{"id":1504,"date":"2019-03-24T23:00:46","date_gmt":"2019-03-24T23:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wri-101k-s19.andrewrippeon.com\/blog\/?p=1504"},"modified":"2019-03-24T23:00:48","modified_gmt":"2019-03-24T23:00:48","slug":"tightrope-walking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wri-101k-s19.andrewrippeon.com\/blog\/writing-project-2\/tightrope-walking\/","title":{"rendered":"Tightrope Walking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019d like to preface my writing with this: I\u2019m going to be discussing one of today\u2019s most politically and racially charged topics: the N-Word. I do this out of true interest and inquiry, and in the spirit of sorting out the issue a little better, if for no one else, then for myself. I have no illusions that my demographics may inform other\u2019s interpretation of this paper; as a white male, I understand that some might question my motivations for writing about this topic\u2013 some believe these attributes make me suspect in and of themselves. (Shackelford<\/a>) I can\u2019t change this, but I can say the following and hope it resonates clearly. I believe the N-Word has little to no positive use in modern times. I understand the \u201creclamation\u201d argument, but I believe the word should be used only in historical pieces (literary or otherwise) and their recitals \u2013 by any who recite them \u2013 for the sole purpose of remembrance, that we might not forget the hate and horror of racism or dilute it with colloquialisms built of that which was used to cut. That being said, I do not believe this is a realistic wish, considering how deeply embedded the N-Word has become in both African-American and American culture \u2013 the two of which, I believe, are blending quickly and well. Given this reality, I use this paper to explore the cultural ideas that govern its use in the modern day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

             On May 20th<\/sup>, 2018, Kendrick Lamar performed in Gulf Shores, Alabama as one of the headlining acts for Hangout Fest, a yearly music festival that boasts some of the biggest names in popular music. Kendrick Lamar is a prolific rap artist whose albums and lyrics have found a place deep in the heart of the American Public. People love Kendrick. At Hangout Fest, he gave one of those people the opportunity to join him on stage and rap along to \u201cM.A.A.D. City,\u201d one of the seminal tracks on 2012\u2019s \u201cGood Kid, M.A.A.D. City.\u201d The young woman invited on stage, Delaney, was white. The opening lines to \u201cM.A.A.D City\u201d are, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMan down
Where you from, nigga?
Fuck who you know, where you from, my nigga?
Where your grandma stay, huh, my nigga?
This m.A.A.d city I run, my nigga\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            As one might imagine, this did not go over well. By morning, a video<\/a> taken by a member of the audience went viral. The scene plays out as such: The video opens with a shot of Delaney on one of the big screens installed to right side of the stage. She is white, has a southern accent, seems between 18 \u2013 20 years old, and, frankly, by tell of her balance and slur, she\u2019s had a bit to drink. Delaney assures Lamar that she\u2019s \u201cgot him,\u201d and the beat plays. Delaney raps through the opening lines, and begins the verse \u2013 which she appears to know well \u2013 when Lamar\u2019s \u201cwait, wait, wait, wait, wait!\u201d shuts down the act. The crowd, upset by Delaney\u2019s use of the N-Word, erupts with sneering boos, and one fan screams, with sickening hate in her voice, \u201cFuck you, bitch! Fuck, you! Fuck you, bitch!\u201d (more on this later.) Confused, Delaney slurs, \u201cAm I not cool enough for you? What\u2019s up, bro?\u201d Lamar makes reference to another (presumably) white fan he had on stage before Delaney, responding, \u201cmy boy Rohan kinda knew the rules a little bit.\u201d Delaney, still confused, says \u201cWill\u2019s just really cool, bro. You just have to work with me.\u201d (A wonderful bit of communication.) Lamar, a little more to the point, tells her, \u201cYou\u2019ve gotta bleep one single word, though,\u201d and Delaney, finally understanding, apologizes profusely. She then makes what is probably the most coherent point in the entire exchange, \u201cI\u2019m sorry. I\u2019m used to singing it like you wrote it.