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Losing My Cool: How a Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-hop Culture: Love, Literature, and a Black Man's Escape from the Crowd
A pitch-perfect account of how hip-hop culture drew in the author and how his father drew him out again-with love, perseverance, and fifteen thousand books. Into Williams's childhood home-a one-story ranch house-his father crammed more books than the local library could hold. "Pappy" used some of these volumes to run an academic prep service; the rest he used in his unending pursuit of wisdom. His son's pursuits were quite different-"money, hoes, and clothes." The teenage Williams wore Medusa- faced Versace sunglasses and a hefty gold medallion, dumbed down and thugged up his speech, and did whatever else he could to fit into the intoxicating hip-hop culture that surrounded him. Like all his friends, he knew exactly where he was the day Biggie Smalls died, he could recite the lyrics to any Nas or Tupac song, and he kept his woman in line, with force if necessary. But Pappy, who grew up in the segregated South and hid in closets so he could read Aesop and Plato, had a different destiny in mind for his son. For years, Williams managed to juggle two disparate lifestyles- "keeping it real" in his friends' eyes and studying for the SATs under his father's strict tutelage. As college approached and the stakes of the thug lifestyle escalated, the revolving door between Williams's street life and home life threatened to spin out of control. Ultimately, Williams would have to decide between hip-hop and his future. Would he choose "street dreams" or a radically different dream- the one Martin Luther King spoke of or the one Pappy held out to him now? Williams is the first of his generation to measure the seductive power of hip-hop against its restrictive worldview, which ultimately leaves those who live it powerless. Losing My Cool portrays the allure and the danger of hip-hop culture like no book has before. Even more remarkably, Williams evokes the subtle salvation that literature offers and recounts with breathtaking clarity a burgeoning bond between father and son.Watch a Video
242 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 29, 2009
About the author
Thomas Chatterton Williams
5 books252 followersThomas Chatterton Williams is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the author of Losing My Cool and Self-Portrait in Black and White. He is a Visting professor of humanities and senior fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, a 2022 Guggenheim fellow, and a visiting fellow at AEI. He was previously a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and a Columnist at Harper’s. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the London Review of Books, Le Monde and many other places, and has been collected in The Best American Essays and The Best American Travel Writing. He has received support from New America, Yaddo, MacDowell, and The American Academy in Berlin, where he is a member of the Board of Trustees. His next book, Nothing Was the Same: The Pandemic Summer of George Floyd and the Shift in Western Consciousness, will be published by Knopf.
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October 26, 2011
I first heard of Thomas Chatterton Williams' book, Losing My Cool on a public radio program (To the Best of our Knowledge). I was a bit disturbed by Williams' thesis, that “hip-hop culture” is the source of serious problems in the US black community, especially because he played down racism as an ongoing problem. I was more disturbed by the fact that the white host appeared to lap up Williams' ideas.
I am a white Jew, and as such I think it's my responsibility to denounce racism, like it is the responsibility of all caring people. If anything, white people have a greater responsibility to fight racism, because the privilege of our skin means other white people (who are after all the beneficiaries and arbiters of racism) are generally more likely to listen to us. Thus, I feel moved to respond to Williams, whose book, I fear, only plays to white people's tendency to believe racist arguments.
His book is a memoir, recounting his experience growing up in what he calls “hip-hop culture,” reflecting on his relationship with his father who is an intense book reader and collector, and describing his eventual changes in values and priorities and understandings as he moved away from “hip-hop culture.” He describes how his peers, even from a young age, rejected books as uncool, while idolizing famous rappers and lusting for material possessions, and concentrating on, even obsessing about, clothes and jewelry. In high school he describes a misogynist, superficial atmosphere, where boys and girls used each other for sexual and material favors as a matter of course, where he felt compelled to hit his girlfriend when confronted with evidence of her affair, and later to fight the other man, in order to save face.
These personal experiences are no doubt valid, but the conclusions Williams draws are not. What he is ignoring is that these are not symptoms of black culture in particular, but rather of the broader culture of this country. We don't have to look far to find widely respected white people who promote sexism and the treatment of women as “just bitches.” Eminem comes to mind if we restrict ourselves to hip-hop. We could broaden just to include rock and roll and spend years listing bands with white members who have treated women as less than human in lyrics and their personal lives. We might look at other forms of media (controlled by whites, generally) and find America's Top Model's constant humiliation of young women, or the constant pressure to have a perfect body, where perfect is defined by the media (controlled by whites). Of course the far uglier side of the problem is the millions of white men who commit rape and abuse or murder their wives and girlfriends.
Materialism, similarly, is symptomatic of the broader culture. The PR industry spends hundreds of billions of dollars every year to bombard us incessantly with advertising exhorting us to buy anything and everything, enticing us with promises of sex, love, happiness, coolness, family affection, whatever will make another sale. Williams would be hard-pressed to explain how suburban whites who accumulate multiple cars, large homes, tons of plastic toys and hair-driers not to mention clothes and furniture are not every bit as materialistic as the black people he describes. If Williams' childhood atmosphere exuded materialism, what must it have been like for the (white) person he dubbed “Playboy,” who grew up with servants, multiple homes around the world, and complained about the food at the fancy restaurants he ate at every night?
Anti-school and anti-intellectual attitudes are also common among white people. Dismissing the “smart” kids is an age-old tradition: we have a whole vocabulary (nerd, geek, einstein) to insult and marginalize the kids who want to do well in school. Furthermore, According to Tim Wise, who cites the National Center for Education Statistics, there is no evidence that black kids in general are less academically inclined than white students: “43 percent of black fourth-graders do one hour or more of homework per night, as do 45 percent of whites and 47 percent of Hispanics. In fact, black and Hispanic fourth-graders are both more likely than whites that age to do more than one hour of homework, with 18 percent of Hispanics, 17 percent of blacks, but only 15 percent of whites putting in this amount of study time daily.” He also cites statistics showing that, on average, black parents actually spend more time helping their children with homework than white parents.
I agree with Williams that these are horrific and destructive values. However, to pin them on “hip-hop culture” without acknowledging their prevalence in the broader culture allows some people to blame the ills of racism on “black culture.” Williams at many times implies that systematic discrimination came to an end with Jim Crow, although he never says so explicitly. The problem is that the gaping reality of disparity between blacks and whites demands an explanation. Black people have higher rates of unemployment, are far more likely to be imprisoned, die sooner, have higher levels of stress, have lower levels of education, among many many other problems that are simply worse for black than white. This reality lurks in the background of the book, and unfortunately, Williams makes it all to easy to blame “hip-hop culture.”
To do so is racist, unless we are willing to blame sexism and materialism among whites on “Eminem culture” or “AC-DC culture.” It's not fair to blame black culture for black problems unless we do the same for whites. Also, it is ignorant of the facts to claim that black people are more materialist, more sexist, more anti-intellectual than whites. Though I'm not sure that Williams blames an amorphous “black culture” for the problems he describes, it's easy to fall into that trap (as many people who argue similarly do). This is racist because there is no universal “black culture.” Black people are diverse and varied: some valuing school, others dissing it; some valuing women, others dissing them; some valuing material goods excessively, others not. This is one way to be racist: treating people not as individuals but as indistinguishable members of a group.
Wiliams at one point espouses more openly racist views. He explains his choice of “shirts and sweaters and trousers or jeans that fit” over sagging jeans or basketball shorts because he “wanted to look like a man and not a kid,” that he no longer wanted to look like he “was about to stick up a 7-eleven.” This is not fair. Most people who sag their jeans are law abiding citizens who never “stick up a 7-eleven,” and Williams knows this. It's not right to say that people look inherently more childish if they dress a certain way—it's in the eye of the beholder. We're all taught that wearing a tie around your neck is a sign of formality and seriousness. And it is, as long as we all agree that it is. But its not hard to imagine a society where people think it looks silly or uncomfortable (I already do think that.) Why is either view more or less valid? I don't judge Williams for his style, I only ask that he offer others the same courtesy.
Still, Williams may be right that he has seen people damaged and limited by the social context of materialism, sexism and anti-intellectualism that he describes. But to blame “hip-hop culture” in the way that he does, claiming that systematic racism is dead, only serves to obscure understanding of the problem. If instead we look at the broader culture, we can see that these problems are not a black problem, but a problem for all people in the United States. Unfortunately, we are also left with the uncomfortable reality of disparities between black and white: if we can't blame black culture, then perhaps all the claims of discrimination are worth investigating.
I am a white Jew, and as such I think it's my responsibility to denounce racism, like it is the responsibility of all caring people. If anything, white people have a greater responsibility to fight racism, because the privilege of our skin means other white people (who are after all the beneficiaries and arbiters of racism) are generally more likely to listen to us. Thus, I feel moved to respond to Williams, whose book, I fear, only plays to white people's tendency to believe racist arguments.
