Everything But the Burden : What White People Are Taking from Black Culture

Rating:
Summary: Burden Fails to Deliver
Review: "Everything But the Burden" is a book that promises much and delivers little. Subtitled "What White People Are Taking From Black Culture" the book holds forth the promise of exploring how Black culture has influenced white society. Unfortunately, the promise is broken.

Asides from the first chapter, Eminem: The New White Negro, "Everything But The Burden" fails to deliveranything of substance. The book which is a collection of essays by more than 15 writers is an esoteric mixture of the scholarly and the street and that is its downfall. The book misses its mark by trying to mix Hip-Hop cool with Ivory tower scholarship, an idea which is certainly ambitious, but not impossible.

Unfortunately, there are not enough writing chops here to pull it off and the reader is left to stumble through 257 pages waiting for the revelation of the book's title.

There is nothing new here, even though the introduction and first chapter are interesting, the remainder of the book is a collection of disjointed essays, poetry and fatal collisions of Hip-Hop advocacy and attempts to be glib, but as far as "What White People Are Taking From Black Culture" the search is too long and too difficult for the few gems to be found.

Rating:
Summary: Who?s Burden Is It?
Review: In the midst of trying to keep it all together, Greg Tate and other contributing authors share their thoughts on the world today as they see it: whites trying to be black. The shocking sensation of pointing fingers and exposing what society may deem "The Great White Hope" is surreal, but embarrassing, nonetheless.

From entertaining thoughts of why certain whites deliver their own renditions of what it means to be black, to emphasizing the notion that they need to stay in their place and stop portraying something that they are not, EVERYTHING BUT THE BURDEN touches the sensitive, the desensitized and the current "victims" of society's finest.

To say the least, EVERYTHING BUT THE BURDEN is nothing short of controversial. With its own spin and opinions on topics ranging from music to art, this culmination of what it means to not have to endure the burden, while at the same time being able to capitalize and cash in on the black burden is done with superb writing style. Although the main focus is to vent and share opinions, it seems that giving these topics justification for discussion places the real burden elsewhere...

Reviewed by T. Belinda Williams
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Rating:
Summary: Who¿s Burden Is It?
Review: In the midst of trying to keep it all together, Greg Tate and other contributing authors share their thoughts on the world today as they see it: whites trying to be black. The shocking sensation of pointing fingers and exposing what society may deem "The Great White Hope" is surreal, but embarrassing, nonetheless.

From entertaining thoughts of why certain whites deliver their own renditions of what it means to be black, to emphasizing the notion that they need to stay in their place and stop portraying something that they are not, EVERYTHING BUT THE BURDEN touches the sensitive, the desensitized and the current "victims" of society's finest.

To say the least, EVERYTHING BUT THE BURDEN is nothing short of controversial. With its own spin and opinions on topics ranging from music to art, this culmination of what it means to not have to endure the burden, while at the same time being able to capitalize and cash in on the black burden is done with superb writing style. Although the main focus is to vent and share opinions, it seems that giving these topics justification for discussion places the real burden elsewhere...

Reviewed by T. Belinda Williams
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Rating:
Summary: BEFORE THERE WAS ANYTHING THERE WAS ELVIS?
Review: Remember the add for Elvis Presleys number 1s CD...................
BEFORE THERE WAS ANYTHING THERE WAS ELVIS?
Forget Ike Turner, forget Little Richard, forget Fats Domino.....Before there was Bobby Seal and Huey P. Newton and Malcom X there was Apple Computers PANTHER X software? Let's not start with Eminem or
Kenny G or Chuck Mangioni. Before there was Picasso there was no cubism? There are many issues brought up in Greg Tates "Everything But the Burden: What White People Are Taking from Black Culture" but 95 percent of the people don't want to see this...maybe the 5 percent always will. So much can be diss-missed or over looked when looking at appropriation from the appropriators perspective. It isn't about freedom that is in question here but privilege and power.....something easily misunderstood.....

Rating:
Summary: the question should be..........
Review: Why such a book needs to be written in the first place? What is it's social redeeming feature and how does it benefit the racial problems we have in this country? Of course the Roots of this book go much deeper, it's the USA version of the "Out of Africa "books. Those books insist that the Greeks, and others, stole the art, religion, philosophy, science and literature from Africa, apperently the Greeks were unable to come up with anything new without consulting with Africans first(of course we never find out which Africans). Now we are told that White Americans are ripping of Black Culture, that we want everything that is black; and that, Heaven forbid) that white Churches have even stolen Gospel songs. What this book reflects is cultural arrogance and gross ignorance. If anything, the Hip Hop, gang signs, sexualizing of black men or women and the worshipping of athletes show a distinct lack of culture. Of course the trend is to blame Whitey for both pushing and stealing from this culture; therefore absolving Black Americans from any responsibility for social degeneration. It might be more historically correct that Afro-Americans have been using and misusing European culture for the past 400 yrs. Besides, where and from whom, did the slaves learn the religion, songs and music to develop the Gospel Songs; I doubt that they brought them over from Africa.

Rating:
Summary: Mostly Fails to Deliver
Review: You can see in the aggressive, attitude-copping title and subtitle where Tate thought he was going with this book, but he doesn't get anywhere near the mark. A lazily-edited, not well thought-through mixed bag of essays, poetry, memoirs and anecdotes, it vogues with some heat but brings little light and few insights to the notion of white folks apropriating black culture. A few good, smart entries--Hilton Als, Manthia Diawara, a couple others--but the real problem is that Tate provided no editorial cohesion or coherence, no real sociological framework, historical perspective or philosophical focus. He just threw a bunch of pieces together and called it a book. It's a huge, important topic that deserves much more thought and care than this--which is how many other, better books treat it.