DavidD said:
I think we're largely in agreement, but just to clarify . . . . First, I distinguished b/w appropriating (1) this or that slang term and what I called (2) wholesale appropriation of rhythms and speech patterns, or mimicking. So, yes, I'm all for appropriating slang terms because, often, slang is either (1) the best way to make a point, i.e., more "economically efficient" than standard language; (2) more responsive or revelatory of new realities than existing language; or (3) more adequate to realities of the so-called margins of society, whether the margin is an ethnic community or a sector of nightlife or what have you. But in referring to "wholesale appropriation/mimickry," I had in mind what slang calls whiggery (the white middle-class graffiti artist strawman) or else what is in essence a variation on minstrelsy (white kids talking jive with each other) -- but again, perhaps i'm inventing/invoking stereotypes
Second, there's a difference b/w getting into black music and talking street jive. And the difference is that speech is much more the speaker's own self expression -- what we say and how we say it, i.e., our relationship to language, is directly constitutive of the "self" -- whereas the music we play or listen to, the baggy pants and JA floppy hats we wear, the books on hip hop and rasta culture we may read, these latter things belong more to the objects that we place around ourselves, in marking off our space and movements . . . . Okay, maybe I'm not making a valid distinction. Perhaps the speech as inside vs. music/clothes/books as outside scheme is not in the least convincing . . . . That is, all of these things are closely tied to identity, but I think how a person chooses to speak is most closely related to his identity; then perhaps mode of dressing; followed by what he listens to and reads
Also, all these things that I claim are constitutive of identity are more in the nature of "easy choice" than "disciplined action." The music we make, the essays we write, the paintings we paint, the jobs we do, in short, the things we accomplish through practice and effort, though these determine how we "appear" and are "known" by the wider world, these are in fact less constitutive of personal identity than the easy choices relating to how we speak & dress and what we consume in terms of clothing, reading material, and records/cds . . . .
Okay, I've clearly lost the thread . . . .
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