and outcomes of appropriation.

The next chapter will deal more speciﬁcally with the categorization of the 30
participants in this study. Namely, UMC white males who evidence the rhetoric of
appropriation can be ﬁled into two complex categories, Wiggas and neo-wiggas. This
categorization seeks to clearly portray the varying levels of appropriation that occur in
UMC white male appropriation of Hip Hop culture and Black Language in order to more

fully understand the impetus and catalysts for this phenomenological behavior.

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Chapter 5: Representin the Rhetoric of Appropriation: Wiggas and Neo-Wiggas

Yeah, I mean on some level Hip Hop is about struggle and everyone has their struggle
and stuff I don’t really feel like I appropriated anything by listening to the music, I mean
I don ’t go around acting all gangster. So I mean it ’s just music, it’s no diﬂerent than like
listening to like Bob Dylan. I think it ’s just soul and poetry.

--Aren (2005)

It was not long before similarly marginalized black and Hispanic communities in other
cities picked up on the tenor and energy in New York Hip Hop. Within a decade, Los
Angeles County (especially Compton), Oakland, Detroit, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta,
Miami, Newark, and Trenton, Roxbury, and Philadelphia, have developed local Hip Hop
scenes that link various regional postindustrial urban experiences of alienation,
unemployment, police harassment, social, and economic isolation to their local and
specific experience via Hip Hop ’s language, style and attitude...1n every region, Hip Hop
articulates a sense of entitlement and takes pleasure in aggressive insubordination.

-- Tricia Rose (1994)

It '5 why we sing for these kids that don 't have a thing
Except for a dream and a flicking rap magazine
Who post pinup pictures on their walls all day long
Idolize their favorite rappers and know all they songs
Or for anyone who 's ever been through shit in they lives
So they sit and they cry at night, wishing they die
Till they throw on a rap record, and they sit and they vibe
We 're nothing to you, but we 're the fuckin' shit in their eyes

--Eminem, “Sing” (2004)
There is no doubt that Hip Hop and Black Language at their best are empowering, poetry
that ﬁlls and ﬁres the soul. At their worst they can be watered down, commercialized,
virtually unrecognizable by the most advanced Hip Hop head or sociolinguistic scholar.
Aren, Tricia Rose, and Eminem are arguing that positive notion of Hip Hop music is
indeed about struggle, that in many ways gives fuel to the artistry, the soul of Hip Hop
culture. What perhaps is most notable is Rose’s (1994) argument that “In every region,

Hip Hop articulates a sense of entitlement and takes pleasure in aggressive

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insubordination” (60). This single statement best sums up the allure, promise, and in
some ways curse, of Hip Hop. While it may have started and been celebrated in urban
centers, Hip Hop and Black Language is irrefutably present in “every region” and that
sense of entitlement and taking pleasure in hard core insubordination is not just relegated
to marginalized Black and Hispanic communities any more. Eminem further articulates
this belief and justiﬁes it in positing that Hip Hop is “for anyone who’s ever been through
shit in their lives” regardless of race, religion, culture, and language.

The purpose of this chapter is to categorize the participants of this study as a
heuristic to more fully understand and examine the impetus and justiﬁcations of UMC
white male appropriation. To place the participants in the neo-wigga or wigga camp is to
begin to develop methods to more clearly deﬁne the phenomenon of Hip Hop culture and
Black Language appropriation. As Boyd (2002) posits “In a world where the authentic is
consistently problematized, it is often hard to distinguish where this appropriation takes
place” (123), a problem this chapter seeks to mitigate. Furthermore, this chapter seeks to
evidence the variance of the participant’s appropriations. This means that although the
preceding chapters served to Show the common elements in their rhetoric of appropriation
this chapter serves as a more critical analysis within the phenomenon that proves how
UMC white males who appropriate Hip Hop culture and Black Language do so to
different degrees. While I am aware that my methodology is limited in assuming too
much about these individuals from mere case study interviews, I feel strongly that how
they responded in our particular rhetorical situation can be used as a solid beginning to
understanding the commonalities and the differences in this particular group of

appropriators.

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To frame this discussion I am relying on the methodological implications of
rhetoric as a heuristic/construct (Lindquist, 2002) established in Chapter 3 in order to
examine identity formation through appropriation. That is, I will continue to see
argumentation and conversation as a means to critically and rhetorically analyze the
responses of the participants for the rhetoric of appropriation (symbolization, institutional
language, and pursuit of cultural capital). Furthermore, I am working with notions about
white male appropriation of Hip Hop provided by scholars such as Kitwana (2005),
Smitherman (2006), and Boyd (2002) to aid in framing my own interpretations and
conclusions about how and why these UMC white males appropriate not just Hip Hop but
Hip Hop culture and Black Language. Speciﬁcally this chapter will delve deeper into the
reasons why UMC white males like Hip Hop as a way of detailing their appropriations.
While many people may argue that work like this has been done before, namely
Kitwana’s Why White Kids Love Hip Hop, it is important to note that 1 am building off
some of these same theories and methodologies used in this text and others like it. For
example, I ﬁnd the following discussion from Kitwana’s text about the complexity of the
individual imperative to situating the work that I am doing:

Why do white kids love Hip Hop? The answers are endless. But the further you

dig into individual lives, the more layers of complexity you’re likely to ﬁnd. Race

in America is complicated by many factors. Old racial politics and new racial
politics collide with regional differences, personal experience, family history, pop
culture, and individual experience. Each person has a unique story that brought
him or her to Hip Hop. Looking at the micro-reasons as well as the macro ones
help us make sense of a contemporary Hip Hop scene in which a new generation
is affected by America’s racial history and in the process is constructing new
politics...1nstead Hip Hop is framework, a culture that has brought young people
together and provides a public space that they can communicate within
unrestricted by the old obstacles. Simultaneously, young whites are engaging with

Black youth culture just as corporate culture has become a tool for marketing

everything, even Blackness, via popular culture. In short, America has changed
(78-79).

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To be sure, to contemplate the big picture of UMC white male appropriation we must
look at these individuals more closely and recognize the unique contextual situations and
idiosyncrasies of the participants. These unique stories help us to draw macro conclusions
about this phenomenon and in this chapter I will seek to do so by showing how these
idiosyncrasies can be categorized in order to more clearly see both the variances in UMC
white male appropriation as well as the bigger picture of Hip Hop culture and Black
Language appropriation in society writ large. Therefore, what is unique about my work is
that unlike Kitwana and others like him, I am not speculating based on a handful of
casual interactions and observations over the years concerning white people who love
Hip Hop. I am looking both at the rhetoric and language contained in the participant
responses and the context/background that made them eligible for this kind of study, how
they came to love and embrace Hip Hop. These ﬁndings will undoubtedly present
implications concerning how and why UMC white males appropriate Hip Hop culture
and Black Language and the impact these appropriations have on our academic, public,
and private spaces.

The following sections use detailed case study analysis of 4 study participants
(Chet, Dallas, Greg, and Cory) to clearly construct the variances evidenced in their
responses to Show how they can be categorized by their rhetoric of appropriation into
either Wiggas or neo-wiggas and more importantly what these variations can teach us
about the growing phenomenon of UMC white male appropriation of Hip Hop culture
and Black Language.
Wiggas

And I just do not got the patience

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To deal with these cocky Caucasians

Who think I ’m some wigger who just tries to be black
Cause I talk with an accent, and grab on my balls,

So they always keep askin the same fuckin questions
What school did I go to, what hood I grew up in

I

--Eminem, “The Way I am’

Ah, Eminem. On one hand the consummate wigga, ﬁghting the good ﬁght for all the
misunderstood white boys out there in suburbia. On the other, a legitimately talented
rapper who, while white, can be considered socialized black. This is to say that despite
his skin color his language and identifying culture is predominately and authentically
black. Therein lies the rage. Eminem, like most wigga’s growing up, does not want to be
considered a wigga, he wants to be considered black. I ﬁrmly agree with Boyd (2002)
who contends that “we cannot question his authenticity, nor can we question his right to
rap, considering that Hip Hop culture has been out in the open and ready to be
appropriated for so long” (128). Like many white males (UMC, LMC, MC, etc.) who
identify strongly with Hip Hop culture and Black Language, Eminem knows that a wigga
is on many levels considered a fake by society, as Charlie in Chapter 4 would say “fakin
the funk”. For these individuals that is the last thing they want to be aligned with, they so
vehemently crave acceptance into and through Hip Hop culture and Black Language, it is
so much a part of the identity they’ve crafted for themselves, that they will do anything to
appropriate all that they feel is authentic and legitimate in the culture and language to be
considered more “real” themselves. In support of this argument Boyd (2002) states:

If a Black person appropriates Whiteness, he or she is seen as a sellout, yet when

a White person appropriates Blackness, he or she is seen as cool. White

acceptance of and White participation in a Black form confers something like a

legitimacy, and in a world deﬁned by White supremacy, this sort of hegemonic
relationship is almost endemic to the production of culture (137).

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Unfortunately for these individuals, their efforts only serve to more ﬁrmly establish them
as Wiggas. The harder they try to be black the easier it is for them to be labeled as a
wigga. Their pursuit for legitimacy and belonging in Hip Hop culture almost certainly
warrants their exclusion from mainstream white society and thus stigrnatizes them as
cultural wannabes.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, it is important to clearly deﬁne what 1 mean
by wigga. To do so we must ﬁrst begin with the various deﬁnitions presented by Hip Hop
studies scholars concerning the word “wigger”. Of course, as earlier stated wigger is
considered a culmination of the words white and nigger. Offensive, yes. Readily used by
everyone trying to wrap their brains around white kids involvement in Hip Hop, to be
sure. Bakari Kitwana posits that the term wigger deﬁes and exaggerates reality (2005)
and he deﬁnes a wigger as “a young white who wants desperately to be down with Hip
Hop, who identiﬁes more strongly with Black culture than white” (113). While I agree
with Kitwana’s deﬁnition I would like to both elaborate upon it and offer my own
interpretation and deﬁnition of a wigga versus a wigger. The difference is this: a wigger
is a primarily outdated term because it exempliﬁes a young white male who wants to be
down with Hip Hop, a wigga (white nigga) is someone who has in many ways become or
evolved into being down with Hip Hop.

The best way to explain the difference is similar to the way many people evidence
the difference between nigger and nigga. Nigger in 2007 America is now largely
considered by black, white, and Hispanic communities to be offensive and is
predominately used as a highly negative and offensive racial slur against black folk. Even

Webster’s Dictionary changed it’s entry on nigger to reﬂect this, transcribing their ﬁrst

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deﬁnition of the term as “offensive”. Nigga, on the other hand, best summarized by
Smitherman (2006) is:

used to address another African American, as a greeting, or to refer, to a Brotha

or Sista. So it’s semantically inaccurate when the everyday, conversational use of

nigga is critiqued by saying “They call each other nigga all the time”... Nigga is a

versatile, complex term that serves many purposes (52—53).

Another deﬁnition is offered by Kelley (1994) stating that “nigga does not mean black as
much as it means being of product of the post-industrial ghetto” (210). So it’s safe to say
that “nigger” is a predominately derogatory term whereas nigga has much more complex
meanings within the Hip Hop community but is mostly used in amiable ways.
Furthermore, it can be posited that “nigga” is not exclusive to black folk, that it can and is
used for individuals who may have been socialized black (like Eminem) or those who are
marginalized as part of urban communities.

I posit a clear distinction between the terms wigger and wigga because even
though both are considered to carry negative connotations for both white and black folk,
wigger’s roots are too close to nigger for my liking. That is, the UMC white males in this
study are in no way trying to be offensive or to appropriate Hip Hop culture and Black
Language out of malicious intent or desire to be oppressed and degraded. To me, that is
what wigger represents, too much of a connection to a deeper pain and history that is lost
on most white folk. Wigga however evokes the familiarity and amiability of the black
communities use of nigga. That is to say that while most of these participants would not
want to be considered wiggers or vviggas, the term wigga infers a connection with Hip
Hop culture and Black Language. Wigger breeds disenfranchisement from Hip Hop

culture, wigga connotates the longing but also the mild acceptance and ﬁrll commitment

to Hip Hop.

