Author Topic: Ghetto Cracker: The Hip Hop ‘Sell Out’  (Read 848 times)

Eihtball

  • Guest
Ghetto Cracker: The Hip Hop ‘Sell Out’
« on: November 07, 2005, 07:23:52 PM »
Ghetto Cracker: The Hip Hop ‘Sell Out’
by Anthony B. Bradley

http://www.blackelectorate.com/articles.asp?ID=1501

What does it mean for a black person to “sell out”? Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Tiger Woods and many more, are often branded as “sell outs” or accused of “acting white” because they speak understandable English, pursue learning and have racially integrated lives. What is overlooked, however, is that much of the hip-hop and rap world represents a different form of “acting white” and “selling out.” That is, hip hop culture can be traced to the urbanization of the southern “redneck,” or to use the more socially offensive term, “cracker” culture of the past.

Thomas Sowell, in his latest book, Black Rednecks and White Liberals, reminds us that what is often construed as urban black culture has striking similarities to the cracker culture of the old South. This cracker culture emerged in the American South through the immigration of culturally lowbrow English immigrants. In the antebellum era, about 90 percent of U.S. blacks were immersed in this expression of southern living. When blacks migrated into major northern cities, beginning in the early twentieth century, Sowell argues that they brought redneck culture with them.

The dominant social, moral, and cultural values among Southern rednecks that Sowell highlights, and that have been explained in works such as Grady McWhiney’s Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South, include aversion to work, proclivity for violence, contentment with little to no education, sexual promiscuity, short-term thinking, drunkenness, an anti-entrepreneurial spirit, reckless pursuit of excitement, and wild music and dance. Rednecks had touchy pride, what you might call today a “bling-bling” vanity, a boastfully dramatized sense of self, and little self-control.

This “cracker” ethos of the past has been baptized into the hip-hop world with reckless abandon. When black kids call studious blacks “white,” or when black kids scold other black kids for sounding “white,” they have adopted a ghetto cracker mentality. Only a ghetto cracker would ridicule the pursuit of education, the speaking of correct English, and working hard. They boast of violent activities, sexual promiscuity, and “gettin’ high and drunk,” “acting a fool up in da’ club,” or bumping and grinding on the dance floor. The ghetto cracker celebrates being out of control and spending money instead of saving and investing.

Being a ghetto cracker, regardless of race, is the pursuit of a lifestyle of self-sabotage that undermines human dignity and despises the morality that undergirds civil society. Selling out one’s dignity and future to regressive moral standards is the way of the ghetto cracker.

Hip hop magazines like Vibe, The Source, and XXL celebrate the ghetto cracker. In the July issue of Vibe, we find celebration of the strip-club lifestyle of rappers the Ying Yang Twins, affirmation of fighting to display toughness, and a picture of rapper Pitbul holding his toddler son while standing in front of two naked women painted red, not to mention a repugnant set of advertisements that would make all of our grandmothers gasp.

There is, however, an alternative vision of black American culture that recognizes the dual values of moral and economic responsibility. The July issue of Black Enterprise magazine does not promote misleading racial dichotomies but celebrates living wisely. The pages are filled with articles about investment strategies, starting businesses, homeownership, and a profile of black astrophysicist Neil Tyson, who received a PhD from Columbia University in 1991. There are ads featuring the Harlem Book Fair, the American Black Film Festival, and Morehouse College. Hard work, pursuing education, the virtues of prudence, integrity, self-discipline, humility, and the advantages of marriage and family are all part of the fabric that supports the activities celebrated in this alternative expression of the black community.

This is not “selling out”; it is “buying in.” Buying in to the fact that authentic blackness is not being a ghetto cracker. Buying in embraces a worldview that understands our common human nature and what it means to live in a way that is truly fulfilling—a worldview that promotes dignity, work, marriage, family, and healthy community. The real sell-out is the one who urbanizes counterproductive moral values and behaviors. They are people like Russell Simons, Puff Daddy, 50 Cent, the Ying Yang Twins, and others who encourage minorities to adopt the attitudes of the Southern, redneck cracker culture of the past while claiming authentic blackness. Being a chocolate covered antebellum redneck of the past is not being “black”; it is simply “selling out” disguised as hip hop.

Anthony B. Bradley is a research fellow at the Acton Institute. He can be contacted at: abradley@acton.org This article was published by the Acton Institute.
 

Eihtball

  • Guest
Re: Ghetto Cracker: The Hip Hop ‘Sell Out’
« Reply #1 on: November 07, 2005, 07:26:57 PM »
I don't completely agree with a lot of what he says (I firmly believe Colin Powell and Condi are sellouts, and NOT because they are educated), but it does provide food for thought.  It is true that a lot of the thug rappers out there make their music by and large for white kids (I'm willing to bet a lot of people on this site are white kids), and something like 80% of hip-hop albums are bought by white kids.  If you're giving white folks a certain image just because it sells, without regard for the impact you're having on yourself and your own people, couldn't you be called a sellout?
 

J Bananas

  • Guest
Re: Ghetto Cracker: The Hip Hop ‘Sell Out’
« Reply #2 on: November 07, 2005, 07:27:39 PM »
shorten it up nigger then i'll read!
 

WestCoasta

  • Guest
Re: Ghetto Cracker: The Hip Hop ‘Sell Out’
« Reply #3 on: November 07, 2005, 10:15:44 PM »
^^^ uh oh I smell a ban coming from the almighty lord and creator  :P


J Bananas 4 Prezident
 

BizzyR.I.P.

