Week No. 4 of 16

Gates, H. L. 1996. Planet Rap: Notes on the Globalization of Culture.


Summary and Reflection: Starting with Gates, then. The topic this week was culture and identity. Great articles. I'd already read Hall (good to read him again, though), and I found Gates' voice to be wonderful to read, very engaging, I loved the way he brought in all these various cultural references...diverse references too! From Vanilla Ice to T.S. Eliot. That alone says a lot about his own multiculturalism and mine.

Since we're focusing on culture, let me start by summarizing more or less the points that Gates makes with his essay. There are several. First off, the world is getting smaller, at least in some ways, thanks to technology. This is implicit in his description of Ulan Batar and the fact that MTV was widely popular in that tundra land. And yet, this kind of "sameness" or similarity afforded by a common video music channel, is challenged by the fact that at time, Gates presumed himself to be quite likely the only Black man in the city. And, as the only Black man traveling with a group of other non-Black Americans, his "difference", if only at skin-level, is already twofold.

I wonder (to myself), how did that trip to Ulan Batar change/affect Gates? I ask, because another point he makes is on the appropriation of hip-hop/rap music a la Vanilla Ice---a white man appropriating Afro-Carib/urban sounds, which are then sent to India and which re-emerge as "Cool Cool Water" when Hindi lyrics by a new Indian rapper are laid over the track. This is the example of globalization, of reappropriation (by the appropriator, the White Vanilla Ice initially), the sound of multiculturalism. Another example was the case of coca-colonization by Coca-Cola, the word's most recognized brand. As the then CEO pointed out, "We just want to refresh people...how is that colonization." Touche! But the counterpoint bears weight as well...dotting a country's highways and bi-ways with Coca-Cola billboards changes the aesthetic landscape---the visual evidence of a larger cultural shift. There is, arguably, common ground in Coca-Cola, just as there is in a Big Mac, or maybe in America...different people, different stories, sharing something in common. No matter how trivial, the larger social implications are worth noting.

Ultimately, finding a comprehensive Coca-Cola world is the key to a politically global federation...T.S. Eliot said this would be impossible without shared culture. So we manufacture global culture the way we manufacture Coke, and sell it to the world. Easier said than done; according to Gates' sources, impossible.

Questions: See end of entry (combined with Hall).

Hall, S. 2000. Cultural Identity and Diaspora.

Summary & Reflections: Stuart Hall's paper on cultural identity brings up the main point of similarity and difference as being the two axes on which cultural identity (as an ongoing process rather than a point of origin) evolves. Interesting to note how Gates referes to similarity and difference in his piece; of course Hall's writing was initially published earlier than 2000...what was the original publication date?

So when we talk about similarity, we look at levels, at layers, chunks, aspects even. We are all Minnesotans, all Americans, all Norwegian-Americans, all blonde and blue-eyed, etc. Or, we are a class of different ethnic backgrounds, races, nationalities, ages, home states, etc., but similar in that we are from the University of Minnesota.

Hall is right in saying that this opens up a whole new realm of conversation, since no longer is one's cultural heritage limited to the "core" nugget of origination of the self---where would mine even be? Norway? I don't know a single person in Norway. Not one. And yet I'm 75% Norwegian heritage.

My similarity with Norway ends at bloodlines and physical features perhaps. Then, it is pure difference; my language, my values, etc. Arguably, I have equal levels (though different kinds) of similarity with Spain and my cultural identification with that cultural group; through language, cultural references, "family" and friend networks, food, music, art...different through bloodlines and physical features, however..And visibly so from roughly 5 kilometers distance! (I could never pass for Spanish).

The idea of culture being defined between points of similarity (cohesion, continuity) and difference (rupture, opposition), is a rich territory to explore. Furthermore, since it can be easier for groups to define themselves on their differences..people aren't always aware of what is similar across their group, but they are frequently conscious of why they are different from others. This can be helpful in cases of building cohesion across cultural groups, and even within fractionalized cultural groups.

Our class discussion was good today--helpful in particular in doing the diagram on the board (beautiful for its formal qualitites alone!). Fascinating to see how different we all are just within the one room. For a few moments, I felt pressured to not mention socio-economic status during our discussion of what makes us who we are/what contributes to identity. Still thinking about it a few days later, though, and I definitely stand by that statement. As Americans, even the lower-middle class people --everyone for that matter, enjoys a standard of living that is in the very top percentage of the entire world. Not acknowledging that, not understanding how good we have it, is a major oversight. And certainly, the fact that we have paved highways, well-equipped hospitals, public school free through 12th grade, etc. etc. relates to the construction of our national identity (the rest of the world sees us for what we are) as well as our personal identities (the fact that we have so much time to devote to consumerism, media, art and scholarship, recreation, etc. simply because we have our basic needs taken care of for the most part).

When I say that socio-economic status is important to my identity, I'm simply recognizing that without the resources I've grown up with, I would not be who I am. Talk to my friend Maria who came from Mexico; getting new shoes was the highlight of the year---and they were hand-me-downs. Listen to her talk about standing outside restaurants just so she could fill her belly by "eating the smells" of meat and tortillas.

I am critical of Americans who fail to recognize their own privilege and position. I am not a rich girl by comparative MN or U.S. standards perhaps, but in the global scheme, I certainly am. It's not something to chase after necessarily, or to say that money is the end-all----it's not. And American quality of life, happiness factors, may not live up to that of much poorer countries. I'm simply stating that socio-economic status is a core influencer of personal identity, but culture as well.

Questions: My favorite point of Gates' writing is the resituating of American History as a multicultural from the get-go; a nation populated by diverse indigenous people, fed by diverse European and African and Asian influx, mostly poor, always half female, etc. This is exactly my point. We've always been this way. It is more a matter of changing our discourse and frameworks with which we examine ourselves--thus changing the way we deal with ourselves. If we reconsider, therefore, how we examine Mexican people in Minnesota, it will change the way we deal with them. Re-framing the issue goes a long way in this regard; examples include the famous upside-down map of North and South America (South is North), reflected as well in the song by Guatemalan artist Ricardo Arjona, "si el Norte fuera el sur" (If the North was the South). A simple change of language can have a similar effect; North and South America versus "The Americas" or simply "America". In some ways, we have commandeered the term "American", when in reality, the term applies to far more people than those living (legally) within the U.S. borders. Examining these points of context and framing are all ways in which we can learn more about cultural identity construction, negotiation, and cooperation in a globalizing world, alongside Hall's comment on Jamaican identity being influenced by the Civil Rights movement in the U.S...new identity definitions emerging from re-contextualized understandings and perceptions.