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Overall it is my belief that vviggas do indeed crave Blackness through
appropriating Hip Hop culture and Black Language but in doing so they have also made
themselves part of Hip Hop culture due to their involvement in creating a new,
appropriated version of Hip Hop culture and Black Language. To be sure, they are not
fully accepted into the Black community, but in many social circles they are considered
to have appropriated so much of Hip Hop culture and Black Language that while others
may consider them wannabes or wiggers their knowledge and rhetoric of appropriation is
savvy enough to hold a space for them in the culture and language they so crave, and in
many cases this is true, that they do indeed belong to Hip Hop even if it is the
appropriated version.

To be as explicit as possible the following are what I deem to be common wigga
traits and characteristics:

0 Wiggas walk the walk and talk the talk. They emulate Black dress and speech and
if their skin privilege was not there to impede them, could easily pass as your
average Brotha.

o Wiggas identify with Hip Hop, they feel that the oppression and degradation
rapped about in the lyrics literally speaks to them and that it is their struggle as
well.

0 Wiggas know that they are knowingly bringing a negative stereotype and stigma
onto themselves and they do not care, this is what makes them seem hard, more
street, further authenticating their stature and uniqueness in mainstream white
society.

0 Wiggas are appropriating Blackness, not just Hip Hop culture and Black
Language. They use “acting” black as a process of identity formation and feel
connected to Hip Hop because it is still largely considered black music.

With these characteristics ﬁrmly established I will support my argument and

categorization concerning Wiggas with more detailed original case study data of two

participants, Greg and Cory. By closely examining my conversations with these

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participants it is my goal to make evident that even though the rhetoric of appropriation
varies depending on the individual, it can be categorized speciﬁcally between two
groups: the Wiggas and the neo-wiggas. Dividing the participants into these two
categories serves primarily as a way to Show more clearly how UMC white males
appropriate culture and language.

Spradely (1979) suggests that culture is “the acquired knowledge that people use
to interpret experience and generate social behavior” (5), which is largely what is
occurring in the Hip Hop culture and Black Language appropriation phenomenon. For me
these variances can be qualiﬁed through deﬁning and analyzing Wiggas and neo-wiggas.
Greg and Cory are the two participants in this study who I felt evidenced the most wigga
qualities in their rhetoric and lifestyle.

Greg

Of all my participants Greg is the most socialized “black”. By that I mean if it
weren’t for the fact that his light skin and eyes give him away, everything else about him
could be considered stereotypically black. Greg has a static wigga wardrobe consisting of
white T-shirt’s, baggy dark denim jeans, white Adidas or Zoo York sneakers, and a white
New York Yankees baseball cap with dark blue stitching worn crooked to the right side
of his head. This is his uniform and in the two years I’ve known him during the course of
this study he wears nothing else.

His voice is a low, steady drawl. If I had my eyes closed when he talks I swear I
could be listening to J ay-Z. His language is always peppered with Black Language
lexicon and varying degrees of tonal semantics. Though he is not always articulate in

representing himself he proliferates an air of conﬁdence and self-assuredness.

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Greg is from an UMC family in Sterling Heights and never excelled at school, to
say the least. He actually dropped out of the traditional public high school in the area to
attend an “alternative” trade focused high school in the neighboring city of Warren.
Though Greg had always considered himself a devoted fan of Hip Hop it wasn’t until he
entered the alternative high school that he really found kinship in his appropriations. It
was there that he met other like minded individuals that undoubtedly had an effect on his
socialization and thus became part of the catalyst for more ﬂagrant appropriation of Hip
Hop culture and Black Language. Safe in the conﬁnes of his peers Greg cultivated a clear
wigga identity, one that he still holds to today. The following is an excerpt from our 4
hour long conversation:

Jill: So, why do you like Hip Hop?

Greg: Uh, I guess cause I always liked the way it sounded and uh, that a lot of it

really was part of my life. I don’t know. ...I just love Hip Hop.. it’s like part of me

or something

Jill: So do you feel that what rappers are talking about in their songs relates to
you? Do you identify with what they’re rapping about?

Greg: Hell yeah! I mean, I had it rough. I hated school and all the jocks and preps
thought I was some kind of loser cause of the way I dress and act. I’m not real
smart neither so I was all failing my classes and shit. The only thing I liked was
like drafting and drawing so I ﬁgured all my friends went to Niles [the alternative
high school] so maybe I’d just be better off there. Man, was my moms pissed!
Anyways though, yeah, I mean Hip Hop is all about struggling and yo, I’ve
struggled.

Jill: So what Speciﬁc rap artist or song do you think is really reﬂective of how you
feel, of your life?

Greg: Um, uh. ...that’s a tough one. . .Deﬁnitely DMX and oh, probably Tupac. ..
Jill: Why DMX and Tupac?

Greg: Well, I guess it’s like, uh. . .DMX was what I was listenin too a lot when I
switched schools and he was all talking about how he’s been through tough times

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and is better for it. I guess, 1 like DMX because he gets real angry and his lyrics
and lets it all out, and I needed to let it all out ya, know?

Jill: What did you need to let out?
Greg: That I was like all pissed off and all about people judging me and shit and
like telling me I can’t be on the teams and thinking I’m some sort of loser cause I

like Hip Hop so much, I guess...

Jill: Do you think these people considered you or maybe still consider you a
wigga? '

Greg: Oh, for sho! Like now that Eminems famous and shit it’s like everyone

thinks I’m trying to be like him but I was like into wearin what I wear and listenin

to Hip Hop and all that waaay before Eminem.

Jill: So do you think you’re a wigga?

Greg: Ha-ha. . .no. . .I’m just a white kid that likes Hip Hop. 1 mean, I just like, I

guess I just like the fashion and the music and so much that I guess I start to

sound like rappers and Shit. I don’t know, I don’t like to be called a wigga cause

Wiggas are fake and I’m not fake. I’ve seen shit, ya know? I’ve had tough shit in

my life and most Wiggas are just frontin’
Greg portrays many wigga qualities in this interview excerpt. First, he relies on his belief
that Hip Hop is something akin to him, to his life and therefore that is why he likes it.
When he states “it’s like part of me or something” he is situating himself as part of Hip
Hop culture. Furthermore, he solidiﬁes his persona as a wigga when he connects his life
struggles with those rapped about in Hip Hop. He repeatedly states “I had it rough” or “I
struggled” in essence to appeal to his audience that he has legitimacy, that he is part of
Hip Hop because his life obstacles parallel those of the minority urban youth whose
voices dominate Hip Hop. Perhaps most pertinent to this study is his insistence and
repetition of his hard times to establish himself rhetorically as an authentic member of the

Hip Hop community. Though I cannot deny that his life has at times been tough it is

interesting to note that he equates his struggles with the long history of degradation and

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oppression that occurred to those who created Hip Hop and that those struggles are at the
core of the culture. To Greg, there is no difference between the struggles of black and
minority folk and his own.

For Greg the strongest evidence that posits him as a wigga is his appr0priation of
Black Language. Greg talks very “hard”. That is, he invokes a wide range of tonal
semantics to emphasize his points. When he says “Hip Hop is all about struggling and yo,
I’ve struggled” his tone and inﬂection is that of a native Black Language speaker placing
emphasis on the “yo”. He even performs a brief suck teeth (Rickford, 1996) noise before
the “yo”, a common practice in Black Language to show emphasis and disgust or
annoyance with what the speaker is saying. By invoking these Black Language traits in
such a way he is clearly positioning himself as one who is knowledgeable about how
Black folk speak and act and has appropriated these gestures, lexical items, and semantics
to strengthen his own argumentation and rhetoric.

Greg further evidences Black Language appropriation with his frequent g-deletion
(wearin, listenin) and lexicon (frontin, yo, fo sho!). Like his use of “yo”, his utterance of
“fo sho” is classic Black Language appropriation wigga behavior because he is using it to
agree with the fact that people may view him negatively as a wigga but more importantly
he says it to prove that he talks the talk and because “Wiggas are fake and I’m not fake”.
Greg’s use of authentic Black Language is meant to undoubtedly prove that he is in fact
“real” to his audience. Though he may or may not be cognizant of this rhetorical appeal
he is in fact appropriating Black Language to appear more authentically black, despite

that he is white and upper middle class.

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We can further see his pursuit of authenticity in our discussion of whether or not
he is a wigga. Like Eminem, Greg views the concept of label of a wigga to be negative,
in his words “fake”. Unlike Eminem, Greg was NOT socialized black, he grew up
surrounded by white people doing culturally white things. Greg is clear that he believes
himself to be “just a white kid that likes Hip Hop” and this clarity of conviction is what
leads me to argue that he is in fact a wigga. As earlier stated a wigga’s goal is achieving
an authentic persona of blackness and therefore they refuse to believe that they are a
wigga, the epitome of fake blackness.

To connect Greg’s wigga categorization to the broader discussion of the rhetoric
of appropriation I argue that these interview responses are rooted ﬁrmly in the pursuit for
cultural capital and symbolization. Greg is adamant that his audience understand that he
has had a life different from that of his UMC white male peers, that his experiences are
unique. In turn these experiences posit a certain amount of cultural capital. That is not to
say that Greg sought out to struggle in order to achieve cultural capital but that he is
using these negative experiences to “ﬂip the script” into something positive, an entree
into Hip Hop culture. His struggles are his badge of honor, something that makes him
more “Hip Hop” and more legitimate in that culture.

Greg’s clothing, language, and invocation of Eminem as binary to himself can be
seen as signing or symbolization of his identity through Hip Hop. As earlier stated he
clearly dresses as a stereotypical wigga, and clothing is perhaps the most overt form of
symbolization in the process of identity formation (Eckert, 1989). By dressing the way he
does Greg is positing himself as part of something, part of the social and habitual

practices of those active and visible in Hip Hop culture. If one were to merely glance at

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him on the street it would be obvious that at the least he has an afﬁnity for Hip Hop and
at the most is a full-blown wigga. His appropriation of Black Language can be seen as his
way of linguistically positing his membership in Hip Hop culture. He states that, “I guess
I just like the fashion and the music and so much that I guess I start to sound like rappers
and shit”. Here he is afﬁrming the assumption that many people consider him to talk and
act like Hip Hop artists and that is because he is an avid and vehement fan.

What 1 ﬁnd most interesting about Greg’s rhetoric of appropriation through
symbolization is his construction of a binary between himself and Eminem. He wants to
make it clear that his identity was not constructed post Eminem’s success stating “Like
now that Eminem’s famous and shit it’s like everyone thinks I’m trying to be like him but
I was like into wearin what I wear and listenin to Hip Hop and all that waaay before
Eminem”. I ﬁnd this binary telling because it shows that Greg is aware of how others
view him as a wigga but that he believes his language, thoughts, actions are less “wigga”
because he spoke, thought, and acted this way before Eminem made it cool to do so. This
can be interpreted to mean that he feels more legitimate and justiﬁed in his position in
Hip Hop culture because he showed interest and commitment before the rest of
mainstream society.

Cory

Like Greg, Cory had the whole wigga appearance down, unlike Greg however
Cory was much more soft spoken. Cory wore the baggy jeans, white T, and baseball cap
but was much less chatty or forthcoming than Greg, and seemed to just want to stick to
what I felt were mildly cursory answers to my queries. Perhaps, this is because Cory is

supremely pre-occupied with his day to day responsibilities as a young father and factory

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line worker. Though Cory was raised in an UMC household and suburb he was quickly
beginning to blur the line into middle class. Despite this factor I’ve included him in this
study because I think he is a great examﬂe of a true Wigga, an individual who is not
conscious of his identity choices as being predominately due to Hip Hop but just lives his
life in the only way he knows how. For Cory, Hip Hop is just about beats and music but
his language and dress communicate a completely different story.

