Prior to watching Melissa Harris-Perry’s breakdown of the “Harlem Shake,” I hadn’t seen any of the virals. But I am struck by Harris-Perry’s account of cultural appropriation and racial/geographical ownership. Dr. Harris-Perry is great, and her presence on cable news is a testament to her scholarship and MSNBC too. Yet I am always surprised that racial and ethnic identities (and especially American black identities) remain so deeply rooted in essentialist notions of popular culture, even when most commentators know very well that “identity” is fluid, malleable, historical, and dialectical (that it takes it shape(s) in concert and contrast to others’ identities).
The idea that “white,” “feminine,” and “middle-class” describe historical transitions, social forces, and individual’s subjectivity rather than stark, static, and essential qualities of a middle-class white woman has been commonplace in academic and intellectual circles for 30-40 years—so much so that the “theory” behind it has seeped so thoroughly into mainstream culture that it has become nearly common sense. (The Wachowski brothers’ recent Cloud Atlas may be the most overt example, but complex readings of identity are all over.) Except when it comes to black music and culture.
Although Harris-Perry admirably historicizes the Harlem Shake, noting its “origins” in 1980s Harlem, she draws a clean line between the “authentic” purveyors of the art and its appropriators. She also calls attention to a long history of the appropriation of Harlem cultural forms and uses the example of the Cotton Club’s harsh racial segregation to exemplify the economic and professional inequalities that hindered black (and Harlem) culture’s development. It is clear that over the 20th C., African Americans’ cultural innovations made more money for white folks than the innovators’ communities, and this is a historical and contemporary problem. But the cultural or symbolic capital that Harris-Perry tries to claim for authentic Harlem culture workers is more complicated than racial theft. A consideration of culture as belonging to any single or essential racial/ethnic group puts culture in a box and undermines the flexibility and inherently social ways in which cultural forms arise. I don’t mean to argue that certain individuals, or even communities, do not invent new cultural expressions. But I do think that once concocted, the form and their symbolic meaning enter—immediately—into social, cultural, economic, and political fields of power relations and meaning-making. And we should stop appealing to “authenticity” or singular origins if we want to understand the nature of power, race, and meaning-making.
I understand that the international viral craze of crazy dancing is not the Harlem Shake of the 1980s, but I think Harris-Perry undermines her argument by bringing a group of young Harlem dancers to illustrate the “real” deal—if we’re using strict accounts of ownership, how can these folks be the real thing if the dance started before they were even born? Does their skin color or neighborhood determine how they shake? Or did they learn the dance, practice, and master it? If it’s the latter more than the former, can’t anyone do it? I am glad, tho, to see Harris-Perry invite two dance crews to her studio—it’s damn cool to see young folks boogiein’ down on cable news.