\u201d Lamar gives Delaney a second chance, but Delaney, rattled by the situation, scrambles the lines and is subsequently kicked off stage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            One of the most interesting questions this event generates is: why is it that using the N-Word, not spontaneously but in quotation, is a cultural sin by virtue of Delaney\u2019s whiteness alone? Presumably, the young lady, who spent (at least) $299 to attend the festival and enjoy the music that she knows well and loves, who said the N-Word only in the context of recital \u2013 lyric recital being the norm at all concerts \u2013 had not the intention of being racist, but participating in the recreation of an art piece that obviously means a lot to her after being invited on stage by the artist to do exactly that\u2013 <\/em>dumb as it was on both of their parts. What forces are at play then, in the determination of how one should sound and speak? To dissect this question, I\u2019d like to introduce two concepts of Jennifer Lynn Stover\u2019s: the sonic color line and the listening ear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sonic color line describes the process of racializing sound\u2014how and why certain bodies are expected to produce, desire, and live amongst particular sounds\u2014and its product, the hierarchical division sounded between \u201cwhiteness\u201d and \u201cblackness.\u201d The listening ear drives the sonic color line; it is a figure for how dominant listening practices accrue\u2014and change\u2014over time, as well as a descriptor for how the dominant culture exerts pressure on individual listening practices to conform to the sonic color line\u2019s norms. Through the listening ear\u2019s surveillance, discipline, and interpretation, certain associations between race and sound come to seem normal, natural, and \u201cright.\u201d (7)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

             Stover believes that the complications of race play out not only visually but auditorily as well. Through \u201cthe sonic color line,\u201d she theorizes that certain ways of speaking come to be known as \u201cblack\u201d or \u201cwhite,\u201d as do certain ways of living that produce sound, such as the conflation of \u201cthe sound of hip-hop pumped at top volume through car speakers\u201d (13) with young black men. Stover claims, then, that a racial hierarchy is imposed on these \u201cracial\u201d sounds\u2013 the same hierarchy she believes governs the West: whiteness over blackness. This hierarchy is then enforced through \u201cthe listening ear,\u201d the set of listening practices that decide each sound\u2019s place in the hierarchy and exert pressure on individuals to change the way they sound and conform to the preferred or \u201cproper\u201d guidelines for sounding. I believe there is some stock in these ideas, however I also believe that Stover\u2019s theory is influenced by her attraction to the post-modern neo-Marxist historical narrative, as she builds \u201cthe listening ear\u201d from Michel Foucault\u2019s Theory of Discipline \u2013 Foucault being one of postmodernism\u2019s figureheads. (Stover, 14) The postmodern reading of history is essentially binary, in the same way that Marxism was binary in its classifications of proletariat and bourgeoisie; The post-modern neo-Marxist worldview updates these roles to oppressor and oppressed with central themes of power and group identity. (Peterson) Drawing these lines racially, then, the historical focus centers around \u201cthe achievements of non-whites, females, and the poor\u2026 [and] the historical crimes of whites, males, and the rich.\u201d (Hicks, 17) I believe this is a narrow reading of history, forgetting the achievements of some and the failings of others \u2013 all of which must be considered in a honest read. To this point, I will broaden Stover\u2019s ideas through the incorporation of a instance that does not fit the theme of her \u201cculturally materialist\u2026 selective case studies\u201d (6) to explore whether these concepts apply to the way culture influences the speech of individuals not of African-American dissent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            In the Lamar incident, the sonic color line \u2013 the racialization of sound \u2013 seems to materialize here in a sort of reverse-engineering of itself. Instead of identifying a sound thought to be characteristic of a certain group and attaching meaning and value thereafter, it takes a unit of sound that is diverse in its group-belonging, and ascribes meaning and value according to the color of she who produces it. (Now, this does get complicated, as the N-Word does have some cultural affiliation in modern culture, particularly the \u201c-a\u201d variety, but, considering its presence in the mainstream \u2013 largely thanks to rap \u2013 the word can be considered more broadly as a neutral unit of sound, whose \u201cmeaning\u201d is determined by the color of the speaker.) In the case of Lamar, being black gives him a pass, often said, \u201cthe right,\u201d to use the N-Word at will. When he uses the word, his skin color racializes his voice, and the word, as \u201cblack.\u201d Culturally, this flies. In fact, it\u2019s the third most frequently used word in hip-hop, after \u201cI\u2019m\u201d and \u201clike,\u201d according to a reddit user who \u201cscraped 55k+ song lyrics from Genius.com using [his] Python wrapper.