1 met Cory through Jeff and Bryan. At ﬁrst, I was unsure of whether Cory would
be a good candidate for this study because he was so incredibly quiet. Even though he
didn’t say much in our ﬁrst few casual meetings I was sure 1 could detect an air of
introspection about him, that he had plenty to say but was waiting for the opportune
moment. That being said Cory didn’t give me a whole lot to work with but the fact that
he had quite a bit of responsibility for his age (22), I thought it would be interesting to
hear what he had to say about Hip Hop, namely why someone so seemingly quiet and
reserved like him would like such a loud, brash genre of music and ﬂashy, gritty culture.
The following in an excerpt from our interview session together:

Jill: Let me ask you something, since you have a daughter, would you want her

listening to rap? What do you think of how women are portrayed in rap music?

Do you have any problem with that? Do you think that’s ok? Would you want

Jordan to listen to that music? If they were rappin’ about your daughter, how

would that make you feel?

Cory: Well, you know, First off she can, you know, listen to anything she cares,

it’s pretty much music, and to her ears it’s good music, then you know. I’ll listen

to anything I think is good, Good music is good music. . ..

Jill: So, it doesn’t bother you

Cory: I mean, no it doesn’t, no. If she wants to listen to it or you know , maybe

she’ll like country music you know. If she did like rap music that would be ﬁne
with me.

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Jill: Do you like hip/hop rap why?
Cory: Yes, obviously
Jill: Why?
Cory: Hip Hop it has like. . ..because, I like beats, beats that goes with hip-hop the
whole theme of hip-hop. ....it’s just, it’s good music. For me um, I also like the
beats. . . .a very big fan of the beats, considering I uh... dancing and what not more
like the lyrics, the lyrics crack me up. More like when you go to a club, when you
go to a club to don’t hang out to heavy metal unlike you’re in that sort of club and
most clubs aren’t like that so uh, dance music. Can’t really get any better.

Jill: So who’s your favorite hip/hop rap artists?

Cory: Wow. Ha—ha

Jill: Top three?

Jill: It’s hard huh?

Cory: Yeah, there’s so many good ones.

Overall this excerpt shows that Cory is a great example of a wigga because he
both dresses and acts the part and is simplistic in his belief about why he does so. For
Cory his identity is basically established around the fact that he likes Hip Hop for it’s
musical qualities. He wears clothes that are indicative of the Hip Hop culture and
community because that is what he sees in the popular culture media portrayal of Hip
Hop music, he listens to the music, likes the beats and lyrics and therefore is comfortable
in emulating that style and outlook in his own life. While this observation may seem
overtly simplistic this rationalization is truly indicative of UMC white male Wiggas. They

feel as though they have enough going on in their lives, for Cory dealing with the stresses

of parenthood, work, and the expectations and conﬁnes of an UMC existence, and

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therefore seek out Hip Hop as a way to escape these seemingly mundane issues in their
lives.

Though I am aware my case study methodology is limited in its ability to
determine transparency through my brief interaction with Cory, I am led to infer that he
does not seem to be consciously ignorant of Hip Hop history and struggle but more so
cognizant of what he likes recreationally and that plays out in his formation of identity.
Hip Hop does not deﬁne him, it is merely a music he loves, listens to, dances to. It is a
form of release that he creates for himself everyday in his conscious choice to put on the
wigga uniform. Cory cannot be bothered with linguistic or cultural implications of his
appropriation. He is what he is and because of that attitude he is situated ﬁrmly in the
wigga camp.

Neo-wiggas

Ladies and gentlemen it is my pleasure to introduce to you the neo-wigga. He is largely a
construct of uniquely American design, based on the changing face of race in this
country. He is native to UMC white communities, is educated, and has a good, well
paying job. He has emerged rhetorically savvier than his wigga counterpart due to paying
close attention to the linguistic and cultural tutorial that is played out daily on our
national media outlets and in the entertainment industry. If not for the mass consumption
and appropriation of Hip Hop culture and Black Language in mainstream society the neo-
wigga would not exist. He has taken all the most pertinent parts of this appropriation and
ﬂipped it just so to craft an identity that is leaner, smarter, and more renaissance than
your average wigga. Kitwana (2005) posits that young preppy white kids “want one foot

in their comfort zone—white elite circles—a few toes dabbling in white youth cool and a

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few others in their interaction with a handﬁrl of Black ﬁiends” (123). I ﬁnd this to be an

excellent deﬁnition for neo-wigga’s. They only appropriate carefully selected Black traits

and daily expertly traverse the line between easily recognizable appropriator and guy who

just likes Hip Hop. To be more speciﬁc here are their most noticeable common

characteristics and traits of a neo-wigga:

Neo-wiggas are extremely adept at code switching. They know when to invoke
Black Language and when to seamlessly transition into the LWC. They are aware
of their audience. They also use Black Language much less often than Wiggas.

Neo-wiggas dress Sharply. That is they appropriate the ﬁner things in Hip Hop
culture and style. Think the clothing styles of Diddy, Kanye and Common rather
than Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and/or Lil John.

Neo-wiggas predominately know the history of Hip Hop. Unlike Wiggas, they are
aware of the roots and the struggle, how Hip Hop came to be.

Neo-wiggas are educated past high school.

Neo-wiggas have higher paying jobs than Wiggas.

Neo-wiggas are Hip Hop connoisseurs and consumers. Because they have some
money they spend it on the latest Hip Hop trends and fads. This is reﬂected in
either how they dress, what they drive, and/or how they speak.

For neo-wiggas Hip Hop is not considered an identity or way of life, it is a music
and culture they identify with but it does not deﬁne them.

Like all individuals, neo-wiggas still have their idiosyncrasies. This is to say that they

don’t all embody each and every one of the above traits and characteristics but they do

display a majority of them. The best way to evidence these traits is of course to look at

those in this study who most closely resemble them. In my research, Dallas and Chet are

the most notable and distinguishable neo-wiggas.

Dallas

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As far as neo-wiggas go Dallas is the archetype. He grew up in an UMC home,
attends university, has a steady job, and moonlights as a mix-tape DJ/artist on the nights
and weekends. He is a perfect blend of wigga and UMC prep, never displaying one
category fully, always straddling the line between the two. For example, if he is wearing
a throwback cap, crooked slightly to the side, the rest of his ensemble is full-on UMC
white boy, khaki pants, polo shirt, Steve Madden dress shoes or designer sneakers. If he
is wearing a large throwback jersey he won’t be wearing baggy pants or jeans and
certainly will be without baseball cap. To be sure, Dallas would never be confused for a
wigga and his dress does not necessarily reﬂect a person who is a devout Hip Hop fan or
part of Hip Hop culture. However, to the trained Hip Hop eye there are a few give-aways,
the crooked hat or the fact that you think you may have just seen Diddy or J ay-Z in that
exact throwback but you can’t be sure.

When he speaks he uses some Black lexical terms but his tone is devoid of Black
oral tradition characteristics. Dallas speaks quickly and articulately, as if he is always at
the ready to spout off on a myriad of topics. Almost as if his brain is one big rolodex
ﬁlled with points and theories ready to divulge. If the particular topic is offered he simply
ﬂips to that cue card and he’s off and running.

Dallas knows everything about Hip Hop: past, present, and future. If he were a
Hip Hop scholar he’d be Jeff Chang, the encyClopedia of Hip Hop facts and ﬁgures.
Perhaps this is why he is successful at mixing new artists’ work onto “tapes” (now
compilation CD’S but they are still called mix tapes). He has a deep portfolio of Hip Hop

artists and beats to choose from and is pretty successful shopping these tapes to late night

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independent radio stations in the area and a fare amount of clubs both in Detroit proper
and the suburbs.

I have to admit that interviewing Dallas is what prompted me to coin the term
neo-wigga. The rhetoric he invokes when talking about Hip Hop is well crafted and
clearly presented and he is ﬁrmly rooted in his beliefs about the superiority of Hip Hop
over all other musical genres and cultures. Because he is so well-spoken, so
knowledgeable about his opinions and assumptions he is probably the most dangerous to
those who value old school Hip Hop culture and Black Language. Dallas is the
personiﬁcation of appropriation and is persuasive enough to get others to believe his
version is authentic and legitimate.

Jill: So why do you like Hip Hop?

Dallas: It’s got everything you need. You need to start the party, Hip Hop. You

need get angry, listen to Hip Hop. You need some new gear, check out the latest

Hip Hop magazine or video. You need to make money, Hip Hop is it.

Jill: So it’s all about what you need? (smiles)

Dallas: Damn, right! (laughs) No seriously, I always like Hip Hop and I like

other music too but Hip Hop is the only thing I felt I could do to. 1 don’t play any

instruments and I for sure wasn’t gonna join the marching band in high school.

Hip Hop just ﬁt for me.

Jill: Why, though? Did you relate to what they were talking about in the lyrics or
was it the beat.

Dallas: Both, and honestly I like the whole lifestyle. I don’t want to shoot people
or sell drugs are nothing but Hip Hop is all about the bling, all about gettin what’s
yours, trying to get as much money and power as you can.

Jill: And you relate to that?
Dallas: Yeah, I mean, I had a pretty good life but I want more ya know? I don’t
see why I can’t have all that bling too. It’s like I got something to say, I know a

lot about Hip Hop. 1 mean there were times that I was like obsessed, couldn’t get
enough. Watchin MTV, BET, reading all the magazines, knowin all the shit about

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all the rappers and their past and their baby mommas (laughs). Let’s just say I
know my Shit.

Jill: So you consider yourself a Hip Hop head then?

Dallas: Shit, I’m the deﬁnition of Hip Hop head! (laughs) I bet I know more about
Hip Hop than any of those so called battle rappers down in Detroit.

Jill: That’s a pretty bold statement my ﬁiend. ..

Dallas: Yeah, but I know. 1 mean, 1 like am around a bunch of those people in the

game, in the rap game, and it’s like ‘you better check yourself’ cause some white

boy from the burbs knows your shit better than you. Basically I make money off

my mix tapes cause 1 got more knowledge than the rest of them. I know how to

download all the hottest shit from the intemet and mix it up tight!

Jill: Do you think Hip Hop is a culture and if so are you a part of it?

Dallas: Man, this is like school or something (laughs). I don’t think it’s a culture I

think it’s a game. I mean, uh, it’s like a way to Speak your mind and make money

doin it. Even though I don’t rap I’m makin money doin Hip Hop ya know, I’m

part of the game, part of the “culture” I guess.
The ﬁrst neo-wigga trait that Dallas displays is the positing of liking Hip Hop, knowing a
lot about it but not fully embracing it as a way of life. When he says “its got everything
you need” and “I’m the deﬁnition of a Hip Hop hea ” I argue that he is establishing
himself as a adept connoisseur of both the music and culture but simultaneously is
drawing a line between preference and being an appropriator. For Dallas, he is simply
using his knowledge to make money, turning an interest into something proﬁtable. This
mantra is undeniably Hip Hop, it’s the “make a dollar outta ﬁfteen cents” work ethic that
Dallas is appropriating for his own good.

Dallas recognizes and embraces his whiteness, “cause I’m a white boy from the
burbs”, which is something a wigga would never do. By drawing attention to the fact that

he is white Dallas is showing pride in both his adeptness at existing in both the UMC

white world and the urban Black community as a mix-tape artist. He also straddles this

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line in his choice of when to invoke Black Language. He uses words like “bling” and
“baby momma” ﬂippantly, almost jokingly. I believe that this is his rhetoric of
appropriation to evidence to his audience that he is aware of the cultural capital these
words bold but that he can invoke them both ways: to pursue entre'e into that culture and
to Show that he knows about that culture but is not really part of it.

Furthermore, when striving to Show his legitimacy and skill as a mix-tape
DJ/artist he tends to appropriate more Black Language than when he is discussing Hip
Hop as culture. He uses Black lexical phrases such as “you better check yourself” and
Black verb tense when he says “cause I got more knowledge than the rest of them” to
illustrate to his audience that he is “down” but not so down that he can’t ﬁt easily into
UMC white society when he needs to. To be sure, Dallas is ﬂippin the script on Hip Hop
culture and Black Language. He fully admits that he is using, or as 1 would say
appropriating, what he can and “making money doin it”.

