CVK
I just finished reading Adam Mansbach’s Angry Black White Boy tonight, and I highly recommend it to all of you. You can read a synopsis in our earlier post about the book.

Macon is a fascinating character. He’s self-aware to the extreme about his own white privilege, and how he may come across to other people: “He threw his leg over his own half-unpacked suitcase and leaned back, then wondered if the posture was too comfortable too quick, a typical cavalier-whiteboy-lounging-cuz-the-world-is-my-domain move.” Or in another instance, he closed a conversation with two black men by saying “You gentlemen enjoy your day” but “as soon as the phrase left Macon’s mouth, he realized it sounded like copspeak.”

He’s disgusted with the infiltration of white people into the hip hop scene, yet grudgingly acknowledges that he himself–no matter how early he got into, no matter how he’s paid his dues–is a part of the problem. Completely aware of his own bullshit and hypocrisy, he’s great at pointing out the hypocrisy in everyone else too. There’s a particularly great passage where Macon calls out “America’s grey-ponytailed rock critics” for writing off hip hop until the Beastie Boys came along. At that point, every flaw of hip hop became a positive: “a reason for rock critics to use words like irreverent, fresh, and clever where thieving, irresponsible, and droning once sufficed.”

Macon is well aware that at the same time he’s stepping away from his white privilege, he still stands to gain from his association with blacks. Some of that “sacred black cool” rubs off on him and “just being down with the brothers gave him a bigger dick by association.” In fact, he admits that some white girls–too scared of actually sleeping with a brother–have had sex with him as the next best thing.

And there’s PLENTY of other good stuff, but I don’t want to take up too much room on this page. So go out and read it!