His book is a memoir, recounting his experience growing up in what he calls “hip-hop culture,” reflecting on his relationship with his father who is an intense book reader and collector, and describing his eventual changes in values and priorities and understandings as he moved away from “hip-hop culture.” He describes how his peers, even from a young age, rejected books as uncool, while idolizing famous rappers and lusting for material possessions, and concentrating on, even obsessing about, clothes and jewelry. In high school he describes a misogynist, superficial atmosphere, where boys and girls used each other for sexual and material favors as a matter of course, where he felt compelled to hit his girlfriend when confronted with evidence of her affair, and later to fight the other man, in order to save face.
These personal experiences are no doubt valid, but the conclusions Williams draws are not. What he is ignoring is that these are not symptoms of black culture in particular, but rather of the broader culture of this country. We don't have to look far to find widely respected white people who promote sexism and the treatment of women as “just bitches.” Eminem comes to mind if we restrict ourselves to hip-hop. We could broaden just to include rock and roll and spend years listing bands with white members who have treated women as less than human in lyrics and their personal lives. We might look at other forms of media (controlled by whites, generally) and find America's Top Model's constant humiliation of young women, or the constant pressure to have a perfect body, where perfect is defined by the media (controlled by whites). Of course the far uglier side of the problem is the millions of white men who commit rape and abuse or murder their wives and girlfriends.
Materialism, similarly, is symptomatic of the broader culture. The PR industry spends hundreds of billions of dollars every year to bombard us incessantly with advertising exhorting us to buy anything and everything, enticing us with promises of sex, love, happiness, coolness, family affection, whatever will make another sale. Williams would be hard-pressed to explain how suburban whites who accumulate multiple cars, large homes, tons of plastic toys and hair-driers not to mention clothes and furniture are not every bit as materialistic as the black people he describes. If Williams' childhood atmosphere exuded materialism, what must it have been like for the (white) person he dubbed “Playboy,” who grew up with servants, multiple homes around the world, and complained about the food at the fancy restaurants he ate at every night?
Anti-school and anti-intellectual attitudes are also common among white people. Dismissing the “smart” kids is an age-old tradition: we have a whole vocabulary (nerd, geek, einstein) to insult and marginalize the kids who want to do well in school. Furthermore, According to Tim Wise, who cites the National Center for Education Statistics, there is no evidence that black kids in general are less academically inclined than white students: “43 percent of black fourth-graders do one hour or more of homework per night, as do 45 percent of whites and 47 percent of Hispanics. In fact, black and Hispanic fourth-graders are both more likely than whites that age to do more than one hour of homework, with 18 percent of Hispanics, 17 percent of blacks, but only 15 percent of whites putting in this amount of study time daily.” He also cites statistics showing that, on average, black parents actually spend more time helping their children with homework than white parents.
I agree with Williams that these are horrific and destructive values. However, to pin them on “hip-hop culture” without acknowledging their prevalence in the broader culture allows some people to blame the ills of racism on “black culture.” Williams at many times implies that systematic discrimination came to an end with Jim Crow, although he never says so explicitly. The problem is that the gaping reality of disparity between blacks and whites demands an explanation. Black people have higher rates of unemployment, are far more likely to be imprisoned, die sooner, have higher levels of stress, have lower levels of education, among many many other problems that are simply worse for black than white. This reality lurks in the background of the book, and unfortunately, Williams makes it all to easy to blame “hip-hop culture.”
To do so is racist, unless we are willing to blame sexism and materialism among whites on “Eminem culture” or “AC-DC culture.” It's not fair to blame black culture for black problems unless we do the same for whites. Also, it is ignorant of the facts to claim that black people are more materialist, more sexist, more anti-intellectual than whites. Though I'm not sure that Williams blames an amorphous “black culture” for the problems he describes, it's easy to fall into that trap (as many people who argue similarly do). This is racist because there is no universal “black culture.” Black people are diverse and varied: some valuing school, others dissing it; some valuing women, others dissing them; some valuing material goods excessively, others not. This is one way to be racist: treating people not as individuals but as indistinguishable members of a group.
Wiliams at one point espouses more openly racist views. He explains his choice of “shirts and sweaters and trousers or jeans that fit” over sagging jeans or basketball shorts because he “wanted to look like a man and not a kid,” that he no longer wanted to look like he “was about to stick up a 7-eleven.” This is not fair. Most people who sag their jeans are law abiding citizens who never “stick up a 7-eleven,” and Williams knows this. It's not right to say that people look inherently more childish if they dress a certain way—it's in the eye of the beholder. We're all taught that wearing a tie around your neck is a sign of formality and seriousness. And it is, as long as we all agree that it is. But its not hard to imagine a society where people think it looks silly or uncomfortable (I already do think that.) Why is either view more or less valid? I don't judge Williams for his style, I only ask that he offer others the same courtesy.
Still, Williams may be right that he has seen people damaged and limited by the social context of materialism, sexism and anti-intellectualism that he describes. But to blame “hip-hop culture” in the way that he does, claiming that systematic racism is dead, only serves to obscure understanding of the problem. If instead we look at the broader culture, we can see that these problems are not a black problem, but a problem for all people in the United States. Unfortunately, we are also left with the uncomfortable reality of disparities between black and white: if we can't blame black culture, then perhaps all the claims of discrimination are worth investigating.
August 30, 2012
An engaging but very frustrating read. I found it very upsetting how one-sided the author is about a subculture that contains so many different elements- both positive & negative. He has a very narrow view of hip-hop. While it is an interesting read, I really HATE the premise & message. The author's racial politics taint every account he gives. I'm not sure he can claim to be a voice for most black men, since his experience of seeking to mimick and be accepted as black are tied to his biracial heritage. This is reinforced by his continous stereotyping. He equates black culture and black people to hip-hop, which is really over simplistic & racist.
As a teaching tool about development, I feel it still has some value because it does speak to many issues faced by most young men growing up, regardless of race. However, I don't see how it could help teachers or administrators think about how to improve institutional support & policy for men of color. It thrives heavily on deficit theories for why black men struggle, & it downplays institutional racism. I think it's a dangerous book to use as a lens into the black college student experience, especially for whites who may have very low racial identity development.
As a teaching tool about development, I feel it still has some value because it does speak to many issues faced by most young men growing up, regardless of race. However, I don't see how it could help teachers or administrators think about how to improve institutional support & policy for men of color. It thrives heavily on deficit theories for why black men struggle, & it downplays institutional racism. I think it's a dangerous book to use as a lens into the black college student experience, especially for whites who may have very low racial identity development.
March 3, 2012
I'm about 10 years older than the author, so my relationship to hip-hop is a bit different. I grew up with funk and disco in the white suburbs of Pittsburgh. When hip-hop came along, I lapped it up. It was so *black*. The mainstream (white and black) hated it. People didn't understand it. Hip-hop became a source of pride for me.
Of course, the music was a lot more diverse in the '80s. We had silly rap, good-time rap, black nationalist rap, misogynist rap, and what would become "gangsta" rap. It was before the multinational record labels got a hold of it and turned the lion's share of mainstream hip-hop (as though that could've existed in '87) into the gangsta variety.
I often wondered what it must've been like growing up with that constant nihilistic, self-loathing, misogynist message being pounded into impressionable, young ears.
Losing My Cool gave me insight into that experience. I don't know how representative Williams's experiences are of that generation's experience with hip-hop, but it is still illuminating--as well as depressing. I definitely appreciate his perspective and recommend that other people check it out.
Of course, the music was a lot more diverse in the '80s. We had silly rap, good-time rap, black nationalist rap, misogynist rap, and what would become "gangsta" rap. It was before the multinational record labels got a hold of it and turned the lion's share of mainstream hip-hop (as though that could've existed in '87) into the gangsta variety.
I often wondered what it must've been like growing up with that constant nihilistic, self-loathing, misogynist message being pounded into impressionable, young ears.
Losing My Cool gave me insight into that experience. I don't know how representative Williams's experiences are of that generation's experience with hip-hop, but it is still illuminating--as well as depressing. I definitely appreciate his perspective and recommend that other people check it out.
September 16, 2011
Overall solid and fascinating account of the author's attraction to hip-hop culture and its narrow definition of blackness versus his autodidact father's emphasis on grades, reading, and philosophy. He expresses very well why and how he was attracted to hood styles (make no mistake, the hip-hop he refers to is the street stuff, not conscious stuff which he and his friends derisively referred to as "Starbucks niggas"). Even though my experience is a bit different, as a black male I identified with the various pressures and crises of trying to fit in to this ideal, and dealing with the social humiliation should one fail to measure up.
