In the predominantly white classrooms of my school days though, proficient use of “standard” English showed those white folks that I had every right to be there, that I was just as good if not better. What I’m describing is what communications scholars have called for decades “code switching.” The kind of literacies necessary to master communicating with different communities of people is a hallmark of what it means to grow up as a minority subject with the U.S. and any other country with a history of colonization and slavery.
Iggy Azalea interlopes on this finely honed soundscape of Southern Blackness to tell us “how fancy” she is, and ask “how we love dat.” Her recklessness makes clear that that she does not understand the difference between code-switching and appropriation. She may get the science of it, but not the artistry. Appropriation is taking something that doesn’t belong to you and wasn’t made for you, that is not endemic to your experience, that is not necessary for your survival and using it to sound cool and make money. Code-switching is a tool for navigating a world hostile to Blackness and all things non-white. It allows one to move at will through all kinds of communities with as minimal damage as possible.
But it is also rooted in a love and respect for one’s culture and for the struggle. That kind of love and respect for sonic Southern Blackness made Zora Neale Hurston one of the greats. Hell, it made Mark Twain one of the greats. But Iggy is more like the Joel Chandler Harris of Hip Hop.