Soc 142: Articles

The first article I read was Color-Blind Ideology and the Cultural Appropriation of Hip Hop by Jason Rodriguez. This article talks about the implications of stereotyping and what it means to be black and what it means to be white. A colorblind approach allows us to deny uncomfortable cultural differences which in the end ends up being a form of racism. In this article Jason some of the concertgoers he interviewed used colorblind ideology to approach hip hop and justify the importance that race plays in people's lives. There are many good white rappers but Eminem was the one that changed the whole idea of white rappers because he is one of the best-selling artist in the world and the best-selling artist in the 2000s.

The second article I read was Eminem's Construction of Authenticity by Edward G Armstrong.  In this article Armstrong talks about why Eminem is authentic in a description of his own components that define authenticity in hip hop which are: being true to oneself, location or place and lastly whether the performer has the requisite relation to a source of rap. Eminem is considered to be firmly grounded in these three kinds of authenticity according the Armstrong. He is considered to be rap's biggest superstar and as the most prominent figure in a genre created by and largely performed by African Americans, Eminem is both a problem and an anomaly because, quite simply, he is white.