Then he graduates, goes to Georgetown, and after the first year of keeping his hood bona fides up, he undergoes an abrupt change, and it is the description of his growing estrangement from hip-hop, and his realization of how he and those around him chose a narrow lie of what black people could be, that the book earns its four stars. He describes the interior process of slowly drifting away from his old peers and his growing appreciation for his father's sacrifices with a generosity of spirit and precision of language that I greatly appreciated.
My favorite part though, is where, as a philosophy major, he struggles with Hegel's master and slave dialectic, and after beginning to understand some serious hardcore thought, notes "But by that point something had changed in my response to the music, and irreparably so.... I listened to the music, and I listened to it a lot, but it became nearly impossible for me to be impressed by it on anything approaching a deeper level, to see rappers like Jay-Z and Nas and the Wu-Tang Clan, or even Mos Def and Talib Kweli, in the light I used to see them and so many still do: as something more than entertainers and petty egoists, as something akin to autodidact philosophers and thinkers, as role models and guides, as "black people CNN". I couldn't do it, not once I actually had some philosophy under my belt and was getting into the habit of thinking for and informing myself."
That put into stark words something I still have difficulty with - listening to conscious rappers who I admire but, when I try and break them down, the ideas are still confused and lacking, or if they're on point, they're on point on a basic level and it's the wordplay that puts them a cut above, and that skill of wordplay often gets mistaken for thought itself. But listening to some of Lupe Fiasco's passionate but half-formed political ideas, or reconciling Mos Def's attempts at analysis on "Black on Both Sides" with the lazy, inconsistent performances he's given and his belief in, oh to pick one thing, Bigfoot. Like, I love hip-hop, but to leave it as the highest point of expression in terms of black thought, political analysis, and philosophy is a mistake too many intelligent fans make, much less the lowest common denominator taking on prefabricated "street dreams" as their waking life.
Bottom line, finishing this book inspired to me to push myself, to think harder and to do better, to ask how I could live a better life and what such a life might be for. And that's about the highest praise I can give to a book.
Then he graduates, goes to Georgetown, and after the first year of keeping his hood bona fides up, he undergoes an abrupt change, and it is the description of his growing estrangement from hip-hop, and his realization of how he and those around him chose a narrow lie of what black people could be, that the book earns its four stars. He describes the interior process of slowly drifting away from his old peers and his growing appreciation for his father's sacrifices with a generosity of spirit and precision of language that I greatly appreciated.
My favorite part though, is where, as a philosophy major, he struggles with Hegel's master and slave dialectic, and after beginning to understand some serious hardcore thought, notes "But by that point something had changed in my response to the music, and irreparably so.... I listened to the music, and I listened to it a lot, but it became nearly impossible for me to be impressed by it on anything approaching a deeper level, to see rappers like Jay-Z and Nas and the Wu-Tang Clan, or even Mos Def and Talib Kweli, in the light I used to see them and so many still do: as something more than entertainers and petty egoists, as something akin to autodidact philosophers and thinkers, as role models and guides, as "black people CNN". I couldn't do it, not once I actually had some philosophy under my belt and was getting into the habit of thinking for and informing myself."
That put into stark words something I still have difficulty with - listening to conscious rappers who I admire but, when I try and break them down, the ideas are still confused and lacking, or if they're on point, they're on point on a basic level and it's the wordplay that puts them a cut above, and that skill of wordplay often gets mistaken for thought itself. But listening to some of Lupe Fiasco's passionate but half-formed political ideas, or reconciling Mos Def's attempts at analysis on "Black on Both Sides" with the lazy, inconsistent performances he's given and his belief in, oh to pick one thing, Bigfoot. Like, I love hip-hop, but to leave it as the highest point of expression in terms of black thought, political analysis, and philosophy is a mistake too many intelligent fans make, much less the lowest common denominator taking on prefabricated "street dreams" as their waking life.
Bottom line, finishing this book inspired to me to push myself, to think harder and to do better, to ask how I could live a better life and what such a life might be for. And that's about the highest praise I can give to a book.
February 27, 2023
I wasn't very familiar with Thomas Chatterton Williams before hearing a Bloggingheads.tv podcast episode in which Glenn Loury and John McWhorter discuss their thoughts on a recent piece published in Le Monde that profiles all three men, along with Coleman Hughes. (The conversation is hilarious for anyone who wants to have a listen—the link below should take you right to the spot.)
I loved this memoir. Genuine and thoughtfully written, it's a conversation about race that instantly invited me in—the kind of book that made me eager to humble myself and willing to interrogate my views. I felt more human reading this story, and even though I was raised in a completely different subculture than Chatterton Williams, I identified with some of his experiences growing up into adulthood. I'm definitely looking forward to hearing more from this writer.
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/60023...
I loved this memoir. Genuine and thoughtfully written, it's a conversation about race that instantly invited me in—the kind of book that made me eager to humble myself and willing to interrogate my views. I felt more human reading this story, and even though I was raised in a completely different subculture than Chatterton Williams, I identified with some of his experiences growing up into adulthood. I'm definitely looking forward to hearing more from this writer.
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/60023...
October 8, 2014
First, I've got to say that Williams was brave to write this book. Taking a hard, honest look at hip hop culture, being critical of it, and then publicly writing about his conclusions are fraught things for a black man to do in this country. Opens him up to all sorts of (unwarranted) criticism. I've seen him called an Uncle Tom in more than one place. That being said, the book itself is an interesting and engaging read. Williams is a real writer. He writes lucidly and concisely, and has a knack for choosing, from among all the scenes from his life, those scenes that will best convey the story he wants to tell.
The story itself is both sad and wonderful. Sad, because there are so very many intelligent, talented young people who never have a chance to flourish because they're caught up on a culture that doesn't value and encourage those attributes. (There are, of course, other factors involved.) Wonderful, because people like Williams' father exist, who seize every opportunity to learn and teach, and who never settle for anything less than excellence from both themselves and others. This book is a story of potential, both wasted and expressed.
I usually don't respond to other people's reviews, either those written here on Amazon or on other forums, but in this case I'll make an exception. Williams has been criticized for having a very narrow view of hip hop culture, for being overly critical of it, for not acknowledging all of the many excellent aspects of black culture in general, and, yes, even for writing the book when he is (genetically) only half black. (Again, that hint of Uncle Tom, even when the phrase isn't used directly.) This is HIS story. This is HIS experience. He isn't writing a sociology text. He doesn't have to apologize for what he writes by including all sorts of information extraneous to his experience in order to balance everything out. Of course his experience isn't reflective of any and all aspects of the greater culture. But it is his experience. And it is the experience of most if not all of the kids who grew up with him in his neighborhood and school. I am stunned that anyone thinks they have the right to criticize him for simply writing about his own life.
That being said, I highly recommend this book.
The story itself is both sad and wonderful. Sad, because there are so very many intelligent, talented young people who never have a chance to flourish because they're caught up on a culture that doesn't value and encourage those attributes. (There are, of course, other factors involved.) Wonderful, because people like Williams' father exist, who seize every opportunity to learn and teach, and who never settle for anything less than excellence from both themselves and others. This book is a story of potential, both wasted and expressed.
I usually don't respond to other people's reviews, either those written here on Amazon or on other forums, but in this case I'll make an exception. Williams has been criticized for having a very narrow view of hip hop culture, for being overly critical of it, for not acknowledging all of the many excellent aspects of black culture in general, and, yes, even for writing the book when he is (genetically) only half black. (Again, that hint of Uncle Tom, even when the phrase isn't used directly.) This is HIS story. This is HIS experience. He isn't writing a sociology text. He doesn't have to apologize for what he writes by including all sorts of information extraneous to his experience in order to balance everything out. Of course his experience isn't reflective of any and all aspects of the greater culture. But it is his experience. And it is the experience of most if not all of the kids who grew up with him in his neighborhood and school. I am stunned that anyone thinks they have the right to criticize him for simply writing about his own life.
That being said, I highly recommend this book.
July 5, 2010
I was happy to win this book as a Goodreads giveaway. It was a fast read, and I found it to be very compelling. I loved the premise of the author being able to throw off the shackles of the hip-hop culture through the salvation of books, ideas, and his father's influence.
The first part of the book convincingly shows how captivating the street culture can be, even to black teens who live far from the streets. It was fascinating to me from an anthropological point of view, and especially to be able to see that first-person account from one who has been there and is now able to see it from an objective distance as well. My only reservation in recommending this book is for sensitive readers to understand that the descriptions of the author's adolescent experiences are gritty and sometimes vulgar. This comes with the territory of this subject matter.
