White Oppression required Buckwheat, Farnia and Stymie to be frequently unintelligible to be palatable; Rap turns this on its head by being fiercely unintelligible to the uninformed White Culture.

"White Culture Expectations of Black Youth: Can't They All Just Be Buckwheat?" (excerpt)

In many ways Rap can be seen as a response to the 'Our Gang' template: in Hip-Hop they are their own gang -- posse -- without White Supervision...

White Oppression required Buckwheat, Farnia and Stymie to be frequently unintelligible to be palatable; Rap turns this on its head by being fiercely unintelligible to the uninformed White Culture. Whites render themselves incapable of hearing the Black Voice so as to disassociate Black Culture from White: to further this, Black Youth detaches itself with Voice AND Vocabulary...

This method was employed even by 'cross-over' blacks, such as Michael Jackson. Witness the lyrics in the rap section of his track "She Drives Me Wild":

Please, no, keep back, I can't take it / You're drivin' me wild / I might not make it / You got me lookin' like buckwheat, oh / Hair pulled every which way but me / Far from Medusa, but your looks are deadly / You're walkin' soft, still I hear the medley / Uh, shiver my timberland boots, cramped my style / She drives me wild...

The line "You got me lookin' like buckwheat" shows the constant presence of Buckwheat, Farnia and Stymie in Black Youth Consciousness, and illustrates the desire to take the name on their own terms, as has been done with the word 'nigger'...


I am Laslo.

https://althouse.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-professor-was-just-offering-up-some.html