The Hip Hop Anthropologist

                                                                            Us Black Folks                                                                         By Dennis Shipman    Unlike any other ethnic group or, more accurately, sub-group in the United States, upwardly mobile Black folks have been all too willing to sacrifice cultural affinity on the self-serving altar of rugged individualism than any other group on earth. Individualism is a concept that does not exist among any indigenous group found in Africa. Social scientists often argue, only to be cast as apologists for tribalism, that this phenomenon ...

Success seems to be an illusory dream for me as I comfortably entered middle age earlier this year. As of late, though, it has become an obsession of mine to determine anecdotally if fate, luck, or other intangible factor plays a role in how one achieves success in this life. The "rugged individualism" is a unique worldview, which still dominates realpolitik in these United States. The vast majority of overworked, underpaid Americans would still obdurately subscribe to a pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstrap, work-your-ass-to-the-bone, stoicism that traditionally defined us as Americans, and promised a rainbow at the end of the proverbial tunnel. That rainbow typically manifested in demonstrable wealth, material acquisition, or maybe just a better opportunity with which to attain those things if not for ourselves, then certainly for our progeny. As the twilight sets on this American empire, I often wonder what life would have been like had I had been born in an emerging economy, ...