I wonder at the seductive power that the culture held over the author, such that it took him until he was in the second year of college before he was able to see it for what it really was - that all the talk of "keeping it real" by being dumbed down, focused on material possessions, and degrading to women, was all a crushing lie. His father was desperately trying to open up his son's mind through enforced study sessions after school and during the summers, but until the author was able to move away, he was not able to free himself. This seems to be a very important point to me, that one's social and physical environment is very powerful, and how needful it is that everyone be able to travel and experience other cultures and other points of view.
I very much enjoyed the second half of the book that detailed the author's awakening. This includes some delightful discussions of philosophy as applied to the black experience. I learned quite a bit.
I look forward to seeing what else this author will write.
The first part of the book convincingly shows how captivating the street culture can be, even to black teens who live far from the streets. It was fascinating to me from an anthropological point of view, and especially to be able to see that first-person account from one who has been there and is now able to see it from an objective distance as well. My only reservation in recommending this book is for sensitive readers to understand that the descriptions of the author's adolescent experiences are gritty and sometimes vulgar. This comes with the territory of this subject matter.
I wonder at the seductive power that the culture held over the author, such that it took him until he was in the second year of college before he was able to see it for what it really was - that all the talk of "keeping it real" by being dumbed down, focused on material possessions, and degrading to women, was all a crushing lie. His father was desperately trying to open up his son's mind through enforced study sessions after school and during the summers, but until the author was able to move away, he was not able to free himself. This seems to be a very important point to me, that one's social and physical environment is very powerful, and how needful it is that everyone be able to travel and experience other cultures and other points of view.
I very much enjoyed the second half of the book that detailed the author's awakening. This includes some delightful discussions of philosophy as applied to the black experience. I learned quite a bit.
I look forward to seeing what else this author will write.
October 31, 2011
Mildly heartwarming as a father/son coming-of-age story, but lacking sufficient perspective or nuance in its portrayal of hip-hop culture. Far too many reductive, sweeping judgments of hip-hop's influence based on tenuous interpretations of scant anecdotal evidence. I'd highly recommend the The Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Nehisi Coates, for a much sharper take on similar subject matter.
May 5, 2012
Losing My Cool is a profound reflection on one of the more prevalent cultures within the U.S. While I find it somewhat bemusing that any individual could be so bold as to critique any nonfiction writer who is willing to offer up their own intimate and precious life experiences for a greater good (which Williams does in brilliant fashion) I nevertheless wish to praise this candid and honest analysis of urban, hip-hop culture. Williams does not shy away from divulging the more unfavorable aspects of his past, which makes his latter observations on social and self-identity all the more miraculous.
As a high-school teacher of English Literature, I picked up William’s memoir hoping to gain some perspective in regards to my African-American students. I feel as though I have been given a great deal of insight into the mindset of my students who embrace the hip-hop idealism, and who equate it as their racial identity. I feel as though I can meet the general disdain for learning, literature, and all things disregarded as “un-real” with from a place of greater understanding, and I thank Williams for that.
Nothing would please me more than to teach this book in my classroom. Unfortunately, we live in a society where many parents would rather pretend that their precious ones are too innocent to read about the very things that they partake of on Friday nights, and it is difficult for teachers ( and students) to embrace a culture of true learning in the public classroom which is often oppressed by private political agendas and rhetoric. I applaud Williams again for his unabashed honesty, and hope that others will be able to see the beautiful message relayed in this book, and be given the opportunity to hear the crucial message that it sends.
As a high-school teacher of English Literature, I picked up William’s memoir hoping to gain some perspective in regards to my African-American students. I feel as though I have been given a great deal of insight into the mindset of my students who embrace the hip-hop idealism, and who equate it as their racial identity. I feel as though I can meet the general disdain for learning, literature, and all things disregarded as “un-real” with from a place of greater understanding, and I thank Williams for that.
Nothing would please me more than to teach this book in my classroom. Unfortunately, we live in a society where many parents would rather pretend that their precious ones are too innocent to read about the very things that they partake of on Friday nights, and it is difficult for teachers ( and students) to embrace a culture of true learning in the public classroom which is often oppressed by private political agendas and rhetoric. I applaud Williams again for his unabashed honesty, and hope that others will be able to see the beautiful message relayed in this book, and be given the opportunity to hear the crucial message that it sends.
November 3, 2010
While I appreciated the author's honesty and ability to write about some hard subjects, I just didn't get into the book. The first half, I felt, was overkill. I understood the "hip-hop culture" and how he lived it out pretty quickly. And then, the second half was the same way. I read at least 30 pages making the same point. I also felt that the author was a bit too universal in his judgements. He was certainly able to see his own actions for what they were, and that, I admit, takes bravery and integrity, but I don't believe that you can ever judge anyone else's actions based on your own motives. He may be right about everyone living the "thug-life" or whatever, but regardless, he doesn't have the right to assume they were operating under the same motives. But maybe that's just me.
September 1, 2010
Unbelievably disappointing. I had read some of Mr. Williams’ articles and had been anticipating reading this book for months. It’s a great concept, but, well, the book doesn’t deliver on the title. Rather than nitpick the various problems, I’ll settle for weighing in what I believe is the most serious flaw: the story contained in these pages is an ordinary story that many, many college graduates experience (regardless of background). As a memoir, the book is boring and not particularly well told, and as a piece of serious analysis, it falls short. The tension between hip-hop culture and intellectualism in the African-American community is a fascinating area of study, but readers would be better served picking up another book on the subject. Not recommended.
April 11, 2024
Ignore the critics who have been misrepresenting this book online for the past 15 years. A wonderfully moving coming-of-age memoir that treads into uncomfortable territory for some, but ultimately expresses universal truths about what it means to grow, mature, and flourish as a person.
March 1, 2021
I'm sure this book would generate a lot of controversy if it were first published today, but it appeared in 2010, when the tail end of Generation X was getting subsumed into the meta-irony that early Millennials would perfect and go on to be mocked for--rightly, in my mind.
I don't have a dog in this fight, so I felt embarrassed at times rooting for Williams's hypothesis. It's hard not to root for Williams himself, though; and I think this is a point that is largely lost in today's silly, performative, puritanical, and holier-than-thou world of race relations. It's all about the people, individual persons who make up collectives that those persons didn't create but under whose generational burdens they labor. This book is about Williams's life, but it's also about Stacey's and Charles's and Ant's.
Williams may be wrong about his friends, but he loves them. He may be wrong about his ideas and his prescription for overcoming a certain generation's upbringing, but he has done a lot of deep thinking about the subject and has compared the things he has learned with the previously unquestioned assumptions with which he grew up, and he has decided to change his mind.
If only more people had the ability to change their minds, honestly to examine the assumptions they've always made, to interrogate their specific choices. Most importantly, if only the ones now clamoring for the immediate righting of all the historical wrongs that ever existed had the grace to understand that human change is possible. It doesn't come from Twitter mobthink or online spreadsheets of accumulated transgressions of dubious origin or a kinder, gentler version of China's Cultural Revolution. No, change comes through courage, curiosity, honesty, and tenacity. Williams has all four in spades, and I feel fortunate to have been allowed into the deepest, most intimate moments of his teenage and college years.
I always think Williams is much younger than I am, so it was a pleasant--maybe that's the wrong word--surprise to read about his experiences on the morning of September 11, 2001. I remember almost everything about that day as well, and I don't mean just the news coverage or how I felt. He's only four years younger, and I was in graduate school at that time, and the similarity between our two experiences is hopeful, if deeply sad.
The one typo I found in the book may be my favorite of all time. He misspelled Inglewood, California, "Englewood." That's because he's a Jersey boy, and he assumed, with his East Coast bias, that the city in California had the same name as the city in New Jersey. (He probably also pronounces Oregon OR-uh-gone, like a cretin.) He's even earnest in the way he makes mistakes.
You should read this book before you read Self-Portrait in Black and White. I wish I had.
I don't have a dog in this fight, so I felt embarrassed at times rooting for Williams's hypothesis. It's hard not to root for Williams himself, though; and I think this is a point that is largely lost in today's silly, performative, puritanical, and holier-than-thou world of race relations. It's all about the people, individual persons who make up collectives that those persons didn't create but under whose generational burdens they labor. This book is about Williams's life, but it's also about Stacey's and Charles's and Ant's.
Williams may be wrong about his friends, but he loves them. He may be wrong about his ideas and his prescription for overcoming a certain generation's upbringing, but he has done a lot of deep thinking about the subject and has compared the things he has learned with the previously unquestioned assumptions with which he grew up, and he has decided to change his mind.
