Presenter

Bao Yang
Soc. 142


According to the article, Straightedge Subculture, Music, and the Internet, by J. Patrick William, due to two different types of straightedges, outsider people from the subculture were able to discovered about straightedge through the Internet. People then begin to network online. However, many straightedgers reasoned that the Internet is leading to 'defusion' of the subculture. Wilson and Atkinson argued that straightedgers used the Internet, "In more countercultural ways than the more apolitical and incorporated raver/clubber subculturalists" (pg. 179). Many participants decided that straightedge was about a scene, however people were not certain whether the scene was only about music or not. The scenester point system is when straightedge emerges in doing straightedge community in local punk/hardcore music scenes and earning respect. The Internet plays a big part because it allows individuals to interact a face-to-face scene within the subculture if they were disconnected from local punk/hardcore music scenes.


According to the article, Color-Blind Ideology and the Cultural Appropriation of Hip-Hop, by Jason Rodriquez, Nelson George summaries in Hip-Hop America, "By giving hip-hop music, dances, and gear a regularly scheduled national platform, the broadcast was integral to inculcating hip-hop's distinctly urban culture into the rest of the country" (pg. 650). He wanted to make the audiences feel knowledgeable; therefore, he likes to play the role as a naïve researcher by asking questions, such as: "Is all hip-hop basically the same, or are there differences within hip-hop?" (pg. 652), to get the audience a sense of distinction within hip-hop. Two main rhetorical strategies: 1. The increasing number of white MCs makes hip-hop easier for whites to relate to, and 2. Hip-hop provides a way to vicariously experience and connect with Blackness. George asked Mike, "a nineteen-year-old who produces hip-hop in his home studio, sporadically DJs at local clubs, and works in retail (pg. 659), if he thought of hip-hop as black music. Mike stated that "even though hip-hop has its roots with black people, even though the artists are primarily black, even though there is black pretty much everywhere you look, I don't think music is ... what's regarded as black music or white music, it doesn't really matter because it's still music and it still exists not only for a certain group of people, but also for itself" (pg.661).