Hooks & West - Melanie Roth

There were many great ideas presented to us in both of these readings. Hook and West bring to light the notion of our desire for otherness. Bell Hooks begins his article, Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance, by stating, “mass culture is the contemporary location that both publically declares and perpetuates the idea that there is pleasure to be found in the acknowledgment and enjoyment of racial difference” (308). This passage immediately introduces the commoditization of racial differences in our society, as the theorist begins to explore the “other”.

            One main statement I took from the reading was the quote, “It is within the commercial realm of advertising that the drama of otherness finds expression” (Hooks 311). Immediately I thought of comedians such as Chris Rock, who continuously pokes fun of racial stereotypes, and uses the notion of the “Other” in stand up comedy. In my TV and Culture class, I learned that rap emerged from poverty in NYC and other urban areas, while lyrically presenting social and political issues. Hook discusses how this genre of music allowed young black men to obtain a public voice, reiterating that rap “emerged in the streets-outside the confines of a domesticity shaped and informed by poverty, outside enclosed spaces where young male bodies had to be contained and controlled” (315).

In Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance, it is said “rap articulates narratives of coming to critical political consciousness, it also exploits stereotypes and essentialist notions of blackness” (Hooks, 315). Rap music is one of the main media outlets, where the “Other” is publicized, through a mainstream commodity. Through lyrics, rappers are “Providing narratives that are mainly about power and pleasure, that advocate resistance to racism yet support phallocentrism, rap denies this pain” (Hooks, 315). Personally, I believe that Raps use of commoditizing racial differences has reinforced past stereotypes while creating new ones.

"Power", by Kanye West, exemplifies how lyrics redefine and acknowledge racial differences within rap music.