Haenfler Chapter 4: Hip-Hop - "Doing" Gender and Race in Subcultures

SOCI 211

Who were the early pioneers of hip-hop?

DJs (disc jockeys) who performed in clubs, at block parties, or even in parks, encouraging enthusiastic crowd participation

What are the four elements of hip-hop?

DJ-ing, MC-ing, B-boying, and graffiti art

What is DJ-ing?

involves playing records for a crowd

What is MC-ing?

lyricist/rapper, perform music over a beat

What is b-boying (break-dancing?

the dance form most associated with hip-hop culture, requires exceptional balance, strength, and skill

Who faces off in b-boy competitions?

teams of breakers or “crews”

What is graffiti art (Graf writing or bombing)?

typically viewed as deviant vandalism or associated with gangs, but the hip-hop world considers it a true art form

What is the personal logo or signature that street artists use?

tag

Why do elite tattoo consumers have too many tattoos?

as tattoos become more popular they get more tattoos to remain an elite status in the tattoo scene

What is a role?

the set of behaviors associated with a status

What is racial ideology?

the widely held system of beliefs about race

What is white racial frame?

the lens that privileges whiteness as generally good, moral, and law abiding while judging black and brown people as lazy, wild, less moral, and prone to criminality

What is race?

encompasses biological traits such as skin color, facial structure, and hair texture that society considers meaningful

What is racism?

a belief system asserting that one race is inherently inferior to another

Where is racism embedded in?

the structures of society—our politics, education, housing, prisons, economy, and so on

What is racial scapegoating?

blaming social problems on a racial or ethnic category

What is white flight?

the migration of whites (and often industry) from urban to suburban areas

What is black nationalism?

draws on black power movements of the 1960s and 1970s, condemning the disenfranchisement of contemporary poor, urban blacks

What is afrocentric nationalism?

glorifies precolonial African empires, promoting a spiritual connection to African heritage and freedom from Western/colonial thought and oppression

What is privilege?

another way of saying unearned advantage

What is white privilege?

includes the unearned advantages white people have simply by virtue of their skin color, not having to think about race

What is male privilege?

the unearned advantages associated with being male

How do gangsta rappers depict women?

as devious and domineering, relegating them to little more than potential sexual conquests

What subgenre of rap gains the most negative attention?

gangsta rap

What is the “cool pose”?

generally entails baggy clothing, a cocky swagger, physical intimidation, and sexual prowess

What do interactionist theories of gender focus on?

how we do, or create and recreate, the meanings of gender through our everyday actions

Rather than a fixed characteristic, gender is an interactional accomplishment”, that is we are doing gender. How do we “do” gender?

we produce, reinforce, and sometimes challenge what is “masculine” and “feminine” mean in our interactions with others

What do male rappers focus on?

primarily challenging police, government, and other oppressive institutions

What do female rappers focus on?

“sexual politics”, challenging both male rappers and the culture at large

Who are the largest consumers of hip-hop music in the US?

white youths

Where has hip-hop music spread?

from the inner city to suburban America, an various white performers have found mainstream success

How has hip-hop sparked a politically incorrect moral panic?

some white adults, whose conceptions of blackness are mostly negative, worry that their children are trying to “be black”

What is status inconsistencey?

occurs when a subculturist holds two or more seemingly contradictory statuses

What is cultural appropriation?

taking cultural elements and claiming them as your own