Wiggers or White Allies?

This chapter examines three white hip-hop artists whose youth was spent consuming and producing hip-hop in interracial neighborhoods or friendship groups: Eminem, Danny Hoch, and Adam Mansbach. Their cultural immersion facilitated and strengthened social ties to black people. Here, the chapter uncovers long-term manifestations of racial sincerity, but it also registers moments of failure, when one or another succumbs to the privileges of whiteness or opts for the easier postures of authenticity rather than the ongoing work of struggle against racial injustice. Treating these three artists as consumers and producers of hip-hop culture, the chapter analyzes the racial politics and sincerity of their rap lyrics, theater performances, film, fiction, essays, interviews, and social activism. Without reducing the artistic complexity of their imaginative work, it considers their creative products as reception documents that reflect their understanding of the meanings and significance of hip-hop culture.