\u201d (textureflow) (I\u2019m trusting the statistics of a Reddit user, because any other study\/article I could find on the most used word in hip-hop excluded the N-Word from consideration, and then wrote about how the most used word in hip-hop \u201cisn\u2019t what I think it is\u201d [1<\/a>, 2<\/a>,3<\/a>, 4<\/a>] ) So, not only is it okay for Lamar to say the word, it\u2019s a large part of his hip-hop identity as well. This is commonly justified through the following argument: the N-Word was used to degrade black people in the past (and still is used for this purpose by some today, but with less frequency,) black people started using the word with friendly intent among themselves \u2013 dropping the \u201chard -r\u201d somewhere along the line \u2013 and, because black people did that, it belongs to them, they get to use it, and no one else can. In Lamar\u2019s words, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet me put it to you in its simplest form. I\u2019ve been on this earth for 30 years, and there\u2019s been so many things a Caucasian person said I couldn\u2019t do. Get good credit. Buy a house in an urban city. So many things\u2014\u2018you can\u2019t do that\u2019\u2014whether it\u2019s from afar or close up. So if I say this is my word, let me have this one word, please let me have that word.\u201d (Robinson)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

             On the outset, this argument might feel<\/em> <\/span>right; it\u2019s disheartening to hear how suppressed Lamar has felt in his life, and \u2013 whether or not he does so rightfully \u2013 he holds whites accountable for that. So, isn\u2019t it only right that he be allowed to deny them something in return\u2013 a word symbolic of the oppression he feels they committed against him? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

             In the context of this incident, the sonic color line delineates two camps those who are \u201callowed\u201d to say the N-Word, and those who are not. The listening ear takes the form of media, most potently\u2013 social media. Delaney\u2019s use of the N-Word plays out as such: Despite the context of its usage, the sonic color line identifies her use of the word as \u201cwhite\u201d usage. Whereas acceptable intent is awarded to all \u201cblack\u201d use of the word (even in lines like 21 Savage\u2019s \u201cYou may got a pistol, but this stick is way bigger \/ I call it \u2018KKK\u2019 \u2018cause my choppa hate niggas,\u201d [Savage<\/a>]) \u201cwhite\u201d usage is always ascribed racist intent. After Delaney\u2019s usage of the word, the crowd resembles a mob. This is telling, culturally, it illustrates the extent to which the sonic color line is embedded in the culture, at least on this issue. One of the greatest ironies of the incident, and very characteristic of the ideas behind racially-bound speech, is in the audible \u201cFuck you<\/em>, bitch!\u201d from a member of the crowd. The fan, obviously upset to hear the N-Word in \u201cwhite\u201d speech and having identified Delaney as racist and, subsequently, deserving of such derision, expresses the extent to which Delaney has wronged her ideas about how a white person should sound. To say those words the way that person did \u2013 and I encourage a listen<\/a>\u2013 requires real hate. Yet, the central idea of the N-Word argument, supposedly, is a net reduction in hate. This is a common theme in the bringing about of \u201cpeace\u201d through the suppression of people culturally labeled as \u201cracist.\u201d For example, in 2016, the Washington Post picked up a story about multiple Trump rally attendees being attacked by protestors after leaving the building, \u201cProtesters jumped on cars, pelted Trump supporters with eggs and water balloons, snatched signs and stole \u2018Make America Great\u2019 hats off supporters\u2019 heads beforeburning the hats and snapping selfies with the charred remains.Several people were caught on camera punching Trump supporters.\u201d (Sullivan, Miller) Otherwise, offenders are taken to trial on social media, like Delaney, and have their names dragged through the mud. At times, this how the listening ear functions through culture regarding the N-Word, and in the case of the rally, voiced<\/em> support for people it deems unfit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

             Thus, it seems, the sonic color line and listening ear do appear to exert themselves across racial boundaries, codifying voice as racial and determining its meaning thereafter, then enforcing cultural preferences for speech, at times even those of minority cultures, through the listening ear. Whether it should or should not, especially in this case, is a difficult question to answer\u2013 all the same, we are each influenced by cultural ideas around \u201cproper\u201d ways to sound and, more or less, fall in line. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bibliography<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

