THE CLOSEST YOU CAN GET TO THE BLACK EXPERIENCE: BEING A WHITE MC
Being the offspring of a man who was raised in the deep South, where being called a racial epithet was as common as someone commenting on the weather - a place so racially oppressive that my tales of not being able to catch a cab or being called "articulate" would seem like a Swedish massage - my father instilled one thing in my head from August of 1973 to February of 2001. That message - words that are seared on my cerebellum like a tattoo - was, "You have to work twice as hard as the white man to get ahead!!" Sure, he was referring to our history of being oppressed in this country, but he was also speaking from experience, a man who didn't finish the 8th grade who became a master chief in the Navy and taught himself how to become the best mechanic in my city to the point that he taught at least a thousand others how to "turn a wrench." For many years, especially not understanding the kind of dire straights that my old man had to navigate, I didn't understand where he was coming from until I was much older. Granted, when I ran track in high school, I was the epitome of the word "focused": I not only ran the bleachers after a hard day of practice, but on the weekends you could find me pulling my old man as he stood atop the sled the football team used. I outworked everyone when I was an MC - practicing flows, reading the dictionary, freestyling so often that between nocturnal emissions I would bust impromptu rhymes in my sleep. When it comes to sex, well, I'm still lazy and my expanding girth has only made my lackadaisical lovemaking the stuff of legend. My shoddy bedroom skills aside, when I got older I saw exactly what my old man was talking about.
When I'd work certain jobs and reached a level of importance, even though I didn't have a history of incompetence, every decision that I made was checked, double-checked, and second-guessed. Eventually I came through so often that they had no other option but to trust me, and all of a sudden whenever I would mention their past doubts in passing, the same people would convincingly act like they didn't know what in the fuck I was talking about as if they were trying to win an Oscar. I couldn't tell you how many times I've involved myself in political conversations, a discussion on a specific author, or some other type of verbal endeavor that proves that you have an I.Q above room temperature, and some asshole took it upon himself to playfully quiz me to see if I really knew what I was talking about. If I decided against punching him in the nose in front of a bunch of strangers, or scolding him with his choco-latte, more times than not I had to prove in the subtlest of terms that I was indeed the smartest motherfucker in the room. I'm mad at myself that I even did that - I shouldn't have. That's where I see the parallel with the White MC.
Despite the title of this particular piece, a White MC has no idea what its like to be black - hell, I purposely vomit inside my mouth right in front of homosexuals or lesbians who even begin to say that they understand what it's like to be a black American. I'm just saying, a white MC comes the closest to fully knowing the black experience, because people second-guess you and assume the worst before you even open your mouth, and that's unfortunate. Its a fucked-up cycle. First, people automatically think that you are wack. Once you prove yourself by eating up a shitload of people with melanin in various battles, cats are still hesitant. When people finally except the fact that you're nice on the microphone, you don't get that peer status yet- for a while people get ridiculed because they were slayed by "that white kid"-it seems like a thousand more steps to finally being treated as an equal.
It pains this writer to admit that I was one of those douchebags, back in the day, mind you, who excluded white MCs simply because of their lack of melanin. What a hypocrite I was, loving 3rd Bass and The Beastie Boys, but not giving the local white rapper the benefit of the doubt, only judging him on whether he had skills or not. Ask my ex-girlfriend, it took her campaigning like a presidential candidate for me to admit that Mr. Marshall Mathers was at least a serviceable MC. Now I see the error in my ways, I no longer tell gay guys, "How are you going to take your prostate getting treated like a fucking pinata, and can't take a little joke?" Now I'm mature enough to know the joke wasn't funny in the first place. I now know that singing the "Golden Girls" theme-song while climaxing and handing her a couple of dollars after sex isn't funny - fuck that, that's still funny. But most of all, I know that a white MC is as capable as a black one, and if a Caucasian rapper that I wronged back in the day ever punches me in the nose or scolds me with a latte, I know I had it coming.
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Comments
1.
DJ Black Adam says:
lol. Man, I have almost gotten my Black Card revoked in situations where I had the audacity to suggest that Eminem IS a good and talented MC, so I understand.
03/05/2007 at 6:47 PM