If only more people had the ability to change their minds, honestly to examine the assumptions they've always made, to interrogate their specific choices. Most importantly, if only the ones now clamoring for the immediate righting of all the historical wrongs that ever existed had the grace to understand that human change is possible. It doesn't come from Twitter mobthink or online spreadsheets of accumulated transgressions of dubious origin or a kinder, gentler version of China's Cultural Revolution. No, change comes through courage, curiosity, honesty, and tenacity. Williams has all four in spades, and I feel fortunate to have been allowed into the deepest, most intimate moments of his teenage and college years.
I always think Williams is much younger than I am, so it was a pleasant--maybe that's the wrong word--surprise to read about his experiences on the morning of September 11, 2001. I remember almost everything about that day as well, and I don't mean just the news coverage or how I felt. He's only four years younger, and I was in graduate school at that time, and the similarity between our two experiences is hopeful, if deeply sad.
The one typo I found in the book may be my favorite of all time. He misspelled Inglewood, California, "Englewood." That's because he's a Jersey boy, and he assumed, with his East Coast bias, that the city in California had the same name as the city in New Jersey. (He probably also pronounces Oregon OR-uh-gone, like a cretin.) He's even earnest in the way he makes mistakes.
You should read this book before you read Self-Portrait in Black and White. I wish I had.
July 29, 2012
I caught this young author on a program aired on C-Span's Book TV. I had just missed what looked like an interesting talk--but what I did see intrigued me, so I wrote the title down and got hold of this read.
Firstly, I can only wish that Oprah's Book Club would endorse such a marvel. Especially, since she really seems to be pressured from the hip-hop "consortium"--with characters like Fifty-Cent and others criticizing her for not promoting their stuff more.
Here we have the real goods on a very brave young man who--thanks to his astutely and mostly, self-educated, articulate, black father--transforms before our very eyes---from the cumbersome and pressured sociology of The 'Hood--to Georgetown--where he is still pressured to walk and talk hip hop--until the author returns home and for the first time, really and truly peruses his dad's enormous and hard-earned, personal library. There, he starts to read, and through the journey of his interior self--discovers who he truly is: an individual learning to see the world with fresh eyes.
Amazing transformation takes place here and I can only hope, somehow, Oprah, discovers this terrific read. We need to hear more about this struggle. Oh and yes, it's not just getting into schools like Georgetown--it's having the audacity to shed the skin of a pressured sociology that makes up the whole Gang-Think of hip-hop. This is a must-read!
One caveat I'd like to add: Gang culture is all about Fatherless-boys. And I'm not sure if the author has realized this one wholeheartedly. It's the kind of thing that men like Michael Meade and Robert Bly of the Men's Movement, in general, have been saying for decades. I can only hope young men like this one discovers the wisdom of these elders.
To wit: Michael Meade's (who has worked tirelessly with men in prisons and such) classic, MEN and THE WATER OF LIFE. the classic, IRON JOHN, and story-teller,
Firstly, I can only wish that Oprah's Book Club would endorse such a marvel. Especially, since she really seems to be pressured from the hip-hop "consortium"--with characters like Fifty-Cent and others criticizing her for not promoting their stuff more.
Here we have the real goods on a very brave young man who--thanks to his astutely and mostly, self-educated, articulate, black father--transforms before our very eyes---from the cumbersome and pressured sociology of The 'Hood--to Georgetown--where he is still pressured to walk and talk hip hop--until the author returns home and for the first time, really and truly peruses his dad's enormous and hard-earned, personal library. There, he starts to read, and through the journey of his interior self--discovers who he truly is: an individual learning to see the world with fresh eyes.
Amazing transformation takes place here and I can only hope, somehow, Oprah, discovers this terrific read. We need to hear more about this struggle. Oh and yes, it's not just getting into schools like Georgetown--it's having the audacity to shed the skin of a pressured sociology that makes up the whole Gang-Think of hip-hop. This is a must-read!
One caveat I'd like to add: Gang culture is all about Fatherless-boys. And I'm not sure if the author has realized this one wholeheartedly. It's the kind of thing that men like Michael Meade and Robert Bly of the Men's Movement, in general, have been saying for decades. I can only hope young men like this one discovers the wisdom of these elders.
To wit: Michael Meade's (who has worked tirelessly with men in prisons and such) classic, MEN and THE WATER OF LIFE. the classic, IRON JOHN, and story-teller,
September 1, 2015
One of the dumber books you'll ever read. The author, who wrote a somewhat widely read op-ed in (I think) the Washington Post back in the late '00s, was riding that wave of anti-hip-hop sentiment kicked off by the likes of Bill Cosby and Essence magazine, not to mention the fact that rap music, on the whole, really did shit the bed back in the mid '00s. Arguably, it peaked as far back as the mid '90s.
And so this is the story of how the author, presumably at risk of getting shot in the back for stealing pound cake, turned his back on hip-hop and got his life together. In high school, he was dating a hoodrat (who doesn't seem like a legit hoodrat but rather a suburban black chick with a typical black chick attitude), he once almost got into a fight after school, and he dressed like an en extra in a Puff Daddy video. In college, an actual authentic black person, who's of course just there at Georgetown playing basketball or some shit, puts a shoe on the author in the locker room for a misunderstanding involving the athlete's girlfriend, prompting the author to ditch his '90s-era hip-hop clothes and develop more of a white affect.
Literally, that's all this book is about, but of course he tries to attach some sort of moral significance to his various wardrobe choices, and to blame hip-hop—which, to hear him tell it, isn't about anything other than beating up girls, not learning how to read and dressing like a clown—for all of the ills affecting the black community, I guess none of which existed pre-1979. Otherwise this book's subtitle would: The Evolution of One Dumbass's Wardrobe.
And so this is the story of how the author, presumably at risk of getting shot in the back for stealing pound cake, turned his back on hip-hop and got his life together. In high school, he was dating a hoodrat (who doesn't seem like a legit hoodrat but rather a suburban black chick with a typical black chick attitude), he once almost got into a fight after school, and he dressed like an en extra in a Puff Daddy video. In college, an actual authentic black person, who's of course just there at Georgetown playing basketball or some shit, puts a shoe on the author in the locker room for a misunderstanding involving the athlete's girlfriend, prompting the author to ditch his '90s-era hip-hop clothes and develop more of a white affect.
Literally, that's all this book is about, but of course he tries to attach some sort of moral significance to his various wardrobe choices, and to blame hip-hop—which, to hear him tell it, isn't about anything other than beating up girls, not learning how to read and dressing like a clown—for all of the ills affecting the black community, I guess none of which existed pre-1979. Otherwise this book's subtitle would: The Evolution of One Dumbass's Wardrobe.
January 24, 2012
This is an amazing book. I think that the decision to make this authobiographical instead of an essay on the problems of emulating hip hop culture was a good one. It's hard to argue with someone's personal experience. (People will anyway, I'm sure.)
Williams maps his journey from childhood to adulthood, dealing particularly with his reactions and modes of thinking in a way that is comes from both the emotional and the intellectual.
I never got the impression that he was straining in order to make a point or that he had to wrestle his facts to fit into his ideas and overall theme. The whole book seemed effortless, a simple, straightforward and unflinching look at growing up within a culture that has strict norms and ideas about how people should be. It's about going beyond that set of expectations.
Williams maps his journey from childhood to adulthood, dealing particularly with his reactions and modes of thinking in a way that is comes from both the emotional and the intellectual.
I never got the impression that he was straining in order to make a point or that he had to wrestle his facts to fit into his ideas and overall theme. The whole book seemed effortless, a simple, straightforward and unflinching look at growing up within a culture that has strict norms and ideas about how people should be. It's about going beyond that set of expectations.
October 15, 2013
This was an eye-opening look at a bi-racial man's search for identity--especially for this white mama of an African-American boy.
His father (an African-American) and mother (caucasian) were married to each other, and his father had a PhD and was very involved in the lives of his children. The author went to private school, lived in a nice neighborhood, but struggled so much with what "being black" meant. It wasn't until late college that he realized that "being black" can mean many things, that the Hip Hop identity is so very limiting.
Some of the subject matter was really difficult to read, but since the author was describing the life he had been living, softening those details would not have been honest. And the book would not shown this man's struggle and his ultimate epiphany.
His father (an African-American) and mother (caucasian) were married to each other, and his father had a PhD and was very involved in the lives of his children. The author went to private school, lived in a nice neighborhood, but struggled so much with what "being black" meant. It wasn't until late college that he realized that "being black" can mean many things, that the Hip Hop identity is so very limiting.
Some of the subject matter was really difficult to read, but since the author was describing the life he had been living, softening those details would not have been honest. And the book would not shown this man's struggle and his ultimate epiphany.