BlackTree TV. \u201cKendrick Lamar Stops White Fan Rapping N-Word Onstage, Is He Wrong?\u201d YouTube<\/em>, YouTube, 21 May 2018, www.youtube.com\/watch?v=KEcugkqcHO8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniels, Matt. \u201cThe Words Rappers Use (and Don\u2019t Use).\u201d The Pudding<\/em>, pudding.cool\/2017\/09\/hip-hop-words\/.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hicks, Stephen. Explaining Postmdoernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault<\/em>. CONNOR COURT, 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neupane, Sanskriti. \u201cVideo of Virginia Tech Lacrosse Team Singing the N-Word Posted to Twitter.\u201d Collegiate Times<\/em>, 26 Mar. 2018, www.collegiatetimes.com\/news\/video-of-virginia-tech-lacrosse-team-singing-the-n-word\/article_84edfd72-313e-11e8-9d9d-231e1f45d531.html.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peterson, Jordan. \u201cJordan Peterson Explains Postmodernism.\u201d YouTube<\/em>, YouTube, 10 May 2017, www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YkmXwByGmjc&t=10s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robinson, Lisa. \u201cThe Gospel According to Kendrick Lamar.\u201d Vanity Fair<\/em>, Vanity Fair, 29 June 2018, www.vanityfair.com\/style\/2018\/06\/kendrick-lamar-cover-story?verso=true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Savage, 21. \u201c21 Savage & Metro Boomin \u2013 \u2018My Choppa Hate N****s\u2019 (Official Audio).\u201d YouTube<\/em>, YouTube, 31 Oct. 2017, www.youtube.com\/watch?v=EBxb33-8Ysc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shackleford, Ashleigh. \u201cALL White People Are \u2018Racist Demons\u2019 Says BLM Activist & Lecturer at Seminar.\u201d YouTube<\/em>, YouTube, 7 Feb. 2018, www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cRXNaUz5LGY.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Staff Writer Posted October. \u201cGuess: The Most Commonly Used Word In Hip Hop Isn\u2019t What You Think.\u201d Global Grind<\/em>, 6 Oct. 2017, globalgrind.cassiuslife.com\/4237822\/guess-the-most-commonly-word-used-in-hip-hop-isnt-what-you-think\/.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stoever, Jennifer Lynn. The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening<\/em>. New York University Press, 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sullivan, Sean, and Michael E. Miller. \u201cUgly, Bloody Scenes in San Jose as Protesters Attack Trump Supporters Outside Rally.\u201d The Washington Post<\/em>, WP Company, 3 June 2016, www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/morning-mix\/wp\/2016\/06\/03\/ugly-bloody-scenes-in-san-jose-as-protesters-attack-trump-supporters-outside-rally\/?utm_term=.b8b4557fd996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trending, What\u2019s. \u201cSorority Under Fire For Singing The N-Word | What\u2019s Trending Now!\u201d YouTube<\/em>, YouTube, 22 Sept. 2017, www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QfZ-sIrIUH8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U\/Textureflow. \u201cr\/Dataisbeautiful \u2013 Twenty Most Popular Words in Rap, Rock, and Country Music [OC].\u201d Reddit<\/em>, 2018, www.reddit.com\/r\/dataisbeautiful\/comments\/9gskir\/twenty_most_popular_words_in_rap_rock_and_country\/.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williams, Aaron. \u201cScience Has Determined The Most And Least Hip-Hop Words.\u201d UPROXX<\/em>, UPROXX, 29 Sept. 2017, uproxx.com\/hiphop\/most-least-hip-hop-words\/.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written By Staff Writer Posted October 6. \u201cThe Most Commonly Used Word In Hip Hop Isn\u2019t What You Think.\u201d News One<\/em>, 6 Oct. 2017, newsone.com\/3751473\/chopper-commonly-used-hip-hop-word\/.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019d like to preface my writing with this: I\u2019m going to be discussing one of today\u2019s most politically and racially charged topics: the N-Word. I do this out of true interest and inquiry, and in the spirit of sorting out the issue a little better, if for no one else, then for myself. I have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-writing-project-2","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wri-101k-s19.andrewrippeon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wri-101k-s19.andrewrippeon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wri-101k-s19.andrewrippeon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wri-101k-s19.andrewrippeon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wri-101k-s19.andrewrippeon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1504"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.wri-101k-s19.andrewrippeon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1510,"href":"https:\/\/www.wri-101k-s19.andrewrippeon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504\/revisions\/1510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wri-101k-s19.andrewrippeon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wri-101k-s19.andrewrippeon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wri-101k-s19.andrewrippeon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}