PAC LIKE ME: To be a "White ‘Pac," Eminem Has to Become a Race Traitor

PAC LIKE ME To be a "White ‘Pac," Eminem Has to Become a Race Traitor by Sofía Quintero

Eminem deserves mad props for the respect and love he has given to Tupac. In his new album he mentions Tupac over 11 times. That's love and he's doing his share to keep Pac's memory alive. On "Say What You Say" he goes as far as to call himself the "white 'Pac".... It is endless, we have got to recognize and appreciate those helping to keep Pac's memory alive. MAD LOVE TO EMINEM." Posting by an Eminem fan on the website http://tu-pac.com/ Indeed, numerous similarities exist between the lives and careers of Marshall Bruce Mathers III and Tupac Amaru Shakur. Both are men of contradiction and controversy, gifted as they are conflicted. And because we like our artists brilliant and tormented, Eminem likely will follow ‘Pac’s trajectory toward multimedia dominance with the occasional skirmish with trouble along the way.

However, we struggled with ‘Pac at his worst because when at his best, he would voice our pain, assert our worth, and most importantly, speak our truth to power. He would break sisters’ hearts by calling us bitches or hoes then affirm our dignity by encouraging us to keep our heads up. The same thug who proudly personified the worst affects of oppression in songs like "Outlaw" was the same revolutionary who indicted it in tracks like "White Man’z World." If ‘Pac occasionally disappointed us with his violence and hedonism, it was because he also blessed us with his compassion and awareness. We knew he knew better, and we held him to that higher standard.

We don’t know yet if Eminem knows better for he has only chosen to emulate Tupac at his worst. The most he offers as political commentary to date is the song "White America" which delivers considerably less than the title promises. The insights he offers on race are shallow and muddled, wavering between a pandering acknowledgement of how his race fuels album sales to those complaints of reverse racism that make most people of color and progressive Whites cringe.

The "White America" he critiques does not consist of the wealthy elites who prey on the racial divisions among those who share a common economic anxiety. Nor does it consist of the false liberals who condemn discrimination against people of color but deny the system of white privilege that facilitates it. Rather Eminem reserves his harshest critique for those Whites how stand in his way be they the record industry executives who dismissed him as another Vanilla Ice and the political wives who seek to censor him. "White America" is typical rap braggadocio parading as social commentary with clichéd affirmations of the First Amendment offered by countless, otherwise apolitical rappers and rockers before him.

And if the film "8 Mile" is any indication, we can expect less from Eminem in this regard for hip hop’s favorite White boy is being whitewashed. He has stressed repeatedly that the movie is based only loosely on his life, and the significance of his insistence runs much more deeply than that of a musician-turned-thespian asserting his acting skills. The semi-biographical film calculates with great precision which elements of Eminem’s life to accentuate, dilute or even omit, and these decisions seem driven as much by commercial imperative as by dramatic structure. Biographical aspects that remain or are exaggerated in "8 Mile" include Eminem’s upbringing by a neglectful mother in a working poor White section of Detroit. His character Jimmy "Rabbit" Smith is proletarian and proud, bussing to his factory gig and running with a multicultural clan of aspiring MCs.

Meanwhile, the "semi" encapsulates facets of the rapper’s personality – both real and concocted – that evoke controversy and critique, and these are either absent or sanitized. Thus, where Eminem fantasizes about raping his mother, Rabbit intervenes when her abusive boyfriend attacks her. While Eminem spits anti-gay slurs only to deny that he is a homophobe, Jimmy Rabbit defends an openly gay co-worker (albeit his lunchtime rhyme that posits a distinction between being gay and being a faggot is as incredulously self-serving as Eminem’s duet with Elton John at the 2001 Grammy Awards.) The misogynist who raps about murdering and burying his wife in the presence of his daughter is transformed on-screen into a naïve romantic who is taken by a shameless tart with stars in her eyes.

