Swagger Jackin'

(swagger jacker) – a person who steals someone else’s flow, lines, jokes, style, actions, swagger, etc.

Taken from Urban Dictionary

For as long as I can remember, black culture has been hijacked at every corner and sold to the highest bidder at the expense of dignity, self-respect, and integrity. Ours is an experience akin to the cartoonist Aaron McGruder of Boondocks and Black Jesus fame as “pilgrims in an unholy land” in the manner anything uniquely African-American ends up capitulated – and worse, mocked by the mainstream. Swagger jacking – the practice of some people who take others’ style, flow, swagger, actions, and speech – is another way of calling it gentrification, a loss of cultural signifiers. In this case, I’m choosing to focus on the jackers themselves and their (recent) mesmerism with our culture prior to its eventual ostracism. If that is too many $5 words for you, here is the translation:  That was wack before it became cool, and now it’s lame again.

I feel like something is missing every time I come home. I understand that Conway is changing, and to many of us, not really for the better. I’m certain the Markham Street redevelopment project could have been accomplished without uprooting whole neighborhoods, buying out longtime residents – or waiting for their deaths, as I witnessed with my grandparents – as it presents newer challenges:  Where do they go? At what cost? I’m looking beyond the financial impact. Along with the St. James CME Church that was moved two blocks next to what was my grandparents’ home of nearly fifty years to accommodate the nearby private college and its expansion plans for parking, green space, and more buildings, local businesses are struggling to keep their doors open. If I see that Doc’s Barber Shop is converted to a boutique years after Roger Nelson plied his trade palming ninety percent of black Conway male heads all those years, I will scream!

Dammit, it’s home. I know the house rules of capitalism – if you have less money than someone who wants to live/work/play where you are, then you lose. Swagger jacking is more about culture than geography, about attitude and art, about a certain ownership pride instead of comparative wealth, and that makes it both more deliberate and more insidious. In other words, winning at ‘big bank takes little bank’ only means your money has no regard for roots long established. Using community hallmarks as business names for places overpriced to the displaced is beyond disrespectful.

Another citation of swagger jacking is our music, rhythms, and style. Until Eminem rocked a du-rag, the mainstream considered the public wearing of wave caps ghetto and mocked our Afro picks. You know, the real ones with the black power fist, peace sign, and metal bristles. While I haven’t seen white kids utilizing picks, the fact Questlove keeps one seems to be a signifier that they are acceptable; twenty years ago that was not the case. On the contrary, where are the white rappers who have made millions from our struggles when all of this domestic terrorism is happening to our young brothers and sisters like Renisha, Oscar, Trayvon, Jordan, and Mike? I’m looking squarely at Slim Shady, Paul Wall, Miley Cyrus, Iggy Azalea, Justin Timberlake, Vanilla Ice, etc. Perhaps Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines are a lot more solidly rigid than any of us anticipated. An indictment of our temperament is their seemingly “earning a ghetto pass” simply because we enjoy their entertainment value, leading thousands of teens and young adults to think the same way regarding African-American culture.

America was literally built on the backs of black folks. The way our swagger has been Deeboed is nothing short of criminal – if you don’t believe me, visit a car lot and tell me 22s on a Cadillac do not catch your eye. Explain why your sons sag their jeans and daughters are twerking on YouTube, and both own multiple pairs of Air Jordan sneakers. If these swagger jackers really want something, feel the sweat beading up on my forehead every time the police drive behind me or the stares my wife and I have received upon entering certain restaurants. You don’t understand the gravitas of the struggle – it’s a phase, a play thing, a hash tag. Stop.