August 31, 2013
This book personally rocked my being. I still have not quite figured out how to deal with the questions that this book has been making me ask myself about how much I subscribe to the notion of Hip Hop culture.
July 3, 2023
He was right until he was so wrong
October 6, 2020
Wonderful memoir - I really love the way this guy writes, and what he writes about. A remarkably courageous book.
August 25, 2020
This book was even more difficult to read than his memoir on unlearning race. This one is jam-packed with stereotypes about hip-hop and rap; as someone who has some knowledge but not expert knowledge of this area of music, I personally think it has a wide range of variety as do other types of music/art. P. Diddy is different from Public Enemy, who are very politically oriented, and they are different again from RATM, who are also political and a hybrid. Williams makes wide generalizations about this area of music which are highly stereotyped.
Generally speaking, Williams' writing re: sentence structure, etc is fine. However, his arrogance leaks through the words and sentences. Though I am not Black and cannot comment on this experience, an experience of being mixed-race for four generations (at least) has given me a sense of what it is like to have variant races/ethnicities in one family. I am unable to comment on a history that includes the TransAtlantic Slave Trade. But Williams attitude smacks of the sort of arrogance that some of the conservative mixed race young males in my extended family have, and it includes an insidious and deep-seated internalized racism. Having experienced this for decades and among a number of family members, it sounds somewhat familiar. Generally speaking, these sorts of mixed-race young males who are conservative/libertarian-minded tend to cleave towards the status quo, and one of the ways in which they do this is to criticize what is nonwhite in their background(s).
Curiously, both Lebanese-British and Chinese-American (white/European background) mixed young men of this stance in my family have SPECIFICALLY criticized offshoots of rap and hip-hop from the Middle and Far East because it is too 'Black.' More criticism is reserved for their own nonwhite backgrounds. I've also noted that, for these conservative mixed-race people in my family, a strong tendency towards color-blindness; that is, an assertion that racism is 'over' or that the impact of race no longer exists. It is in these aspects that I find Williams assertions both familiar and highly condescending.
Unfortunately, this sort of internalized racism seems to express itself in a certain subgroup of the population. I can also say that, thankfully, this seems less common than the opposite, which is an awareness that the impact of inventing race still exists and that stereotypes serve to uphold it regardless of the source of those stereotypes.
I have yet to figure out why his writing is called 'cultural criticism' when it is largely about his family members and personal experiences, and rarely engages larger collective social issues, but the most difficult part of this book is its frank hostility in the form of rigid stereotyping of rap music.
Generally speaking, Williams' writing re: sentence structure, etc is fine. However, his arrogance leaks through the words and sentences. Though I am not Black and cannot comment on this experience, an experience of being mixed-race for four generations (at least) has given me a sense of what it is like to have variant races/ethnicities in one family. I am unable to comment on a history that includes the TransAtlantic Slave Trade. But Williams attitude smacks of the sort of arrogance that some of the conservative mixed race young males in my extended family have, and it includes an insidious and deep-seated internalized racism. Having experienced this for decades and among a number of family members, it sounds somewhat familiar. Generally speaking, these sorts of mixed-race young males who are conservative/libertarian-minded tend to cleave towards the status quo, and one of the ways in which they do this is to criticize what is nonwhite in their background(s).
Curiously, both Lebanese-British and Chinese-American (white/European background) mixed young men of this stance in my family have SPECIFICALLY criticized offshoots of rap and hip-hop from the Middle and Far East because it is too 'Black.' More criticism is reserved for their own nonwhite backgrounds. I've also noted that, for these conservative mixed-race people in my family, a strong tendency towards color-blindness; that is, an assertion that racism is 'over' or that the impact of race no longer exists. It is in these aspects that I find Williams assertions both familiar and highly condescending.
Unfortunately, this sort of internalized racism seems to express itself in a certain subgroup of the population. I can also say that, thankfully, this seems less common than the opposite, which is an awareness that the impact of inventing race still exists and that stereotypes serve to uphold it regardless of the source of those stereotypes.
I have yet to figure out why his writing is called 'cultural criticism' when it is largely about his family members and personal experiences, and rarely engages larger collective social issues, but the most difficult part of this book is its frank hostility in the form of rigid stereotyping of rap music.
October 22, 2010
The first half of this book is a gritty memoir of growing up in the dominant black culture of hip hop. Interesting enough. But it’s when Williams is away from his home environment for the first time, undergoing the transformative experience of Georgetown University, that things get intellectually lively. Upon declaring a philosophy major, Williams begins to live a Socratic “examined life”, so that he “might ask serious questions and then use the answers to live a better life.” He examines the pervasiveness of hip hop values and how they are at odds with his father’s life and values. He ventures to Paris, where so many black intellectuals and artists have flourished. He matures, broadens his outlook, and is still able to take an ironic pleasure in hip hop music.
February 14, 2019
I really enjoyed and appreciated the elegant and captivating writing style. Having bought it on a whim after hearing about it in a podcast discussion (Mr. Williams was one of participants), I didn't expect the topic to engage me much. As it turned out, I was wrong.
I don't share much of Mr. Williams experiences, coming from a different place (literally and figuratively), and having different temperamental dispositions and immutable characteristics, but for the few hours I spent emersed in this book, I let the voice of another human flow through my circuits, and it was an enriching experience.
4/5 stars, with +1 as a compensation for the irritation a few other (whitesplaining, holier-than-thou) reviews caused me.
I don't share much of Mr. Williams experiences, coming from a different place (literally and figuratively), and having different temperamental dispositions and immutable characteristics, but for the few hours I spent emersed in this book, I let the voice of another human flow through my circuits, and it was an enriching experience.
4/5 stars, with +1 as a compensation for the irritation a few other (whitesplaining, holier-than-thou) reviews caused me.
March 9, 2020
An unpopular opinion:
This book is an honest take from one man's perspective. Among other things, it goes a long way in crushing the myth that all black men and women like the same things, which, of course, is ridiculous. Our place in the world is what we make it, no matter what obstacles are deliberately thrown in our way. That said, we need to be careful about things that aren't particular helpful. Hip Hop music is great, Hip Hop culture... not so much. Books beat hip hop all day long. Can we love both? Absolutely, but make no mistake, while both have entertainment value, one adds more value in your life than the other.
This book is an honest take from one man's perspective. Among other things, it goes a long way in crushing the myth that all black men and women like the same things, which, of course, is ridiculous. Our place in the world is what we make it, no matter what obstacles are deliberately thrown in our way. That said, we need to be careful about things that aren't particular helpful. Hip Hop music is great, Hip Hop culture... not so much. Books beat hip hop all day long. Can we love both? Absolutely, but make no mistake, while both have entertainment value, one adds more value in your life than the other.
October 30, 2020
A memoir-argument that I found really challenging and compelling, even if I wouldn't go quite as far at TCW goes. Basically TCW growing up was caught between 2 worlds, 2 meanings of being black. The first, in his portrayal, was the middle to lower-middle class world around him in New Jersey. His surroundings were mostly white, but his friends and social context were black, and that was the more important world. The second is his family, especially his father, a Ph.D in sociology who had grown up in Jim Crow Texas and had pushed his 2 sons to be intellectually engaged and successful in school.
The heart of the book, I think, came when he was in high school, playing basketball at a summer camp. He was showing off and acting tough in a way that TCW defined as a black playground style. His dad called him over at one point and said something like "Hey don't worry about it, just play your game. And if you don't win, we don't need more black athletes and entertainers." That's the central conflict of the book: what TCW describes as the conflict between a black heritage of learning, self-improvement, respectability, and responsibility to self and others embodied by his father, and the "hip-hop culture" of shallowness, materialism, anti-intellectualism, sexism, and extreme touchiness about honor and credibility. While he soaked in the latter world around him as a kid (as most kids do) in the peak hip-hop years of the 1990s, he always had his Dad in the background, asking him to be something more, something better, without ever forcing him to change. The Dad had this awesome, 15k volume library, and it just killed him that his son showed no interest in it, even though the Dad has sacrificed immensely to create a middle class life for his kids.
This dynamic exemplifies TCW's argument that an introspective, intellectual life (one that includes respect for women) is incompatible with hip-hop culture. He came to this realization through a creeping suspicion in high school that there was more out there, and then getting smacked in the face with that reality in college, where he became a passionate reader, writer, and philosophy major. He talks about how "acting black" in his youth meant not thinking, not reading, not developing oneself but buying cooler stuff, getting more girls, and never letting anyone insult you without beating them down. His implied argument is that BET and the rap music and videos that were the constant background music of their lives pounded the worst possible messages into their heads at a vulnerable age and that few of his peers were able to eventually dissociate from that reality. What's really important to his overall argument is that he and his friends were not poor; they weren't rich either, but they hovered around the middle to solid working class. Gangster posturing might be a survival strategy for poor youth of color, but in his world it was all about status, conformity, and authenticity. There's a deep anger in this memoir at basically wasting his youth, on self-inflicted wounds, on almost getting in real trouble repeatedly over the pettiest things.