Chet
The best way to describe Chet would probably be as a reformed neo-wigga. That

is, he’s old school, one of the original neo-wiggas. By day Chet is a ﬁnancial consultant
for a major ﬁrm in Troy, Michigan. That is, he works a 9 to 5 job making over $50,000 a
year, wears a suit and tie, and owns his own home. Chet is a fairly attractive guy. He is
clean shaven, has dark, Slightly long on top, curly hair and is athletically built, a hangover
from his days as college football quarterback. This is weekday Chet and he plays the part
to a tee.

But like Clark Kent, Chet has a remarkable alter ego. Come weekend it’s all Hip
Hop, all the time. At closer inspection of his pristine Chrysler 300 (a car that Snoop Dogg

advertised for) will reveal an MP3 player chock full of every piece of Hip Hop ever

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recorded. He admits that old school rappers like Tupac and Biggie and R&B crooners
like R. Kelly and Jodeci are his favorites but he’s getting really into the new Dirty South
craze and has downloaded everything from Outkast and Ludacris to Lil Wayne, Lil John
and Mike Jones. One would also notice that the person behind the wheel is dressed not
like a corporate cog, but more like Snoop Dogg himself: Backward cap, throwback jersey
or wife beater tee, baggy pants and designer sneakers, very expensive designer sneakers.
Chet is a Hip Hop head but he’s one with money, a disposable cash ﬂow that fuels his
passion for the culture and has only increased his craving for all things Hip Hop. Chet is
too educated, too UMC, too 9 to 5 working stiff to be a wigga, but he is too deeply
involved in the culture and language of Hip Hop to be considered a marginalized
hobbyist.

Chet is clear that Hip Hop is a way of life for him—a weekend warrior way of
life—but a way of life nonetheless. It is obvious in the way he dresses and talks that he is
supremely inﬂuenced by Hip Hop culture and Black Language and is candid in talking
about why this is so. While Chet was raised predominately in an UMC white suburb of
Detroit he did spend his junior high years in a middle class neighborhood bordering
Detroit proper. For him, these few years are all the entre'e that he needs to feel justiﬁed
and legitimized in his appropriations. That, and as he said “I’m giving them my money,
so I should get to use their lyrics and way of life in my daily life as much as I want,
right?” He may have a point, but it’s imperative to look at the highlights of our
conversation to be sure.

Jill: Why do you love Hip Hop so much?

Chet: Honestly, it was the only music I was drawn to when 1 was younger. That,
and when I really started listening to music I was living in East Pointe and there

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was a lot of Black kids who went to my school and they were my ﬁiend because
we were all on the [basketball] team together so that was the music we listened to
to get pumped up for the games and during practice and stuff.

Jill: But what is it about Hip Hop that appeals to you?
Chet: What, you mean like the lyrics or beats or whatever?
Jill: Sure.

Chet: Yeah, that (laughs). Seriously though, it is about the beats and when I guy
needs to get pumped up there’s nothing better than Hip Hop, holla! (laughs) Lots
of guys listened to heavy metal and stuff in the locker room but that all just
sounded like crazy, screarnin noise to me. Hip Hop had ﬂava, had a story,
something 1 could relate to.

Jill: Exactly what was it that you could relate to?

Chet: Being a guy, an athlete, a kid trying to ﬁgure out who he is. If you didn’t ﬁt
with the crazy head bangers, and you didn’t like the Dave Matthews Band or
Phish, you had to ﬁt somewhere. Hip Hop is where I ﬁt, it’s just a matter of likes
and dislikes I guess.

Jill: So you identify with Hip Hop?

Chet: Well I don’t think I’m black if that’s what you mean. . .(laughs) but yeah I
identify with the need to better myself, be a better athlete, be a harder worker, get
all the bitches and money (laughs). I mean I’m not oppressed or nothing, I know
I’m white and I’m certainly not a wigger, my dad would kill me if I talked like
that.

Jill: Why?

Chet: Cause wigger’s are ignorant and want to be black. I don’t want to be black I
just like Hip Hop music, clothes, style you know?

Jill: Do you talk differently around your Black friends?

Chet: I don’t know, you’d have to ask them. But, uh, yeah, probably. When we’re
playing ball there’s a lot of shit talking and I guess “black” talking.

Jill: Do you think other people who see you on the weekends consider you a
wigger or an appropriator?

Chet: Never a wigger, cause of how I talk and frankly the car I drive. The wiggers
I know all have beat down cars and shitty jobs. I don’t think I’m taking anything

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from Hip Hop that isn’t meant for me anyways, I mean who buys all the rap

records now? White guys like me. I’m given them my money, so I should get to

use their lyrics and way of life in my daily life as much as I want, right?.
Interpreting Chet’s data is especially exciting because he is aware of his appropriation but
is also clear in his justiﬁcation. From my perspective he is most aware of what the
temperature in mainstream society is concerning white appropriation of Hip Hop through
commercialization and is aware that he is beneﬁting greatly from this because it is
making the music and style he loves more easily accessible to weekend warrior Hip Hop
heads like him. Chet knows the score, he knows that Hip Hop has become increasingly
popular in mainstream culture to the point of saturation and therefore, it is imperative to
him to make clear to his audience that he was down long before the rest of America.

Chet can rely on invoking a short stint living with/near Black folk and credits that
as his reason for being into Hip Hop. He mentions his Black friends and living in close
proximity to Detroit proper as a way of legitimizing his authenticity in appropriating.
That is, his rhetoric of appropriation is played out through his pursuit of cultural capital.
Chet got a taste of Hip Hop culture through his experiences and it has stuck with him
long enough that he still goes back to that space in his head when needing to justify his
interest in Hip Hop.

This lack of Black Language appropriation in this interview excerpt is actually
indicative of the entire 3 hour long interview itself. The only time Chet appropriates
Black Language is in jest (hollal). This shows that he is aware of the fact that his
audience is predominately native LWC speakers. He does, however, admit to “talking

Black” while engaging in sports with his Black friends. Looking back I wish I had asked

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him if he used Black Language while not in the presence of Black folks to see if his code-
switching was as adept in his life outside of sports.

Ultimately, Chet can be considered a good example of a neo-wigga because he
loves and embraces all the things that a wigga does but without the whole wigga image.
Chet does not feel the need to dress or act Black all the time to evidence his love for Hip
Hop. He does however identify with Hip Hop on his own terms, invoking wigga-ish
tendencies when it suits him or the social situations he is engaging in at the time. Chet is
a neo-wigga because he can see the big picture, the hype surrounding Hip Hop culture
and Black Language and even so still chooses to appropriate a fair amount of it himself.
Even though his rhetoric of appropriation is more subtle than the others, it is still
recognizable in his responses juxtaposing himself against wiggers. He views wiggers as
being ignorant and uneducated and feels he is obviously exempt from those categories.
Conclusion

By showcasing the rhetoric of appropriation of both Wiggas and neo-wiggas we
can see the variance of UMC white male appropriation of Hip Hop culture and Black
Language. These variances illustrate that ﬁrst, there are varying degrees of appropriation
and second, that these differences display the vastness and growing phenomenon of
cultural and linguistic appropriation going on in American society today. By placing
participants of this study in the neo-wigga or wigga camp we can begin to more robustly
deﬁne and discuss the meaning of how and why UMC white males appropriate Hip Hop
culture and Black Language, to Show that there are patterns to this behavior. I am
conﬁdent that how these particular participants responded in the rhetorical situation of the

interview coupled with more in-depth background knowledge of the individual can be

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used as a solid beginning to understanding the commonalities and the differences in these
particular groups of appropriators. This categorical knowledge will undoubtedly have
implications for how we discuss Hip Hop culture and Black Language appropriations in

the classroom, which will be covered more concretely in the next chapter.

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Chapter 6: The Rhetoric of Appropriation in the Rhet/Comp Classroom
I wrote these words for everyone who struggles in their youth

---Lauryn Hill, “Everything is Everything” (1999)
That is, after all, why we do this scholarly thing we do—isn ’t it? To change the world?
To learn how to solve contemporary problems in productive and generous ways? Not to
publish article after article in pursuit of individual acclaim? If we engage in this work, as
Susan La F lesche did, in order to work for our people, our community, our discipline,
then maybe we should begin our negotiations toward alliance with a wholesale and
meaningful questioning of criteria by which we ‘judge ' one another ’s contributions to

that community as significant, rather than simply assuming the same long-practiced and
dominant critical, theoretical, and pedagogical ﬁameworks.

--Malea Powell from “Down by the River” (2004)

T o be able to name one ’s experience is part of what it means to “read the world” and to
begin to understand the political nature of the limits and possibilities of life within larger
society. T o be literate is not to be free; it is to be present and active in the struggle for
reclaiming one ’s voice, history, and future.

«Jabari Mahiri (2004)
Discovering and claiming your own identity is no easy feat. For some, it comes on
naturally, something indescribable you can always feel prickling at the back of your neck
pushing you to make certain choices. For others, identity formation is much more
complex, they struggle to ﬁrst discover who they are by looking at who they were and
only then can claim the identity that they feel has been designed, or they have designed,
for them. If nothing else, I want the students in my rhetoric and composition classes to
learn to use their varying identities in constructive and meaningful ways, to bridge gaps
to make new knowledge through invoking their previous cultural and linguistic beliefs
and blending and fusing them with new and critical ways of approaching and challenging
those beliefs and ideas. 1 want for both them and myself as a teacher to “be able to name

one’s experience. . .and begin to understand the political nature of the limits and

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possibilities of life within larger society” as Mahiri posits above. The best way 1 know
how to do this, to “do this scholarly thing we do” (Powell, 2004) is to use a cultural
studies pedagogy via Hip Hop culture and Black Language to discuss the growmg
phenomenon of the rhetoric of appropriation. For me cultural studies pedagogy allows for
connection to the non—canonical in both traditional and non-traditional ways. These
particular heuristics and strategies become even more productive when conjoined with
the infusion of Hip Hop culture and Black Language as a topic of critical reading,
writing, and performance as well as the ability to analyze material and cultural artifacts
(advertisements, videos, websites, clothing, etc.). What is unique about the pedagogy I
am crafting is the addition of a forum for discussion of new rhetorics, speciﬁcally the
rhetoric of appropriation. To comprehensively study how the rhetoric of appropriation is
evidence of a wider pursuit of identity, to seek cultural capital, to symbolize legitimacy
and worth, to embrace institutional language as a means to appeal to a greater audience.
In focusing on these topics critically and analytically I believe the comp/rhet classroom
can become a place where all identities, all struggles, all languages, all cultures are heard
and valued. To be sure, “We don’t have to believe one another’s beliefs, but we do have
to acknowledge their importance, understand them as real, and respect/honor them in our
dealings with one another” (Powell, 2004242). In acknowledging the reality of Hip Hop
culture and Black Language appropriation in mainstream society we can begin to
understand the complex ways that culture and language is manifested in our daily lives
and to respect and honor the variances that surround us in modern day America.

Hip Hop culture and Black Language are indeed being appropriated by a growing

number of UMC white males. The previous chapters have not only illustrated this fact but

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more importantly have showed how their rhetoric of appropriation is unique to this group
of individuals. However, Chapter 5 also shows that within this group patterns have
emerged to prove the participants beliefs, attitudes, assumptions, and arguments
concerning Hip Hop culture and Black Language may ostensibly shift the mainstream
society’s perceptions of the culture and language writ large. What this chapter seeks to
achieve is to connect this research to the broader scope and space of the composition and
rhetoric classroom. Namely, how teaching the rhetoric of appropriation will serve to
establish new rhetorics and in turn new knowledge and meaning concerning popular
culture and language issues.