  • Guest
Re: Ghetto Cracker: The Hip Hop ‘Sell Out’
« Reply #4 on: November 07, 2005, 10:24:45 PM »
shorten it up nigger then i'll read!



                                                            Lench Mob Bitch :P
« Last Edit: November 07, 2005, 10:49:20 PM by BombFirst »
 

Trauma-san

Re: Ghetto Cracker: The Hip Hop ‘Sell Out’
« Reply #5 on: November 07, 2005, 10:39:17 PM »
Interesting read although I just skimmed it because it looked like a whole lotta bullshit.  It's my opinion that problems arise when you study the racism or the relationships between the races in the past, and then try to use that to 'fix' problems in the world today... I know that goes ass backwards against the fact that knowledge brings truth and good and etc.... but when you're talking about racial differences, unfortunately the conversation usually turns negative, lol.  I think as long as we're making a big deal out of racial inequality, the races will continue to be unequal. 

In closing, when African Americans can get over the fact that they got fucked, and start blaming their shortcomings on their individual, unique selves and not some image of past offenses upon their race, then we'll all be much better off. 
 

WestCoasta

  • Guest
Re: Ghetto Cracker: The Hip Hop ‘Sell Out’
« Reply #6 on: November 07, 2005, 10:50:50 PM »
 

J Bananas

  • Guest
Re: Ghetto Cracker: The Hip Hop ‘Sell Out’
« Reply #7 on: November 08, 2005, 12:08:02 AM »
oh shit that might have came out wrong, I meant it with "gga" at the end. sorry.
 

WestCoasta

  • Guest
Re: Ghetto Cracker: The Hip Hop ‘Sell Out’
« Reply #8 on: November 08, 2005, 12:20:10 AM »
^^^ my 'gga
 

J Bananas

  • Guest
Re: Ghetto Cracker: The Hip Hop ‘Sell Out’
« Reply #9 on: November 08, 2005, 12:22:16 AM »
^
Fashazel
 

Eihtball

  • Guest
Re: Ghetto Cracker: The Hip Hop ‘Sell Out’
« Reply #10 on: November 09, 2005, 09:04:32 AM »
^^^ uh oh I smell a ban coming from the almighty lord and creator  :P


J Bananas 4 Prezident

Why?  I didn't write this article.  I just posted it.  I linked where I got it from.

Also, I think some people should keep in mind that racist white folks more often than not point to hip-hop culture right now as proof that blacks are just lazy degenerates who don't deserve any help.  I realize it's stupid to do that, but that's what they do.  Look at CWalker187 (on this board) - he's a staunch conservative, but he claims to like gangsta rap.  Why do you think that is?  It's quite simple - listening to this music and seeing blacks acting uncivilized and thuggish allows him to justify his beliefs that they deserve whatever they get at the hands of Uncle Sam.  They essentially use this music as racist imagery to validate what they want to believe.
 

7even

  • Muthafuckin' Don!
  • *****
  • Posts: 11283
  • Karma: -679
Re: Ghetto Cracker: The Hip Hop ‘Sell Out’
« Reply #11 on: November 09, 2005, 09:15:29 AM »
Am I the only one who finds this article funny as fuck? I don't mean funny as fuck in a degratory way. I just think it's really funny as hell, not willing to imply that it's wrong or anything like that. Do you know what I mean? lol.
Cause I don't care where I belong no more
What we share or not I will ignore
And I won't waste my time fitting in
Cause I don't think contrast is a sin
No, it's not a sin
 

J Bananas

  • Guest
Re: Ghetto Cracker: The Hip Hop ‘Sell Out’
« Reply #12 on: November 09, 2005, 09:28:56 AM »
Quote
Also, I think some people should keep in mind that racist white folks more often than not point to hip-hop culture right now as proof that blacks are just lazy degenerates who don't deserve any help.  I realize it's stupid to do that, but that's what they do.  Look at CWalker187 (on this board) - he's a staunch conservative, but he claims to like gangsta rap.  Why do you think that is?  It's quite simple - listening to this music and seeing blacks acting uncivilized and thuggish allows him to justify his beliefs that they deserve whatever they get at the hands of Uncle Sam.  They essentially use this music as racist imagery to validate what they want to believe.

Exactly, it's no surprise that racist white kids love hip hop, it reinforces negative stereotypes, to a hot beat.
 

Mr. O

  • Muthafuckin' Don!
  • *****
  • Posts: 3268
  • Karma: 123
Re: Ghetto Cracker: The Hip Hop ‘Sell Out’
« Reply #13 on: November 09, 2005, 03:22:52 PM »
I want to see brothers from new generations mang..to just get educated and live a descent life.  Shit..I don't need another brothaz be rappin' just because they ain't got anything else to do.  I don't think they should degrade other brothaz just because they wanna achieve their dreams and all.  Reversing this will stigmatize them for rest of their lives.  I don't wanna hear people outside to think "this" brotha is stupid and is nothing but criminal thug.  Know what I mean?
[flash=200,200<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/AlIxU8SiFZU?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/AlIxU8SiFZU?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>[/flash]
 

J Bananas

  • Guest
Re: Ghetto Cracker: The Hip Hop ‘Sell Out’
« Reply #14 on: November 09, 2005, 03:52:41 PM »
Quote
Know what I mean?

No. at no point in your incoherent rambling did you piece together anything that resembled an actual statement. We are all dumber for having listened to you. i award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.