White kids from the burbs are throwing up gang signs. The 2001 Grammy winner for best rap artist was as white as rice. And blond-haired sorority sisters are sporting FUBU gear. What is going on in American culture thats giving our nation a racial-identity crisis?Following the trail blazed by Norman Mailers controversial essay The White Negro, Everything but the Burden brings together voices from music, popular culture, the literary world, and the media speaking about how from Brooklyn to the Badlands white people are co-opting black styles of music, dance, dress, and slang. In this collection, the essayists examine how whites seem to be taking on, as editor Greg Tates mother used to tell him, everything but the burdenfrom fetishizing black athletes to spinning the ghetto lifestyle into a glamorous commodity. Is this a way of shaking off the fear of the unknown? A flattering indicator of appreciation? Or is it a more complicated cultural exchange? The pieces in Everything but the Burden explore the line between hero-worship and paternalism.Among the books twelve essays are Vernon Reids Steely Dan Understood as the Apotheosis of The White Negro, Carl Hancock Ruxs The Beats: Americas First Wiggas, and Greg Tates own introductory essay Nigs R Us.Other contributors include: Hilton Als, Beth Coleman, Tony Green, Robin Kelley, Arthur Jafa, Gary Dauphin, Michaela Angela Davis, dream hampton, and Manthia diAwara. From the Hardcover edition.