Honestly, I see no point in writing an entire dissertation or conducting two years
of research that will not in some way proliferate new knowledge in meaningful ways to
students of rhet/comp. More importantly, infusing a cultural studies pedagogy via Hip
Hop culture and Black Language appropriation will not only bring the topic to the
forefront of writing classrooms, it will also provide an open and honest forum for
students to discuss appropriation—their own, others, mainstream media—so as to better
make sense of how that appropriation is impacting their lives as citizens of this country,
students of these institutions, and participants of culture and language writ large.

Currently, many writing instructors are citing cultural studies as their pedagogy of
choice. I would argue that most instructors invoke cultural studies in order to connect
students to their work/writing in more innovative and engaging ways. In other words,
give students a topic they are familiar with and they will write, bore students with

rhetorical analysis of canonical literature and they will not.

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I too believe that students will only be vested in their writing and research if they are
actually engaged/interested with/in the material being discussed in the composition
classroom and that cultural studies pedagogy in the rhet/comp classroom presents such
material and teaching strategies in innovative and interesting ways.

The result of my original research in this dissertation will provide for the
designing of a course focusing on the rhetoric of appropriation concerning Hip Hop
culture and Black Language. There is a growing body of praxis that is further establishing
the merits of cultural studies pedagogy in the rhet/comp classroom (Dimitriadis, Mahiri,
Morrel, etc.) and I plan to build off this previously conducted work to create a more
robust pedagogy of my own. I feel that in an effective and interesting composition and
rhetoric course it is imperative to embrace theories and pedagogies that support and
compliment the connections between language, culture, and society in ways that will
prove relevant to student’s academic, personal, and professional lives.

Established Cultural Studies Pedagogy

Composition classrooms need cultural studies to engage students more fully in
material. Within the cultural studies framework, students are encouraged to become
critical readers of a culture and its popular productions, and to see all texts as culturally
anchored (George and Shoos, 19922202). It allows students the ability to work with
concepts and artifacts that are familiar and interesting to them. Furthermore, cultural
studies pedagogy allows me to borrow from Hip Hop studies, African American studies,
sociolinguistics and classical rhetoric to teach critical thinking and rhetorical analysis. In
these chapters of my dissertation I seek to provide new and innovative ways that Hip Hop

culture and Black Language as well as their appropriations can be integrated into the

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composition classroom to better engage students with the material as well as to draw
critical and close reﬂections and analysis on language and culture writ large. While there
has been a fair amount of research conducted using Hip Hop culture and Black Language
as catalysts and topics for critical discussion and rhetorical inquiry, there have been few
who have attempted to discuss how the rhetoric of the appropriators can be used to spark
Similar critical thought. Studying the rhetoric of appropriation proves that those who
appropriate are not just pirates but actually evidence rhetorical and literacy strategies an
moves that can be used as tools to teach our students how to become more rhetorically
savvy and critically minded themselves by teaching Hip Hop rhetoric in conjunction with
how that rhetoric is appropriated and used through varied means for varied ends.

The following is a review of the research previously conducted that I have based
part of my original pedagogical approach concerning appropriation. Examining the
language and literacy practices of upper middle class white males as they appropriate Hip
Hop culture and Black Language will aid those of us in the ﬁeld in understanding how
cultures and communities morph and stretch when appropriated and what that means for
the students in classrooms, homes, and the civic space.

James Berlin is perhaps the most prominent scholar that comes to mind when
trying to situate cultural studies in the composition classroom. Berlin has directly
addressed the project of cultural studies pedagogy stating, “students must come to see
that the languages they are expected to speak, write, and embrace as ways of thinking and
acting are never disinterested, always bringing with them strictures on the existent, the
good, the possible, and regimes of power” (1992224). In this way Berlin situates all

aspects of classroom activity and interaction in the broader scope of culture. For him it is

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imperative that students and instructors understand that all of their moves within the
classroom are culturally engendered and loaded in some way. Berlin further suggests that
there is a connection between the major points of contention in composition studies—
deciding how best to respond as teachers and researchers to the language and societal
demands made on students by the dominant culture (Bruch & Marback, 1996).

This notion is broadened by Bruch and Marback as they contend that the popular
practices students devise as literacies are situated within and shaped by the political,
economic, and physical geographies of their everyday lives (161). Cultural studies in the
composition classroom is therefore not just related to the experiences within that room
but also encompasses those lived experiences of life in the “real” world, life that involves
economic, social, and political traditions and subsequent conﬂicts.

As earlier posited Geneva Smitherman states that, “Hip Hop refers to urban youth
culture in America” (19992268) and students are the largest discourse community that
represents this culture. For many students, Hip Hop is the embodiment of the “real”
world, its language, culture, and music speaks to them on a level that is difﬁcult and
sometimes even impossible for many teachers to reach. It is imperative to understand that
Hip Hop is no longer just relegated to “the streets”. S. Craig Watkins (2005) makes this
point clear:

“What began in basements, on street comers, in public parks, and throughout the

still of the night would furnish young people fertile spaces for crafting new
identities, explosive art forms, and later, whole industries” (9).

No, Hip Hop cannot be ignored. Like or not, love it or hate it, male and female students
of all races, creeds, and cultures, as young as kindergarten and as high as doctoral

candidates, know Hip Hop—even if they don’t know they know it. Hip Hop is

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everywhere, in the clothes we wear (Sean John, Baby Phat, Fetish), in the voting booth
(P.Diddy’s Citizen Change and Rap the Vote campaigns), even the new drinks at the
local bar (Crunk Juice, Alize). The inﬂuence of Hip Hop culture has indeed morphed and
stretched to ﬁt all levels of society.

So, if cultural studies “is no doubt most closely associated with bringing a more
deliberate use of popular culture and media studies into the composition course” (George
& Trimbur, 2001281) then how can we as teachers and scholars of composition ignore the
widespread culture of Hip Hop in our classrooms? For this generation—and 1 would posit
many to come—Hip Hop will only become more intertwined with popular culture and the
media. Therefore, it is no surprise that Hip Hop music and culture has made a striking
and successful appearance in many composition classrooms.

Using Hip Hop in the classroom has proven and will continue to prove that these
varied discourse communities may be reached and better yet, understood, by teachers and
students in the attempt to achieve higher knowledge and greater meaning. Taking a page
from cultural studies pedagogies that encourages the writing of the popular, Rice (2003)
examined the way Hip Hop constructs discourse, the way it produces rhetorical meaning
through its complex method of digital sampling, and how such a rhetoric ﬁmctions within
the scope of argumentation (454). Rice argues that Hip Hop pedagogies challenge the
dominant power structures of academic argumentation in the classroom.

For example, it is obvious that the rhetoric of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter
From a Birmingham Jail” is persuasive and powerful, in both its past context and the
present day. Hip Hop pedagogy would build off of the rhetoric of the Civil Rights era by

looking at Hip Hop lyrics and music through the same rhetorical lens. This pedagogy

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would juxtapose the rhetorical moves of such canonized work as King’s against the lyrics
of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” to illustrate how current forms of composition are
not so different from the past. This type of rhetorical analysis is likely to resonate more
deeply with students, as it is something they are more closely related to and can more
aptly query and examine. In this way, Hip Hop pedagogy is a place to begin such
questioning regarding our ability to resist dominant/traditional modes of thinking in the
academy (Rice, 2003).

In addition to using Hip Hop pedagogy as a way to conduct rhetorical analysis, it
has been used to embrace the narrative in student writing. By looking at popular topics
writing teachers are enabled to broaden commonplace practices: (1) to begin student
writing with a topic “close to the self,” close to student experiences, and (2) to teach close
reading and interpretation of texts, as in Rice’s case, by substituting popular culture or
media for literary texts (George & Trimbur, 2001282).

Dimitriadis (2004) was able to engage students in the writing of personal
narratives by prompting them to write their thoughts about Tupac, both his life and death,
and what he meant to them as individuals. What he found was that in their understanding
of Tupac’s life, these young people cobbled together a story, co-creating a narrative that
fore-grounded a kind of superhuman invulnerability that had crucial social currency at
this site and in their lives (118). These students of all races were able to respond
knowledgeably and with ease to this prompt due to the fact that Tupac is a ﬁgure they
knew and could identify with and thus tap into their own personal beliefs on a wide range
of subjects that became apparent in their authentic narratives. Through a Hip Hop

pedagogy, these narratives, or stories, are becoming the tools by which we can better

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understand our relationships with ourselves and with others. They bring both educators
and students “close to the self” in order to better examine and make meaning about
cultural and personal phenomenon.

Another heuristic in the cultural studies composition classroom that has been
conducted is using a Hip Hop pedagogy as a means to examine canonical poetry. Morrell
and Duncan-Andrade (20042252) operated on Mahiri’s (1998) argument that elements of
youth popular culture such as Hip Hop music potentially could act as unifying and
equalizing forces in culturally diverse classrooms, and that certain elements could also
provide motivation for learning traditional subject matter. This only reiterates the earlier
point that Hip Hop pedagogy need not be relegated only to the urban classroom but to
any classroom that is in need of connecting diverse students to one another and their
curriculum.

Morrell and Duncan-Andrade’s students were able to make connections between
canonical poetry like Eliot, Whitman, and Shakespeare and more contemporary forms of
poetry written and performed by Hip Hop artists like Grand Master Flash, Public Enemy,
and Nas. Overall, the students engaged in both critical, intellectual work, and work that
has currency in the academy and will help them navigate the gate keeping mechanisms
that often preclude them from access to higher education and economic empowerment
(266). Hip Hop pedagogy takes what may seem to students as inaccessible and largely
uninteresting texts and makes them accessible and interesting enough to critically
analyze, to learn skills that will be expected of them as they venture into future academic
and professional endeavors. Though, I agree with Morrell and Duncan-Andrade’s belief

that “Hip Hop music should be able to stand on its own as a worthy subject of study in

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the academy rather than just being a bridge to something more ‘acceptable’ like canonical
texts” (266), I understand that engaging in cultural studies through Hip Hop pedagogy is
a relatively new academic pursuit and is just beginning its reign on the composition
classroom, one that is sure to grow and ﬂourish.

Infusing Hip Hop in the composition classroom is one way to engage students in
writing, in another way it can be used to invoke civic mindedness in their communities.
To be sure, Hip Hop is embraced most commonly by those who relate on some level to
the lyrical messages of oppression, disenfranchisement, and urban street culture. For
many it is the soundtrack of the streets and inextricably their lives. This then points to the
varied messages about civic duty and citizenship that are available in Hip Hop culture
and music. On some levels Hip Hop simply portrays the notion that “living large” is the
only viable form of citizenship (Bruch & Marback, 1996). This portrayal in many ways
brings hope and meaning to those in urban spaces whose lives are currently void of these

beliefs.

As Walser (1995) suggests, “dialogue and other aspects of rhythmic rhetoric
demand social explanations, for notes produce meaning only as they unfold in
communities” (206). As Bakhtin has previously posited, all utterances are socially
organized, no one utterance is original (Bizzelll & Herzberg, 20012 1215). Therefore, to
fully weigh the impact that Hip Hop music and culture create in the civic mindedness of
those living in an urban space, one must understand those lyrics are socially constructed

from that space. Jon Yasin (1999) recognizes this social construction stating:

Rap music interprets primarily experience or existing situations. It is important to
stress that the performance (or recitation for one’s own enjoyment) of rap is not
limited to paid performers. Rap is an integral part of the culture of urban areas where
it ﬂourishes. . . Stated differently, rap is organic in its cultural context. Rapping skills

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are developed throughout the full social fabric of people’s lives. Many if not most,
young people are rappers at some moment, and they recite raps for all the reasons that
anyone anywhere engages in stylized communicative behavior ‘free of charge’ (213).

To position Hip Hop in this way means to accept the connectivity of music to culture and
lived Situations, that not so unlike the war and social injustice protest rockers of the
1960’s and 1970’s, Hip Hop provides a space and place for dissonance in it’s lyrical

content. Yasin further purports that:

It is important to remember that rap is used not just for entertainment and critique, but
also for education and the spread of information. Over the last thirty years, it is the
messages of rap, as well as other forms of popular music, that young people have

listened to, as opposed to messages emanating from mass media, books, public
speeches, and so forth (221).