This book is designed, I think, to be provocative. His larger point is that the AA community has self-sabotaged by embracing and celebrating hip hop culture, which he sees not as a continuation of previous forms of black culture (and of black intellectualism) but as a betrayal of those legacies. In a sense, it is more than a betrayal; it is an erasure. While this is not entirely his fault, he and his friends didn't know about Baldwin, Morrison, DuBois, Ellision, Hughes, and other brilliant minds like these, nor about the Harlem Renaissance, Reconstruction, much about Civil Rights or black power. It was all posturing, material wealth, and outright dismissal of real thinking.
Here's where one bumps into the limits of a memoir-argument. I think that hip-hop is more than what he is saying. While most rappers are not deep thinkers, neither are most musicians or entertainers of any genre. You can find a lot of the same toxic masculinity, shallow materialism, and other faults in other types of music, although hip-hop tends to be the most explicitly vulgar and aggressively sexist. I would have liked for him to explore that a bit more, as I think that people like Nas represent a really great art form and important cultural expressions. However, he raises the fair question as to the difference between "high hip-hop culture" that his educated white friends listened to at a distance and for artistic appreciation and the normal mainstream of hip hop, of the repetition of the same themes over and over again by the majority of artists, and how that is received at the level of a 15 year old boy.
The question he makes us wrestle with is, for all the complexity and variety of the world of hip hop, for all the potential empowerment and expression it can offer, whether this is actually a good thing for the majority of the young people who listen to it, constantly, as I can attest with my students. Can they keep their critical distance not just from the lyrics but the broader images and tones, the roles it suggests for men and women, the definition of blackness it seems to promulgate. Not everything that is empowering actually helps you defy and rise above your circumstances, and you don't become a learned person unless you learn the difference between entertainment and real learning, which requires reading, reading, and reading, as TCW found out.
Let me add something that TCW didn't make clear enough: hip hop culture is not the biggest problem facing the AA community in the US. Those problems would be poverty, mass incarceration, police brutality, structural family-type issues, all of which are legacies of Jim Crow and other forms of oppression. That, as TCW would argue, doesn't get hip-hop off the hook. Does this culture/genre help sustain these problems? Does it give kids the tools to overcome them or ? Can and should hip hop be integrated into the classroom, as Chris Emdin would argue, or is the tension between hip hop and learning and introspection simply too great to make this viable? Or, is this argument really an excuse, a distraction from the real issues of racism and segregation? I wonder, for instance, how this book would be different if it was written in the Trump age.
Overall, TCW poses and addresses these questions through vivid story-telling and reflection. I think this is an essential book that anyone who wants to think seriously about race and masculinity in the United States should pick up, especially because it is relatively short.
The heart of the book, I think, came when he was in high school, playing basketball at a summer camp. He was showing off and acting tough in a way that TCW defined as a black playground style. His dad called him over at one point and said something like "Hey don't worry about it, just play your game. And if you don't win, we don't need more black athletes and entertainers." That's the central conflict of the book: what TCW describes as the conflict between a black heritage of learning, self-improvement, respectability, and responsibility to self and others embodied by his father, and the "hip-hop culture" of shallowness, materialism, anti-intellectualism, sexism, and extreme touchiness about honor and credibility. While he soaked in the latter world around him as a kid (as most kids do) in the peak hip-hop years of the 1990s, he always had his Dad in the background, asking him to be something more, something better, without ever forcing him to change. The Dad had this awesome, 15k volume library, and it just killed him that his son showed no interest in it, even though the Dad has sacrificed immensely to create a middle class life for his kids.
This dynamic exemplifies TCW's argument that an introspective, intellectual life (one that includes respect for women) is incompatible with hip-hop culture. He came to this realization through a creeping suspicion in high school that there was more out there, and then getting smacked in the face with that reality in college, where he became a passionate reader, writer, and philosophy major. He talks about how "acting black" in his youth meant not thinking, not reading, not developing oneself but buying cooler stuff, getting more girls, and never letting anyone insult you without beating them down. His implied argument is that BET and the rap music and videos that were the constant background music of their lives pounded the worst possible messages into their heads at a vulnerable age and that few of his peers were able to eventually dissociate from that reality. What's really important to his overall argument is that he and his friends were not poor; they weren't rich either, but they hovered around the middle to solid working class. Gangster posturing might be a survival strategy for poor youth of color, but in his world it was all about status, conformity, and authenticity. There's a deep anger in this memoir at basically wasting his youth, on self-inflicted wounds, on almost getting in real trouble repeatedly over the pettiest things.
This book is designed, I think, to be provocative. His larger point is that the AA community has self-sabotaged by embracing and celebrating hip hop culture, which he sees not as a continuation of previous forms of black culture (and of black intellectualism) but as a betrayal of those legacies. In a sense, it is more than a betrayal; it is an erasure. While this is not entirely his fault, he and his friends didn't know about Baldwin, Morrison, DuBois, Ellision, Hughes, and other brilliant minds like these, nor about the Harlem Renaissance, Reconstruction, much about Civil Rights or black power. It was all posturing, material wealth, and outright dismissal of real thinking.
Here's where one bumps into the limits of a memoir-argument. I think that hip-hop is more than what he is saying. While most rappers are not deep thinkers, neither are most musicians or entertainers of any genre. You can find a lot of the same toxic masculinity, shallow materialism, and other faults in other types of music, although hip-hop tends to be the most explicitly vulgar and aggressively sexist. I would have liked for him to explore that a bit more, as I think that people like Nas represent a really great art form and important cultural expressions. However, he raises the fair question as to the difference between "high hip-hop culture" that his educated white friends listened to at a distance and for artistic appreciation and the normal mainstream of hip hop, of the repetition of the same themes over and over again by the majority of artists, and how that is received at the level of a 15 year old boy.
The question he makes us wrestle with is, for all the complexity and variety of the world of hip hop, for all the potential empowerment and expression it can offer, whether this is actually a good thing for the majority of the young people who listen to it, constantly, as I can attest with my students. Can they keep their critical distance not just from the lyrics but the broader images and tones, the roles it suggests for men and women, the definition of blackness it seems to promulgate. Not everything that is empowering actually helps you defy and rise above your circumstances, and you don't become a learned person unless you learn the difference between entertainment and real learning, which requires reading, reading, and reading, as TCW found out.
Let me add something that TCW didn't make clear enough: hip hop culture is not the biggest problem facing the AA community in the US. Those problems would be poverty, mass incarceration, police brutality, structural family-type issues, all of which are legacies of Jim Crow and other forms of oppression. That, as TCW would argue, doesn't get hip-hop off the hook. Does this culture/genre help sustain these problems? Does it give kids the tools to overcome them or ? Can and should hip hop be integrated into the classroom, as Chris Emdin would argue, or is the tension between hip hop and learning and introspection simply too great to make this viable? Or, is this argument really an excuse, a distraction from the real issues of racism and segregation? I wonder, for instance, how this book would be different if it was written in the Trump age.
Overall, TCW poses and addresses these questions through vivid story-telling and reflection. I think this is an essential book that anyone who wants to think seriously about race and masculinity in the United States should pick up, especially because it is relatively short.
December 2, 2018
Predictably, I loved this book and identified quite a bit with the author, although my own experience with trying to conform to the standards of hip-hop culture is limited to my short-lived Lil' Bow Wow phase in elementary school, which I soon abandoned in favor getting lost in the pages of YA mystery novels. But enough about me. What I enjoyed most about this book, beyond the affirmation I felt when reading it, was the author's ability to dig beneath the surface, indeed to dismantle the shallow but widely-accepted mythologies that uphold a culture whose destructive nature we all too willingly blind ourselves to. He has a way of piercing through the smoke-screen and illuminating truths that would be obvious if the proverbial waters were not so muddy: one such example is his observation that his white classmates typically listened to hip-hop with a sense of irony, enjoying the artistry but nevertheless accepting that the lyrics are not to be taken literally. Meanwhile, too many of the black kids he befriended in high school, perhaps due to social pressure and a lack of alternative role models, took those same messages seriously, adopting the lifestyles promoted by the most popular rappers and, as a result, blinding themselves to their own individuality. I suspect he gives voice to many other black and POC people who grew up during the same hip-hop era and struggled with the same doubts. Even if you disagree with his conclusions, his experience is an authentic one that is worth reading.