By underscoring the pathos of Eminem’s White working-class alienation while erasing the anti-social effects that experience spawns, "8 Mile" garnered Eminem the forgiveness and compassion still denied Tupac despite sympathetic roles such as the romantic mail carrier in "Poetic Justice" and the addict determined to get clean in "Gridlock’d." Therefore, as much "8 Mile" vociferously insists that class trumps race, the widespread reception of the film only reinforces how salient race remains. The same media that skewered Eminem for his vulgar lyrics leaped to praise the semi-autobiographical movie and exalt the rapper to iconic status. Likening the film to classics such as "Purple Rain" and "Rocky", Eminem’s critics marveled at the mainstreaming of Marshall Mathers seemingly oblivious to the role they were playing in that process. It was as if merely viewing "8 Mile" magically bestowed his detractors with the ability to embrace even celebrate the very contradictions they previously could not tolerate from Tupac or for that matter any other hip hop artist of color.

The articles that rightfully censured Eminem for songs like "Kim" transformed overnight into glowing profiles with quotes from admirers who describe "Marshall" as the perfect neighbor and a devoted father. Columnists pondered Eminem’s cross-racial appeal as if ‘Pac’s was limited only to Blacks. Those who could never embrace the complexity of Tupac the thug angel now hail the trinity of Marshall the father, Eminem the son and Slim Shady the unholy ghost. While Tupac was dismissed as a model of pathology whose appeal to Black youth was a problem to attack, Eminem is upheld as a barometer of the disaffection of White youth whose popularity prompts parents and pundits to swallow their disdain and engage him. ‘Pac was a threat to our children, Eminem is their spokesperson.

If Eminem truly aspires to be the "White ‘Pac," he would challenge this sudden embrace rather than revel in or succumb to it. In fact, he would acquire a political education and develop a social conscience that includes a deeper analysis of how race and class intersect in the United States, to whose benefit and at whose expense. Ultimately, he must find the courage to use his talent and risk his popularity to share that analysis with his fans. Because of his skin privilege and class background, Eminem can wield an influence that Tupac never did, inciting millions across difference to examine and perhaps even cross the numerous divides that enable the top 10 per cent of the population to command 71 per cent of private wealth. If ‘Pac can encourage Black youth to learn about the Black Panthers and read the autobiography of Malcom X, imagine if Eminem were to introduce White kids to abolitionist John Brown and Howard Zinn’s "A People’s History of the United States."

One may point to Tupac’s political heritage and feel it is unfair to expect Eminem to aspire to the same depth. Perhaps but no more unfair than the fact that Eminem’s White privilege coupled with his working-class roots afford him a humanity among media, scholars, and politicians that still evades Tupac, epitomizing both the economic struggles and racial advantages of the White working-class. With the ascent of "8 Mile," Slim Shady’s misogyny, homophobia and violence were quickly forgiven, no longer seen as threats to the status quo. In the shadow of his working-class Whiteness, they are the status quo.

If he indeed is the "White ‘Pac" as he claims, these are the privileges Eminem will exploit occasionally to promote racial justice. Yet should he comprehend and rhyme, for example, about how the corporate media uses race to play on the economic anxieties of low-income Whites who have more in common with people of color than Rupert Murdoch or Donald Trump, it would be the biggest fall from grace of his career.

In other words, to be a White ‘Pac, Eminem has to become a race traitor with all the sacrifice that entails.

A politicized Eminem would be beautiful and dangerous thing, and I actually hope he finds the impetus and courage to rise to the challenge. Sometimes I even fantasize about him becoming a voracious reader like Tupac, reading works by authors like Noam Chomsky and bell hooks and kicking verses that contextualize his White working-class experience within his newfound analysis. With the same vivid anger he once menaced women and gays and fellow celebrities of little consequence, Eminem would unleash his lyrical wrath to check the racism of other Whites in position of influence be they academics, executives or politicians or the voter next door.

Should that happen the capacity I have to embrace Tupac’s contradictions will extend to Eminem. Maybe then I will cop one of his albums. But only then will I refer to Eminem as the White Tupac.