What Yasin is saying might seem obvious to many cultural studies scholars but for many
individuals Hip Hop is just another untapped potential resource in both teaching critical
thinking, reading, and writing as well as, and perhaps more importantly, fostering civic
engagement. The civic messages and rhetorical strategies evidenced in Hip Hop lyrics are
sometimes the only “education” youths will accept. I argue that one way to encourage
students in both urban and suburban Spaces to become more civic minded is to appeal to
their sense of comfort and familiarity, which is where the intersections of cultural studies
and rhetorics of Hip Hop come in. Using Hip Hop in the composition classroom to relate
to the youth sparks interest and understanding about citizenship that may have been

unattainable when working with the “old” canons of literature.

To more fully prove the legitimacy of my pedagogical approach of blending old and
new, I recognize it would behoove me to invoke some rhetorical heavy hitters to help
support my point. Ultimately, I am arguing that as the power of Hip Hop and its
appropriations grows and strengthens so does the connection between these modern day

rappers and classical rhetors. Aristotle, Isocrates, Cicero, and Quintilian were the

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classical examples of men with great power and wealth. Their followers/students
envisioned them as the learned, the educated, the truth. For students today, Hip Hop
artists are the personiﬁcation of the truth. They may not be classically educated, but these
artists deﬁnitely have the power and the wealth to impact civil discourse. A glaring issue
that needs to be addressed in using Hip Hop culture, Black Language, and appropriation
in the composition classroom is how to address such topics in a diverse space. That is,
how do we as teachers approach Black language, culture, and appropriations by white

folk in a critical and objective way?

Trainor (2002) speaks directly to that problem and provides varied approaches to
dealing with those students and perhaps more importantly examines ways to contradict
traditional representations of whiteness in literature through critical pedagogy. Trainor
posits that as teachers we are caught in the dichotomy of encouraging students to be
themselves while also trying to change their sometimes narrow views. She suggests that
we confront this contradiction and the ways it delimits how we see mainstream students,
in order to represent and understand encounters with resistant students in less politicized
and essentialized terms (634). To examine this idea She analyzes case studies of particular
students within the basic writing curriculum, speciﬁcally how students read and write
race. What she found was that students need help to articulate antiessentialist identities as
whites and to work through the paradoxes of constructing an antiracist white identity and
that we as teachers need to be more aware of the rhetorical frames our pedagogies
provide for students as they structure identity. For the purposes of my research, using this
approach to teaching Black Language and Hip Hop culture, especially the appropriation

aspect, will help me to be more aware of the need to ﬁnd a balance between villainizing

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traditional works and themes in writing/literature and sparking awareness of the
suppression and oppression of many marginalized voices within that work.

I would like to build off the previous author’s notions of culture, language, and
cultural studies and examine how others have argued for cultural studies in the
composition classroom, speciﬁcally through a focus on Hip Hop culture and Black
Language, and their appropriations. More Speciﬁcally, I wish to use the research of those
before to build upon a study of the rhetoric of appropriation. Namely, how UMC white
male’s rhetoric of appropriating Hip Hop culture and Black Language can be discussed
and critically examined in the rhet/comp classroom. I believe that such appropriations
and their justiﬁcations are an untapped source of rhetoric that remains unstudied and will
be useful in teaching our students about non-traditional rhetorics, helping us and them to
navigate the complex intersections of language and culture more clearly.

The Rhetoric of Appropriation in the Composition Classroom

Don’t get it twisted like those fools out in Oakland all in a tizzy 10 years ago over
the “Ebonics” issue. The Ebonics case, which I fully support and embrace in the teaching
of writing, was about valuing varied discourse and languages in American school systems
and “stressing Ebonics as a bridge to teaching literacy to Aﬁican American students. It’s
emphasis is on teaching students Standard English speaking skills, on teaching the
teachers about the Ebonics speakers’ language and culture. . .”(Hoover, 1998273).
Therefore, when 1 reference teaching the rhetoric of appropriation, that does not mean I
expect my students to become more sawy appropriators through work done in my
writing class. It’s imperative that I quell the fear that Ebonics held, namely the perception

that teachers would be instructing students on how to “talk black” when in actuality the

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movement was meant to educate teachers in order to better understand and work within
and with the vernacular of their students to positive educational ends. It also does not
mean I will be instructing them as to how to enact rhetorics of appropriation. What it
does mean is that a comp/rhet course that discusses the rhetoric of appropriation will deal
mainly with educating the students on the existence of this rhetoric, what it means for
them within the larger scope of rhetoric, society, education, Hip Hop culture, and Black
Language. Overall, teaching the rhetoric of appropriation will serve to identify these
complex moves and strategies invoked by UMC white males and others in mainstream
society and how these appropriations are shifting perceptions both positively and
negatively concerning Hip Hop culture and Black Language.

AS evidenced earlier in this chapter their have been many scholars (Pough,
Dimitriadis, Campbell, Mahiri) who have invoked Hip Hop in the composition classroom
as a way to bridge gaps, embrace student interests, and engage student’s more critically in
reading, writing, and speaking. However, I have yet to read a piece of teacher research
that engages in talking critically about appropriation of Hip Hop culture and Black
Language or speciﬁcally about white appropriation in their composition classrooms. Of
course, I do not purport that such work is not being done but I do think my research is
original in that I am striving to teach my students both how to become effective rhetors
(writers, readers, speakers) and more analytical viewers of the culture and society that
surrounds them. I wholeheartedly agree with Carnpbell’s (2005) argument that:

Given rap’s oral and literate modes, its riveting narrative of life in America’s

urban ghettos, its caustic critiques of American racism, classism, and sexism, and

its broad appeal amount youth of all races, genders and classes, I argue that Hip

Hop music an culture should ﬁgure into literacy studies and composition

pedagogy for (that’s right all students). . .For Hip Hop has turned oral street-
comer rapping into literate art. (Campbell, 20052127)

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Now more than ever, it is imperative to get our students thinking about and critiquing
dominant power structures, to question the “traditional” and “mainstream” American
ideals of class, sex, and race. Hip Hop lyrics and culture have been doing this critiquing
for some time and is ripe for adaptation in composition pedagogy. However, I would add
that we need not only look at and use Hip Hop in our classrooms but also discuss how the
growing trend of UMC white male appropriation of both the culture and Black Language
is affecting this “literate art”. Discussing how and why this phenomenon of appropriation
is growing and really begin to examine what the “mainstreaming” of Hip Hop is doing to
the culture and language.

To further my argument as to why we should be teaching the rhetoric of
appropriation in our composition and rhetoric courses I invoke James Gee (1986) for
support:

Language and literacy acquisition are forms of socialization, in this case

socialization into mainstream ways of using language and speech and print,

mainstream ways of making meaning, of making sense of experience. Discourse
practices are always embedded in the particular world view of a particular social
group; they are tied to a set of values and norms. In learning new discourse

practices, a student takes of this set of values and norms, this world view (742).

I argue that appropriation of Hip Hop culture and Black Language is a type of acquisition
as a form of socialization. UMC white males have pillaged all that they could from the
mainstream media and other sources to craft an identity that would aid them in navigating
the world in unique ways. As earlier established, UMC white males are indeed
appropriating Hip Hop culture and Black Language as part of their process of identity

formation. They have acquired a language and literacy as a way of forming social groups,

a “mainstream way of making meaning.” The discourse practices of UMC white males

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who appropriate the culture of Hip Hop and the language of black folk are indeed
viewing the world from the same place and space. Their values and norms are surely tied
up with Hip Hop evidenced by their pursuit of learning this new discourse that would
normally be set apart from them economically, regionally, and racially. With this
growing hunger for new discourses in youth culture comes the responsibility for teachers
of composition and rhetoric to recognize this new phenomenon of discourse
appropriation and consumption, to talk about it openly in our classrooms, and to
encourage our students to do the same. At the same time we must be cognizant of the
varying identities that exist in our classrooms. As Gilyard (1991) states, “A pedagogy is
successful only if it makes knowledge or skill achievable while at the same time allowing
students to maintain their own sense of identity” (11). That is, through critically studying
and reading Hip Hop culture and Black Language artifacts via a cultural studies
pedagogy teachers can clearly enhance writing as an achievable, tangible deliverable that
is even (gasp) enjoyable. However, as instructors we must also be aware that by studying
such contemporary issues students will come to the scholarly table with much more to
say, and perhaps much more conﬂicting and heated ideas and discussions that we may
have previously encountered in the composition classroom. In order to mediate these
discussions and conﬂicting identities, teachers must teach the value of varied voices, a
Sophistic approach to seeing all views and even though not all agree, seeing the purpose

and motives behind these identity constructions.

By tapping into the potential of student experiences, narratives, and musings

on/about appropriation we can begin to challenge the media mill in its often inauthentic

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portrayal of Hip Hop culture and Black Language that is proliferating to the masses at an
astounding rate. Campbell (2005) echoes this call:
Clearly, student writing about such kind of lived experience will likely challenge,
even threaten, the values the academy seeks to inculcate in its charges. But, hey,
that ain’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, many of the values academic
institutions promote can also be deeply hegemonic and psychologically damaging
to some of the constituents they claim to serve. (137)
Not only does Campbell resonate the need for valuing student narratives in the
composition classroom, he further calls for the recognition of the overwhelming
hegemony that exists in higher institutions and education writ large. Even though our
writing classrooms are becoming more and more diverse, the way in which institutions
engender hegemonic ideals of whiteness remains embedded in the bedrock of most
colleges and universities. Therefore, it would be irresponsible to conduct a class dealing

with issues of race, culture, and language as they relate to Hip Hop and appropriation

without ﬁrst examining the long standing manifestations of whiteness in academia.
Whiteness in the Composition Classroom

I am a ﬁrm believer of institutional transparency. That is, students in my classes
are always made aware and informed about my motives and methods behind my
pedagogy. I not only invite them behind the curtain but I give them the grand tour. I think
it is important to be honest and open with them about the hoops they have to jump
through as students, citizens, individuals, and/or employees and that the reality is much of
the experiences they encounter in institutional spaces will likely be engendered with a
history of white, secular, male, straight rhetoric. Thus, in teaching the rhetoric of
appropriation of Hip Hop culture and Black Language it is important to build on the

theories presented by Trainor above and ﬁrrther examine classical and contemporary

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ideas and notions about whiteness that are inherent in our culture, community, language,

and society as Americans.

Furthermore, I would be completely remiss, and borderline delusional, ifI did not
address the fact of my own whiteness in the classroom. My students are made aware that
while I feel no pangs of “white guilt”, I am fully aware of what my being white
engenders in a classroom full of diverse faces geared up to learn about subjects dealing
predominately with people and language of color. I recognize that some of the best
scholars in the ﬁeld conduct amazing teaching and scholarship while still maintaining a
veil of ignorance surrounding their race, religion, and/or social class, etc. However, I
fully believe for my classroom to be a successful, safe, and comfortable space for
learning and for my scholarship to hold any legitimacy in the ﬁeld of Hip Hop studies

that it is my duty to be transparent to all audiences concerning my views on whiteness.

I hold true to an absence of “white guilt” in my teaching and scholarship ﬁrst
because I feel as if extending a mea culpa before I even begin is counter productive. This
ﬁeld does not need a white scholar writing and teaching about blackness and Hip Hop
under the umbrella-ed assertion that she/he feels to blame about the state of society’s
cultural and linguistic shortcomings. Furthermore, I do not feel guilty in my whiteness
because 1 have always known my path in life has been made smoother just for being
white, and instead of dwelling on that fact and constantly apologizing for it, I embrace it.
This is what I call “using my whiteness for good not evil”. That is, by coming to terms
with and embracing my whiteness and “getting on with it” I am able to do more objective
work, to put my full attention and dedication behind my pedagogy and academic

scholarship. I am always aware I am white but I refuse to apologize for it because I can

187

honestly say I’m doing my best to make transparent in my work and classroom all the
deep, dark, embedded evils of not just hegemony in America, but the overwhelming
structure of patriarchy as well. Kennedy, Middleton, and Ratcliffe, et al (2005) refer to

the counterproductive and often debilitating nature of white guilt stating:

Obsessing on white people’s guilt—or lack of guilt—shifts the focus from the issue at
hand (whether the issue is how whiteness informs rhetorical history of how whiteness
informs high school students’ actions). No one living today is individually to blame
for the origins of the US’s racialized social structure, which afﬁrms the privilege of
whiteness; however, within this inherited historical and social structure, everyone is
accountable for his/her actions and for recognizing that simply championing a color
blind identity does not e-race the powerful effects of racism. Such accountability is
very different from guilt (367-368).

