Why are African American trends and culture so popular among all young people?

"Everyone wants to be the black man, nobody wants to be the black man." Truer words never spoken. It doesn't happen as much or as deep as it once was but it's still happening clearly if you are smart enough to see.

Let me give people a little history lesson. Elvis sang songs created by black artists and got famous becuase he could sing like a colored boy but but wasn't a colored boy. He died filthy rich and the original artists died in poverty. He was only doing what a long long line of white people have done in American history. Which is appropriate black clothing, music, dance moves, physical features, slang, music, art, hard work, blood sweat and tears and make them their own. Dressing like a black person and acting like a "black person" is just the right amount of danger and sexiness, they are the diluted form. A black person in a white person's body.

I know I'm sounding like an Afrocentric loony but listen, anyone with half a brain can see this trend.

EXAMPLES:

~White people walking around with locs (which is fine) but they don't even ackowledge they want them becuase black people made them cool and it's a Nubian invention. "Dreadlocks orginated in the bible, in Germany, on cavemen." I feel bad for the people dumb enough to say that nonsense to me becuase I set them straight right quick. Africa is being erased from history.

~When black people create slang and EVERY TIME it trickles down into white suburbia where white surburban kids with no culture of their own cling to it and drain it dry of any creativity. Badokadonk even crept into country music.

etc and so forth.

It's like the German SS in the death camps with the women Jews. They denounced them with one hand and lusted after them with another. It's twisted. It's the duality of persecution that bothers me. It also happened in Ancient Rome. The Roman women of yore who had Celtic and Germanic slaves and called them barbarians but yearned for blond wigs made out of their hair. Let me repeat that: the rich higher race Roman women treated the faired haired slaves like dirt but they wanted a part of their body and beauty.

Sound familiar to anyone?

So it's NOT always been black people. When you are the hated and the persecuted in society you are mysterious and dangerous and secretly your persecuter wants to BE you. Throughout history the rich have mimicked the poor becuase the poor are inevitably more creative, the kings have plagiarized the peasants, the slave masters have wanted the slaves, the "superior" races have looked to the "inferior" races for inspiration. And unfortunately right now Black people are the ones that are imitated with little to no appreciation. Little white surburban clones latch onto the danger of acting like black people.

I actually adore the name Harriet - I think it is a really cute and spunky name. One of my favorite authors is Dorothy L. Sayers, and Harriet Vane is the heroine/love interest of her Lord Wimsey mystery novels. Harriet Vane is an intelligent, complex, passionate, sensible and witty woman, and to me that's what I think of when I think of Harriet. There are also many strong, independent women from history called Harriet, such as Harriet Martineau and Harriet Tubman. So there are some wonderful namesakes. Where I live it is quite popular too, although not as popular as in the UK - it's a top 200 name. (About twice as popular as Isla). I think it's always going to struggle a bit in the US because Americans tend to pronounce it HAYR-ee-ut. Until I realized that, I wondered why I kept getting the comment "Sounds like hairy it!" I was quite keen on the baby name Harriet Alice, which I think is an awfully sweet name, but my husband quashed it by saying it sounded unfeminine and too old-fashioned. He said if I wanted a T-ender with a middle name starting with A, I should pick Violet Angelina instead. Since then, he has named two pet birds Harriet and Alice just to make sure I can't use them! Anyway, I'm rambling ... I think Harriet is a perfectly wonderful name that anyone would be lucky to have, but I do sense a lot of opposition from others.

Rebellion. Older people who buy into negative stereotypes of black people assume the worst of us and our culture. Thuggery, rudeness, outspoken (but in a bad way) and just down right angry and oppositional. Take away the danger, and these are the qualities of your typical, confused teenager, regardless of color or social background. The LAST THING parents want is for their kids to be involved with an element that THEY DEEM (through ignorance) to be dangerous. That's exactly why our culture makes for the ultimate rebellion, and why gangster rap is the new hard rock.

Oh let's see... MTV, Rap, tabloids, professional athletes, Hollywood etc., all glamorize the culture. It's all presented as being wickedly cool to dress & act that way. Unfortunately, lilly white kids in suburbia have NO idea beyond that what the REAL lifestyle is like, not having lived it firsthand. I laugh out loud every time I see "wiggers" hanging out at the mall acting all "street".

They are at the top of the food chain, for popularity.

As you well know, girls these days no longer go for the Jimmy Carter type guys or the Ronald Reagan type guys. They go for the gangsta type guys like R. Kelly. The thug type. The guys that keep it real. And girls these days certainly don't go for ******* like Shakespeare.

Yes, religious people are a minority.

In every public high school, the most popularity people are always the Black people and the least popular being the Asians nerds/computer nerds, k.

I'm not going to speak for others, but personally I don't think it's cool to be a gangster and sell drugs and I think rappers make my black people look bad.

Because they see it as the most glaring, in-your-face, cannot-be-ignored contradiction to everything their parents do. It’s a form of rebellion that most kids grow out of when they enter college and realize in order to be taken seriously and succeed in this world, one must wear pants that actually covers his rear and must use proper grammar.

Because its cool and totally against what your parents are into. Who doesnt like to say "yo"? What young person doesnt like funky beats to dance to when they party? Its either black trends or the white rocker and punk rock trends because either one is rebellious.

I actually don't know.I'm glad I follow myself and only myself.I never follow trends because it's just a waste of time.

Whatever is the most popular music is the most influential culture of the time. Its usually started by black people. Jazz, blues, rock and roll, hip-hop. Then white people come along and start to bite it. Then you get people like Elizabeth Hasslebeck saying the bomb.