Greg Tate (Ed.), Everything but the Burden, What White People...

Abstract

To start we first need to give colossal props to Greg Tate and his army of cultural and literary analysts. This book covers more than the burden, “what white people can’t see when they see Black--the sight of a Black imagination ‘playing in the dark’” (5). This critical, political analysis covers everything from Hip-Hop, identity, self-love, Black politics, and human ownership to self-hate, fake thugs, white liberal politics, white Negroes and black-white relations. With that in mind Tate has also, to a degree, done an injustice in titling this work because it doesn’t fully capture the depth, essence, and variety present in Everything but the Burden. Nevertheless, Tate has assembled “gangsta” writers willing to fearlessly expose both themselves and those who appropriate Black culture for personal and market reasons.