In this way I am recognizing and being accountable for my whiteness and all it engenders
without being bogged down in guilt for something I cannot change. Overall, my goal is to
talk openly about what it means to be our embodied identities in an institutional space of
learning, that if I expect them to share their stories on/about their identity then I surely

plan to do the same.

The ﬁrst step in discussing whiteness is of course coming to some semblance of
an agreed upon deﬁnition of what studying whiteness means for students of writing about

culture and language. Kennedy, Middleton, and Ratcliffe, et a1. maintain that:

So when the CCCC panelists referred to the matter of whiteness in terms of theory,
pedagogy, and technology, they were invoking all three signiﬁcations: the value of
bodies, the materiality of bodies, and the troping of bodies. . .Whiteness studies is not
about individual white people per se; rather, it is about how whiteness as a cultural
and racial category functions within US language use and haunts US people, literature
and institutions (360).

Working from this deﬁnition of both whiteness and whiteness studies illustrates the
extreme importance of recognizing the complexity of the issue. That we must examine

whiteness not just as race, or white people, but as a signiﬁer of encoded cultural and

188

racial functions within our personal and public spaces. The purpose of studying whiteness

in our classrooms is articulated again by Kennedy, et a1.

For those of us who work in rhetoric, composition, and cultural language use,
whiteness, studies helps us understand how whiteness is reproduced as a neutral
category—in other words, universal, invisible, normal and unmarked. . .A huge
beneﬁt to white students, in particular, and to all student, in general, is the
opportunity to explore and affirm their own individuality and diversity within—and
without—the norms of whiteness (3 67).

Thus, by being transparent and critically aware of whiteness and what it engenders we are
offering our students a more objective and less institutionalize picture of what it means to
exist in a troped society. This knowledge is empowering and can/will be reﬂected in their
coursework, hopefully ultimately leading to the dismantling of often oppressive

colonizing traditional rhetoric that abounds in our higher education institutions.

In a course about the rhetoric of appropriation we must also discuss the complex
intersections of whiteness and appropriation, namely that white appropriation of
blackness is in no way a new concept. As previously stated in Chapter 2, Eric Lott (1993)
diligently examines the roots of appropriation through his study of Blackface minstrelsy
and its connections to America’s predominately white working class in the mid to late

19th century. Here he discusses the early conﬂicts between appropriation and whiteness:

The blackface male is after all a ﬁgure for the audience’s looking, however ridiculous
he is made to appear; the ‘wench’ encompasses in her person male and female both;
and the relationship between the two ﬁgures is fore grounded. The singer’s most
ridiculous impulse is indeed to proclaim his love for such an unworthy object as
“blackness”. The familiar (and familial) irony is that the act derided white America
for its fascinations with blacks while at the same time it marked that fascination.
Surely this structure of feeling evidences again the precariousness or dissonance or
conﬂictedness that marked white people’s sense of their own whiteness (166).

In this excerpt we begin to see the impetus for such blatant appropriation of black culture

through Blackface minstrelsy that may indeed be inextricably linked to the conﬂict many

189

white individuals internalize concerning their own whiteness. This is to say because
whiteness is historically envisioned as race-less and culture-less leads to an intrinsic
pursuit for culture and race in one’s identity. America’s, and speciﬁcally white
mainstream America’s, fascination with black culture Lott would argue. stems from a
large portion of the population being “uncomfortable” or conﬂicted with their sense of
whiteness. This argument of course holds true when held up to the UMC white males in
this study. To quell this discomfort many white Americans continue to look to other
cultures, in this case black culture, to act as a either a binary to their own identity or as an
exotic ideal they wish to appropriate, both strategies are indeed part of identity formation
and creation.

This argument ﬁom Lott can easily be juxtaposed against a Hip Hop studies
scholar like Campbell (2007) who posits:

Although whiteness has of late been a rather contested topic of discussion among

our ranks. . .I suspect that many of our students learn more about what it means to

be white and middle class from someone like Eminem than from anything we can

teach them (330).
While I completely agree with Campbell’s notion of invoking tangible examples of Hip
Hop in the classroom to connect students to the issues surrounding whiteness I believe
that studying the rhetoric of appropriation in conjunction with Hip Hop artifacts and
whiteness can indeed begin to teach students what it means to be white. Here it must be
noted that teaching the rhetoric of appropriation is in no way a class for white students.
As discuss earlier, I belief studying new rhetorics, any rhetorics, is imperative for
students of all races and classes. That “students (of all racial and social backgrounds) also

need to recognize the power of language, of rhetoric through the manipulation of

linguistic codes, conventions, and styles” (Campbell, 2007: 333) and that transparency on

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the part of the instructor about whiteness combined with close consideration of
appropriation of Black Language and Hip Hop culture is key to that recognition.

In teaching the rhetoric of appropriation, clearly evidencing the link between
appropriation and whiteness is key. Using portions of those who study whiteness
(Middleton, Trainor, Lott, Hebdige) combined with work of Hip Hop studies scholars
(Cambell, Pough, Mahiri, Kitwana) teachers can clearly illustrate both the impetus for
appropriation and the larger importance of recognizing whiteness, what it is, what it
means, and what it does in our society. Students must understand that whiteness matters,
not just in looking at the rhetoric of appropriation but in seeing the world, that they must
employ a critical lens in any study of culture and language. Furthermore, it is important
to note that in no way does this coursework vilianize whiteness or appropriation, its
purpose is simply to get students thinking and writing more critically about the world
around them through engaging and cultural signiﬁcant topics. Regarding teaching
freshman writing courses focusing on Hip HOp Campbell (2007) aptly states:

In the end, though, the point is not to piss off students (our customers), or even to

criticize them per se. It is to engage them in honest and forthright dialogue, to

prompt them to question social constructs and their vested interests in them so

that they can truly think freely and independently (336).

If we can embrace this ideology, teaching the rhetoric of appropriation through Hip Hop
studies can surely bring about more fruitful socially and racially conscious work and
mindsets from our students. The question I’m sure you’re all wondering now is how
exactly do we do this?

Pedagogical Case Study, or How I Teach the Rhetoric of Appropriation

Indeed, I would not be able to approach teaching appropriation if I had not done

work on this dissertation. Only now, after inﬁnite pages of interview transcriptions,

I91

contextual analysis of the rhetorical situations of those interviews, and an informed
analysis and discussion of those results am I able to fully attempt to integrate the rhetoric
of appropriation into my composition classroom. I echo Campbell’s (2007) belief that
“Hip Hop and its ghettocentric worldview are ever pitted against the American
mainstream or middle class, it makes sense to draw from it to counteract white middle
class hegemony in composition” (338). In order to combat and make clear “white middle
class hegemony in the classroom” there are a myriad of factors to consider when
broaching the teaching the rhetoric of appropriation in a writing class. Issues of
whiteness, appropriation, culture and language all have to be addressed in a clear and
thorough manner in order to engage in dissecting and critically analyzing the rhetoric
involved. Discussing rhetoric, of course, is the ﬁrst step in engaging with the rhetoric of
appropriation. Instructing students that the traditional rhetorical appeals of ethos, pathos,
and logos are at play and ﬁrmly enacted in non-traditional artifacts (websites,
advertisement, music video, etc.) is the cornerstone of establishing a critical lens through
which to view the world.

To tackle all of these issues through writing I devised and am currently teaching a
class called “The Rhetoric of Hip Hop”. Though this course is not concerned wholly on
the subject of UMC white male appropriation of Hip Hop culture and Black Language, it
does deal speciﬁcally with the rhetoric embedded and evidenced in Hip Hop in which
studying appropriation is a large part of a ﬁve week unit on the visual rhetoric of Hip
Hop. The ﬁrst 10 weeks are spent reading and discussing both traditional and non-
traditional “texts” predominately from Neal and Foreman’s (2004) Hip Hop Studies

Reader. We concentrate on broad issues within and throughout Hip Hop speciﬁcally,

I92

history, culture, language, gender, politics and space/place. More critical and speciﬁc
discussion is fostered in the writing assignments tasking students to draw from class
themes and texts to craft complex rhetorical analysis of Hip Hop lyrics (See Appendix
C). This assignment, and the one’s leading up to it, is designed to lay the foundation of
rhetoric and the rhetoric appeals as a heuristic to critical thinking, reading, analysis and
writing. These concepts act a springboard to engaging in discussion and writing on
various topics to follow, thus preparing them for more robust assignments like the
research paper (See Appendix D). An excellent and concrete example of the connective
and critical possibilities in teaching the rhetoric of appropriation was evident in the
following excerpt from a student in my Rhetoric of Hip Hop course this semester. He
chose to write his research paper in part narrative style, to place himself as a white guy
who likes Hip Hop in the analytical mind frame of questioning his own motives in
conjunction with other sources (Kitwana) who speak on the topic of the
commercialization and appropriation of Hip Hop by white society. Mike writes:
So then the question is, are white people stealing rap? Again 1 think the answer is
yes. We are taking rap from Aﬁican-American’s by consumer power. We are
changing it, controlling it, and inﬂuencing it to the point where rap culture reﬂects
less on black urban life realities, and more on the pre-packaged unreal black urban
life that whites desire to be a part of. Rap is becoming a cheap thrill, and not the
real deal. At some point the messages get lost and the corporations take over.
Rap in the future may not be a “black” art form, because it is in the process of
being painted white.
I must say that while reading this I was overcome with a sense of pride and
accomplishment. First, I am proud of Mike for being not only critical and analytical with
the course material but doing so in both a creative and conclusive form. His writing

smacks of reality while he draws important conclusions about the future of Hip Hop

culture, including attention to the issue of race throughout. Second, I feel

193

accomplishment in knowing that Mike gets it, he sees the big picture of Hip Hop culture
and Black Language appropriation by white mainstream society and isn’t afraid to call it
as he sees it despite, or perhaps in spite, of his own whiteness, i.e. recognizing that he is
part of this UMC white male phenomenon. Overall this paper, and others like it, showed
me that my students have progressed in critically examining the issues surrounding/on
Hip Hop and are ready to enter into more controversial and problematic waters
concerning commercialization and appropriation of culture and language.

It is in the ﬁnal ﬁve weeks that we begin discussing mass media and society
appropriation of Hip Hop culture and Black Language more speciﬁcally through visual
rhetoric. This is when we begin to come to conclusions as a class concerning what may
be problematic about these appropriations and what may be positive outcomes of this
commercialization. For example, when placing the following quote from Tricia Rose
(1994) on the white board, “In every region, Hip Hop articulates a sense of entitlement
and takes pleasure in aggressive insubordination” (60), and asking them to reﬁne, refute,
or agree with that statement as it relates to commercialization and appropriation in/of Hip
Hop culture and Black Language, students were eager to point out both the importance of
race and class in deﬁning what it means to be entitled and the different forms of
“aggressive insubordination” that stem from those categories. They were drawing
connections between Hip Hop, culture, language, race, and class to make sense of the
impact and aftermath commercialization and appropriation has/will have on Hip Hop
culture and Black Language. Furthermore, what discussions like these breed is a larger

consideration of whether Hip Hop has gone mainstream or whether mainstream white

194

society has gone Hip Hop, which deals directly with the evolution of the rhetoric of
appropriation as it inﬂuences society.

