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Frantz Fanon tells us that the oppressed must identify an oppressive archetype in order to overcome historical oppression. But before the oppressed can achieve acts of true upheaval, they must first realize that they have yet to achieve "non-being" status. The oppressed may have attempted prior acts of resistance, but have never actually "descended into a real hell" that will scorch into the very nature of seeing an effective upheaval that brings the non-being into being. For now, the oppressed continue to live in the dream of identity, the dream that (in reality) the oppressed are, in fact, Negro, Colored, Black, Minority, Afro or African American, Hispanic, Oriental, Dykes, Queers, Bitches, Hos, Niggaz. All accepted as real identities. The acceptance of these identities further compels a performance of these identities, whether compliant or rebellious.

The oppressed identity performance relies upon a collective agreement informed by a historical narrative that either supports the validity of, or opposes the construct of, these identities. Before a revisionist identity can be forged, there was an inheritance and an acceptance of a construct - thus, even when the oppressed think they are revising their identities, updating the language of their identities, or endeavoring to better the circumstances of their identities, they are not - not completely and not actually - because no language in the American polyglot has ever been subscribed to by the collective that points to the very nature of human identity beyond elementary categorizations, and no accurate language identity exists in our collective agreement. We are comfortable with vague concepts of identity, and the ghettos and empires these concepts create.

What the oppressed figure in America has been working with as an identity is actually an archetypal construct born out of a dream (as in aspirations and imaginings) belonging to an oppressive figure who is not only the architect of the dream that oppresses us, but is also the Dionysian-like landlord of our realities - both good and bad - neither real nor unreal, and completely exempt from being vanquished from our realities. We inhabit an oppressive dream, and until that descent into Fanon's "real hell," the oppressed will continue to pay a high price to rent substandard space in the dream that we call race in America.

3. Eminem, the Other White Meat

"... If all the Niggers
Started calling eachother Nigger,
Not only among themselves ... but among Ofays ...
Nigger wouldn't mean anymore than 'Good night,'
'God bless you,' or 'I promise to tell the whole truth
And nothing but the whole truth so help me God' ...
When that beautiful day comes,
You'll never see another Nigger kid
Come home from school crying
Because some Ofay motherfucker called him Nigger."

- Lenny Bruce

Eminem, a.k.a. Marshall Mathers, was born in St. Joseph, Missouri (near Kansas City), spending the better part of his impoverished childhood in Detroit, Michigan - which, by the way, is about 90 percent ethnic minority and has one of the highest concentrations of African Americans in the nation, at 83 percent, while non-Latino whites comprise only 12 percent of the city's population. Detroit's recent dip below one million is largely attributed to continuing white flight, and 10 percent of the state's population has lived in poverty for more than twenty years (a family of three with an income of a little more than $9,300 earns too much to qualify for welfare in Michigan - but is about $4,000 below the federal poverty guideline), according to the American Community Survey released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Translation: Eminem may have been born white but he was socialized as black, in the proverbial hood - and the music of the proverbial hood in America for the last twenty-five years has been hip-hop music. The same inner-city struggles and impoverished circumstances that brought us blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, doo-wop and soul, brought us hip-hop music - it began as a form of identity-boosting vocal scatting over pulsating beats and progressed to become a means of expressing the social realities of African-American urbanity. By the time it became a major money-maker in the music industry, the genre of hip-hop transformed into a bodacious representation of gangsta life and gangsta obsessions replete with murder, money, sex, alcohol and drug consumption - and, when this got tired, narrowed itself down and preoccupied itself with the glam of capital gain.

The legend of Eminem, a.k.a. Slim Shady, a.k.a. Marshall Mathers (and his psychotic nasal slapstick trips of alienation) begins with his Detroit exposure to rap, performing it at the age of fourteen and later earning notoriety as a member of the Motor City duo Soul Intent. The legend is that he dropped out of high school, worked minimum-wage jobs, practiced beat boxing and freestyling his lyrics on home recordings, and worshiped rap groups like NWA - he admits he "wanted to be Dr. Dre and Ice Cube," wore big sunglasses while "lip-syncking to their records in the mirror." He also honed his style in the company of five black Detroit MC's (D12). Together, the racially integrated posse decided that each of them would invent an alter ego, thus the six MC's were to be thought of as twelve MC's - dubbing themselves, the Dirty Dozen. When Eminem emerged as a solo artist in 1996 with the independent release Infinite, he was accused of trying to sound "too much like Nas," so he perfected a nasal white-boy, horror-rap cadence, following Infinite with The Slim Shady LP, which led the hip-hop underground to dub him hip-hop's "great white hope."

The legend of his discovery varies. Allegedly, Dr. Dre discovered Eminem's demo tape on the floor of Interscope label chief Jimmy Iovine's garage. Another story goes that Dre first heard Eminem on the radio and said, "Find that kid whoever he is! I'm gonna make him a star!" or something like that. Either way, not until Eminem took second place (who won first?) in the freestyle category at 1997's Rap Olympics MC Battle in Los Angeles did Dre agree to sign him, producing the bestselling triple-platinum Slim Shady LP in early 1999. With controversial yet undeniable talent (the right mix for stardom of any kind), Eminem became the white-boy cartoon god of surreal white-trash humor and graphic violence, a stratum of Roseanne Barr-meets-Quentin Tarrentino-meets-Mickey Mouse Club-cum Snoop Dogg and beatnik Dobie Gillis. The Marshall Mathers LP followed and sold close to two million copies in its first week of release, making it one of the fastest-selling rap albums of all time, and his latest album, The Eminem Show, was the first album since 'N Sync's Celebrity and the September 11 terrorist attacks to sell over one million copies in its debut week. To top it all off, Eminem's roman a clef feature film debut, 8 Mile, is described as a story about "the boundaries that define our lives and a young man's struggle to find the strength and courage to transcend them." In his great struggle to transcend boundaries, the surrealist rap icon has also managed two weapons charges, an assault charge, a lawsuit from his mother for humiliating her in his lyrics, and his baby mama's attempted suicide - all to keep it real, as they say.

Copyright © 2003 by Edited by Greg Tate.

Tags: Society

About the Author

A cultural critic for The Village Voice, GREG TATE is also the author of Flyboy in the Buttermilk and contributes regularly to national publications such as Rolling Stone, VIBE, and the New York Times. In addition, he helped found the Black Rock Coalition, produced two albums on his own label, and composed a libretto that was performed at the Apollo Theater. He lives in New York City.