June 28, 2020
I didn't want to love this book but I did. I love memoirs about people who realize that something is wrong with them and with how they've learned to live, and who read a bunch of books in a search for how to live differently. I relate to bookish people who know they're broken in some way and who look to books for salvation. My life has been totally transformed by that quest.
I would include in this "genre" books like: Thomas Merton's The Seven Story Mountain, Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chau, Lit by Mary Karr, An Education by Tara Westover, The Autobiography of Malcom X, From Fire By Water by Sohrab Ahmari and many many more.
Still, I found myself fighting this book on every page. I think there's an unspoken double standard in identity politics where white men like J.D. Vance or Jared Yates Sexton (who has written at length about the toxic white masculinity he was raised to emulate in Indiana) are allowed to say, "Hey, my culture taught me some lessons that didn't always serve me well, and I've decided to unlearn many of them after learning more about myself and reading a bunch of books." Black men are not always allowed to say the same thing, but the deal with people's stories is that they get to tell them and Williams tells his well, even when it's uncomfortable.
I also found the story of his brother being assaulted by police officers for no reason and having his teeth knocked out an important and horrifying example of the police brutality and racism that BLM has brought to light.
I would include in this "genre" books like: Thomas Merton's The Seven Story Mountain, Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chau, Lit by Mary Karr, An Education by Tara Westover, The Autobiography of Malcom X, From Fire By Water by Sohrab Ahmari and many many more.
Still, I found myself fighting this book on every page. I think there's an unspoken double standard in identity politics where white men like J.D. Vance or Jared Yates Sexton (who has written at length about the toxic white masculinity he was raised to emulate in Indiana) are allowed to say, "Hey, my culture taught me some lessons that didn't always serve me well, and I've decided to unlearn many of them after learning more about myself and reading a bunch of books." Black men are not always allowed to say the same thing, but the deal with people's stories is that they get to tell them and Williams tells his well, even when it's uncomfortable.
I also found the story of his brother being assaulted by police officers for no reason and having his teeth knocked out an important and horrifying example of the police brutality and racism that BLM has brought to light.
March 15, 2021
A compelling memoir recounting the author's coming of age and coming to terms with his racial and personal identity. The author's father, who overcome tremendous odds as a Black man growing up in the Jim Crow South, instills in his son a respect for learning and books—even if he can't admit this with his friends. This father-son relationship is the emotional heart of the story. Williams offers a sharp indictment of hip hop culture and how it can deform when it is understood as an arbiter of authenticity rather than a mere aesthetic pose.
July 1, 2016
I loved this book and it was so eye opening to me and the movement through philosophy in the latter part of the book was wonderful. However, there is a lot of rough language and, while it is not explicit, there are sexual encounters that take place. But this young man's journey to find himself and break free of the hip-hop culture was wondrous and I love his father (Pappy) so much. Books and the written word truly can save a life!
Here is a taste:
"Pappy was nobody's fool, he knew exactly what kind of kid Frankie was. It's just that he believed above all in the power of the will - that it is never too late to make a change if the will is in it. And who could know what encouragement might stick with whom and when? Certainly not him, he thought, and so he refused to discriminate. He tried to heal everyone the same."
"I don't think it's frivolous to dwell on food, though, because our attitudes toward food often speak volumes. If you can't or don't bother to think broadly or curiously about what you ingest, then what else is passing you by?"
"Honey, those books....Are. Your. Father's. Life. You have no idea how hard he had to work, what he had to go through, just to get his hands on them. What kind of hell he caught - his own family told him an educated nigger in the South was a dead nigger. Do you realize he hid himself in the closet with a flashlight in order to read? Baby, you cannot imagine the world he has lived in, and you should thank God that you can't."
"Pappy never believed in God; reading was his lone salvation. Nor did he simply amass books to peruse them; he strove with them in the full religious sense of the world that Kierkegaard intended - he fought those texts as if his life were at stake - which, in a way, it was."
"You don't need anybody if you have books," Pappy used to say, and I was beginning to believe him."
"According to Borges, there is a special Islamic night, called the Night of Nights, in which the hidden doors to heaven are cast wide open and the 'water in the water jars is sweeter than on other nights'. It was something like this that I felt when I encountered Dostoyevsky for the first time."
"I was aware, above all, and at long last, that the world was a broad and grand place and that I was equal to and worthy of my surroundings wherever I went. I was also aware that no one, white or black, could take that from me. I cannot overstate the importance of this realization."
Here is a taste:
"Pappy was nobody's fool, he knew exactly what kind of kid Frankie was. It's just that he believed above all in the power of the will - that it is never too late to make a change if the will is in it. And who could know what encouragement might stick with whom and when? Certainly not him, he thought, and so he refused to discriminate. He tried to heal everyone the same."
"I don't think it's frivolous to dwell on food, though, because our attitudes toward food often speak volumes. If you can't or don't bother to think broadly or curiously about what you ingest, then what else is passing you by?"
"Honey, those books....Are. Your. Father's. Life. You have no idea how hard he had to work, what he had to go through, just to get his hands on them. What kind of hell he caught - his own family told him an educated nigger in the South was a dead nigger. Do you realize he hid himself in the closet with a flashlight in order to read? Baby, you cannot imagine the world he has lived in, and you should thank God that you can't."
"Pappy never believed in God; reading was his lone salvation. Nor did he simply amass books to peruse them; he strove with them in the full religious sense of the world that Kierkegaard intended - he fought those texts as if his life were at stake - which, in a way, it was."
"You don't need anybody if you have books," Pappy used to say, and I was beginning to believe him."
"According to Borges, there is a special Islamic night, called the Night of Nights, in which the hidden doors to heaven are cast wide open and the 'water in the water jars is sweeter than on other nights'. It was something like this that I felt when I encountered Dostoyevsky for the first time."
"I was aware, above all, and at long last, that the world was a broad and grand place and that I was equal to and worthy of my surroundings wherever I went. I was also aware that no one, white or black, could take that from me. I cannot overstate the importance of this realization."
May 29, 2011
Thomas Chatterton Williams was born in 1981 and was raised in New Jersey, who went on to attend Georgetown University and study philosophy. He is bi-racial, a child whose mother is white and whose father is black; both parents taught him at a young age that he was a black boy. Losing My Cool chronicles how Thomas found an identity in the 80s and 90s as an African-American teen by adopting the "petty, limited, money-hoes-and-clothes-obsessed consciousness" of hip hop and rap music in order to legitimize his black-hood, and how, with the help of his father, the study of philosophy, and a broad range of experiences outside the hood, he shed that nihilistic and limiting hip hop persona to develop his true self.
Thomas' father, who crammed books into their one-story house anywhere they would fit, set a good example for his children by exercising his intellect to become a better person, and it is for his father that Thomas began this book. His father patiently tutors him and his brother after school in an effort to encourage them to reach their potential, but Thomas is more interested in "keeping it real" by playing women, being "hard" and wearing all the right name brands. A year after Thomas gets to college he grows up, begins to study philosophy, and slowly sheds the limiting shackles of "thug" life.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. As a bi-racial child with a father who experienced segregation I can relate to the struggle to find your identity in a world where skin tone matters more than anything else. As a former listener of rap music I can understand his assessment of rap music as well. The first 3/4 of the book is a recount of various experiences and the last several chapters are more reflective and philosophical. Thomas' descriptions of high school parties, his treatment of his high school girlfriend, and blowing off college classes his freshmen year made me cringe, but it shows how thoroughly Thomas had bought into the fatal messages embodied in certain rap music. An inspiring read about being true to yourself and breaking out of the confines of the culture surrounding you to take advantage of our freedom as human beings to be ourselves, no matter what the color of your skin tone.
Thomas' father, who crammed books into their one-story house anywhere they would fit, set a good example for his children by exercising his intellect to become a better person, and it is for his father that Thomas began this book. His father patiently tutors him and his brother after school in an effort to encourage them to reach their potential, but Thomas is more interested in "keeping it real" by playing women, being "hard" and wearing all the right name brands. A year after Thomas gets to college he grows up, begins to study philosophy, and slowly sheds the limiting shackles of "thug" life.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. As a bi-racial child with a father who experienced segregation I can relate to the struggle to find your identity in a world where skin tone matters more than anything else. As a former listener of rap music I can understand his assessment of rap music as well. The first 3/4 of the book is a recount of various experiences and the last several chapters are more reflective and philosophical. Thomas' descriptions of high school parties, his treatment of his high school girlfriend, and blowing off college classes his freshmen year made me cringe, but it shows how thoroughly Thomas had bought into the fatal messages embodied in certain rap music. An inspiring read about being true to yourself and breaking out of the confines of the culture surrounding you to take advantage of our freedom as human beings to be ourselves, no matter what the color of your skin tone.
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