Whatever the conclusions may be is not the point, the point is to get students
thinking more critically about the changing face of Hip Hop culture and Black Language
and what appropriation, whiteness, and commercialization have to do with that change.
Much of what I’ve examined in this dissertation forms and posits implications and
analysis on how UMC white male appropriation’s cyclical nature is proliferating
appropriated versions of Hip Hop culture and Black language to mainstream society as
the authentic or legitimate versions. While students in my class have evidenced a keen
interest in Hip Hop and know a fair amount about its history either from the course or
previous knowledge, they are still tasked to view Hip Hop cultural artifacts and Black
Language through the lens of the less qualiﬁed consumer, the everyman who is not as
educated on/about Hip Hop as them. By making this juxtaposition transparent they begin
to critically examine how either Hip Hop has gone mainstream or the mainstream has
gone Hip Hop and more importantly what this means for Hip Hop culture and Black
Language writ large. Like Powell (2004) I am ostensibly saying to my students “1 want
you to stop and puzzle through the various connective possibilities, to stumble and
question and work at making meaning with them” (40). My hope is that the ﬁnal
assignment (See Appendix E) helps them to evidence the culmination of these critiques
and analysis on/about Hip Hop and teaches them to be more critical viewers of the
rhetoric of appropriation surrounding them and to take that knowledge with them
wherever they go.

Conclusion

195

There is so much more being written on Hip Hop and being constructed on the
study of Black Language (H. Samy Alim’s (2007) Rock the Mic Right is just one of the
many I wish I had access to before crafting this dissertation as well as Elaine
Richardson’s (2006) newly published Hip Hop Literacies) that I know this work is not
complete. However, what I do know for sure is that I have, to the best of my ability, made
a case for the importance of recognizing and valuing new rhetorics through my research
on how and why UMC white males appropriate Hip Hop culture and Black Language by
showcasing a number of individuals doing just that and discussing their reasoning behind
these appropriations as well. While idiosyncratic in many ways, the individuals in this
study all evidence the main characteristics of the rhetoric of appropriation——
symbolization, institutional language, and the pursuit of cultural capital—as ways to form
more concrete and cultured identities through Hip Hop. Furthermore, I have shown that
two concrete categories are evident in their appropriation—Wiggas and neo-wiggas—
which leads to a more robust and thorough account of why these UMC white males do
that appropriation thing they do.

This work is important for our ﬁeld because as rhet/comp scholars we are meta-
scholars by nature. The best of us don’t just “do” one thing. What this research does is
apply on multiple levels. To those who are interested in case study, my work evidences a
way of interpreting interview data in context, taking a little bit ﬁom ethnography and
narrative inquiry to learn more about why these participants respond in the ways they do.
For rhet/comp-ers who are also Hip Hop studies scholars, this research evidences a
growing phenomenon in Hip Hop culture and Black Language, that UMC white male

appropriations are in many ways becoming mainstream America’s preferred

I96

interpretation and personiﬁcation of Hip Hop. Perhaps, even that Black Language is
being forced to change in response to these appropriations less it risk linguistic
legitimacy. The straight up rhetoric scholar will recognize old rhetorical strategies
appropriated to form a rhetoric of appropriation, one that is sure to continue seeping into
our institutions via our students and through the study of which we can make new
connective knowledge and meanings about the nature and scope of culture and language
in our society. For the composition pedagogy people, this ﬁnal chapter illustrates issues
and subjects that need to be discussed in conjunction with the rhetoric of appropriation in
order to fully understand where this rhetoric comes from and where it is going.

For me, I want this dissertation to work, for students, for teachers, for researchers,
that the issues and theories discussed here do what Hip Hop has done for decades—to ﬂip
the script and make it your own. Or as Tricia Rose (1994) much more articulately states,
my research strives to help students, teachers, researchers, and communities in:

Developing a style nobody can deal with—a style that cannot be easily

understood or erased, a style that has the reﬂexivity to create counter dominant

narratives against a mobile and shifting enemy—may be one of the most effective
ways to fortify communities of resistance and simultaneously reserve the right to

communal pleasure (11).

There is a distinct rhetoric to how UMC white males appropriate Hip Hop culture and
Black Language and this topic needs to be researched and discussed more widely to ﬁrlly

understand the phenomenon in order to preserve new and engaging scholarship while also

adding new ﬂava and knowledge to our ﬁeld.

197

Appendix A

Tentative Interview prompts/questions

Key words: black language/talk, black culture, white culture, Hip-Hop/Rap,
violence, oppression, struggle, perceptions, attitudes, assumptions

10.

ll.

12.

13.

14.

15.

. Why do you like hip hop?

What is it that draws you to hip hop?

How did you become involved in the hip hop scene/culture?

How would you deﬁne hip hop culture?

Who’s your favorite Hip-Hop/Rap artist? Why do you like him/her?

What is your favorite Hip-Hop/Rap song? What speciﬁcally do you like about it?

Do you identify with these artists and songs? Do you feel like they
speak/represent to you? Why?

Do you think Hip-Hop/Rap culture is violent?

Why do you think Hip-Hop/Rap artists rap about violence? How about women?
How do Hip-Hop/Rap artists portray women in their songs? What do you think
about this?

Do you think Hip-Hop/Rap is a black thing? Why/why not?

What do you know about black history? What about black culture?

Why do you think so many UMC white males listen to Hip-Hop/Rap?

Why do you think so many UMC white males try to emulate/act like Hip-
Hop/Rap artists?

Do you consider the way you look/dress/music you listen to to be reﬂective of
black culture?

How about the way you talk?

198

Appendix B

Project Title: UMC White Male Appropriation of Hip-Hop/Rap Culture and Black
Language
CONSENT FORM

You are being asked to participate in my research on upper middle class white male
appropriation of hip-hop/rap culture and black language. The goal of this study will be to
gain a better understanding of this phenomenon by interviewing you on your perception,
assumptions, beliefs, and attitudes concerning hip-hop/rap culture/music and black
language.

I would like to ask you to participate in this research by allowing me to interview you for
approximately one hour on the subjects of hip-hop/rap culture/music and black language.
Any and/or all of your perceptions, assumption, beliefs and attitudes may be used in my
research. Your participation is completely voluntary and has no bearing whatsoever on
your current political, social, or economic status. You may refuse to answer certain
questions or choose to discontinue your participation at any time. All results will be
treated with strict conﬁdence and your identity will remain conﬁdential through the use
of pseudonyms, which you may choose, in any report of my research ﬁndings. Only Dr.
Geneva Smitherman (my supervising investigator) and I will have access to the data, and
your privacy will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law. Results will be
made available to you upon request.

There are no known risks associated with participation in this study and furthermore your
participation in this study may contribute to the understanding of the growing
proliferation and subsequent appropriation of hip hop culture and black language. If you
agree to participate in this research, please sign and date below. If you have any
questions or concerns regarding the project, please contact me. Thank you very much for
your cooperation.

Jill M. McKay, Ph.D. Student

Critical Studies in Literacy and Pedagogy

Dept. of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures
Michigan State University

3D Olds Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824

Phone: 517-353-1613 (ofﬁce); 248-361-2829 (cell)
E-mail: mckayjil @msu.edu

If you have questions or concerns about your rights as a research participant, please feel
free to contact Peter Vasilenko, Ph.D., Director of the Human Subject Protection
Programs at Michigan State University: (517) 355-2180, fax: (517) 432-4503, email:
irb@msu.edu, or regular mail: 202 Olds Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824.

199

.................... CUT HERE & RETAIN THE TOP PORTION

Project Title: UMC White Male Appropriation of Hip-Hop/Rap Culture and Black
Language CONSENT FORM

1 voluntarily agree to participate in this study.

Name: Date:
- (Please print)
(month/day/year)

 

(Signature)

200

Appendix C

Assignment #1: Rhetorical Analysis of Hip Hop Lyrics
ENG 106
Spring 2007
Due: Friday February 2

For this assignment choose a Hip Hop song (lyrics can easily be found on the Internet)
and perform a rhetorical analysis. Papers must examine the lyrics in order to identify the
three rhetorical appeals: pathos, ethos, and logos. The paper will also require some
background research be conducted about the author/artist of these lyrics in order to more
fully portray the author/artist’s rhetorical moves and your interpretation of them. Below
are questions that should be addressed in this assignment:

What is the overall purpose/message of this song?
Who is/are the audience (s)?
How does this song appeal ethically, logically, and/or emotionally to the
audience(s)? This means you must use concrete examples from the lyrics to
justify/prove your argument.

0 Does your knowledge of the artists background shape the way you interpret this
song? How?

0 Is the rhetoric invoked in these lyrics effective? Why or why not?

The following are formatting requirements for this assignment:

3 to 4 pages long (3 1/2 is acceptable, 2 3A is not!)
Double-spaced

12 point times new roman or 11 point Verdana or Tahoma
Name and Section number at the top

Stapled! !!

The ﬁnal paper is due Friday Februagy 2. However, you must bring in a rough draft for
writing workshop on Monday January 29 and a polished draft for peer review on
Wednesday January 31.

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Appendix D

Assignment #3: Issues in Hip Hop Research Paper
ENG 106
Spring 2007
Due: Monday March 26

This assignment asks you to dig deeper into the issues surrounding Hip Hop using the
rhetorical appeals discussed in class. You must choose one chapter from the course text
that has NOT been assigned in the syllabus and build/craft an original argument based
on the issue discussed in the article (gender, politics, language, space/place,
commercialization/appropriation, etc.). To ﬁrlly support your argument you must use at
least 2 outside sources (books, articles, etc.). The following points should serve as
guidelines for this assignment:

0 What is the overall argument/purpose of the article you chose from the course
text? Do you agree/disagree with the author?

0 Why do you agree with the author, how does the author effectively prove his/her
point? What effective rhetoric do they employ? Use concrete examples ﬁ'om the
article to support your claims.

0 If you disagree with the author, what are the holes in their argument? How is their
rhetoric ineffective? Again, you must use concrete examples to support your
claims.

0 How do the two outside sources you chose serve to support your argument? What
are those author’s stances on the issue?

The following are formatting requirements for this assignment:

5 full pages to 6 full pages long (5 1/2 is acceptable 4 % is not!)
Double-spaced

12 point times new roman or 11 point Verdana or Tahoma
Name and Section number at the top

Stapled! !!

The ﬁnal paper is due Monday March 26. However, you must bring a rough draft for
writing workshop on Monday March 19 and a polished draft for peer review on
Wednesday March 21.

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Appendix E

Assignment #4: Visual Analysis Project and Presentation

ENG 106: The Rhetoric of Hip Hop
Spring 2007
Due: Friday April 27

This project will act as the ﬁnal assignment for the course. The purpose of this
assignment is to engage you in thinking critically and analytically about the visual
rhetoric of Hip Hop culture. As we've discussed time and again, we live in an
increasingly visual culture, saturated with images that evoke a wide range of emotions,
ideas, and opinions and in many ways Hip Hop culture is a product of this "culture of the
image". To complete this project you must use not only your knowledge of visual rhetoric
but your knowledge of images in Hip Hop culture, what they portray, what they evoke,
etc. For this project you may work individually, in pairs, or in a groups of 34. Following
are the directions:

1.) Choose a Hip Hop culture artifact: song lyrics, CD case, advertisement, music
video, website, article of clothing, etc. and analyze it from a visual rhetoric
standpoint, paying close attention to the following questions:

What is the ﬁrst thing you notice when looking at this artifact?

What does the creator/artist's choice of color say about the artifact?
What feelings does this image evoke from the audience? Does it make you
sad, angry, happy, curious, etc.?

Who do you think the intended audience is? Why?

What do you think the intended message is? Why?

Is there evidence of cultural appropriation? Explain.

Does the creator/artist invoke the CRAP heuristic? Explain.

Discuss any other pertinent information you feel about this image
Finally, and most importantly, does this image work? Does it succeed in
doing what it is intended to do?

2.) When you have ﬁnished your write up (4-5 pages), prepare an in-class
presentation of your materials. This means you must bring the artifact to class and
discuss the highlights of your visual analysis paper.

203

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