References Minaj, Nicki. 2008. “Autobiography.” On Sucka Free. Anderson, Victor. 1999. Beyond Ontological Blackness: An Young Money Entertainment. Essay on Religious and Cultural Criticism. New York: Continuum. ———. 2010. Barbie World. Young Money Entertainment.
Douglas, Susan. 2010. Enlightened Sexism: The Seduc- ———. 2009. “Go Hard.” On Beam Me Up Scotty. Young tive Message that Feminism’s Work Is Done. New York: Money Entertainment. Times Books. ———. 2010. “Here I am” and “Moment 4 Life.” On Pink Foucault, Michel. 1990. The History of Sexuality: An Intro- Friday. Cash Money Records/Motown Records. duction, Vol. 1. New York: Vintage Books. Sharpley-Whiting, T. Denean. 2007. Pimps Up, Ho’s Down: Hall, Stuart, ed. 1997. Representation: Cultural Representa- Hip Hop’s Hold on Young Black Women. New York: New tions and Signifying Practices. London: Sage Publica- York University Press. tions. Spillers, Hortense. 2003. Black, White and in Color: Essays on Lee, Shayne. 2010. Erotic Revolutionaries: Black Women, American Literature and Culture. Chicago: University of Sexuality, and Popular Culture. Lanham, Md.: Hamil- Chicago Press. ton Books. Walker, Alice. 1983. In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens: Long, Charles. 1995. (1986). Significations: Signs, Symbols, A Womanist Prose. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jo- and Images in the Interpretation of Religion. Aurora, vanovich. Colo.: Davies Group Publishers.
Constructing ‘The Day After’: Goodie Mob, Exaggerated Radical Contingency and the Metaphysics of White Supremacy
Christopher Driscoll,Graduate Student, Religious Studies, Rice University [email protected]
The Good Die Mostly Over Bullshit. Rap group and social sufferings that offer a starting platform Goodie Mob derives its name from this axiomatic for their prophetic critiques. At other times, death acronym, and such a focus on death and the absur- is deemed the only real solution to suffering. Dur- dity of it (i.e. “bullshit”) occupies a great deal of their ing these moments, death offers an end to suffering musical catalog. Based in Atlanta and emerging in and the discovery of a response to the absurdity and 1995 as part of The Dungeon Family, a collective arbitrariness of death and suffering. Where does this of Southern artists known for musical innovation preoccupation with death come from that so heav- (which includes the Grammy-award winning Out- ily informs Goodie Mob’s music? Further, how do kast), Cee-Lo, Big Gipp, Khujo, and T-Mo formed the metaphysical ideas presented by Goodie Mob the Goodie Mob and gained critical and commercial respond to this preoccupation? And lastly, since race success in large part through their ability to main- and racialized oppression color the group’s prophet- tain a lyrical and musical balance between propheti- ic voice as well as its metaphysical responses to ra- cally biting social commentaries concerning racism, cial oppression, what might exploring Goodie Mob’s poverty, violence, and sexism with an overtly theis- metaphysical responses to death and racialized suf- tic (and often Christian) metaphysical program re- fering indicate about the way white supremacy is (or sponsive to these concerns. One way Goodie Mob is not) theorized and responded to amongst white maintains this balance is through the heuristic of religious studies scholars? death. Often, the group suggests death—the fear or In this paper, I use Goodie Mob’s song “The exaggeration of it—is responsible for the individual Day After,” the last song on their 1995 album Soul
20 BULLETIN FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION VOLUME 40, NUMBER 3 / SEPTEMBER 2011 Food, to claim that white supremacy is a construct- constructions indicates that white supremacy might ed metaphysical system that responds to human be more easily dismantled if understood as its own radical contingency through the exaggeration of the metaphysical construction. In what follows, I am not radical contingency of others. As used here, radical making judgments concerning the utility of the strat- contingency is the condition of human finitude and egies embedded in these lyrics. What I am doing is limitation that when reflected upon can manifest using this descriptive, theoretical analysis to situate through an experience of terror and dread. Often, white supremacy as a metaphysical construction, this awareness of radical contingency results from with the hope that new ways of thinking and theo- rational reflection on one’s death. But what hap- rizing white supremacy within religious studies will pens when such reflection on human finitude and aid in its eventual dismantling. limitation, or death, is exaggerated? I want to sug- gest that white supremacy produces such an exag- Metaphysical Responses to Exaggerated Radical geration. By white supremacy, I mean an ideological Contingency narrative of domination informing beliefs and prac- tices (both overt and covert) that understand white Goodie Mob’s “The Day After” is full of examples Western values and mores, such as bodily aesthet- that point to the relationship between metaphysical ics, music, food, and economics, etc., as normative constructions and what I refer to as exaggerated rad- and/or innately better than alternatives. White su- ical contingency. Specifically, I present three salient premacy functions to recreate and multiply this ter- examples that suggest Goodie Mob’s metaphysical ror and dread (of radical contingency) onto people constructions are predicated on the sense of exag- of color, and this multiplication is what I refer to as gerated radical contingency. First, “The Day After” exaggerated radical contingency. As an example, begins with a chorus that provides an initial glimpse knowledge of one’s death produces a sense of radi- into a metaphysical construction that responds to cal contingency, but believing that death will come and even challenges exaggerated radical contingen- violently or prematurely produces a sense of exag- cy by promising an epistemological and existential gerated radical contingency. What is so often described resolution to the terror and dread. by Goodie Mob as the consequences of injustices like racism and sexism is indicative of this exaggerated I’m so happy we made it, I knew one day we radical contingency, and “The Day After” offers one would/All these years of struggling were never example of this description. Finally, I use the term understood/Now my eyes are open and I can “metaphysical construction” to refer to cognitive clearly see/We didn’t die for nothing’Cause we systems of meaning that seek to provide answers to are finally free. questions arising from radical contingency, such as questions about space, time, uncertainty, human dig- The chorus describes the relationship between nity, and the divine. My adoption of “metaphysical exaggerated radical contingency and the formula- construction” instead of “metaphysics” is meant to tion of a metaphysical claim. Goodie Mob’s com- remind and reinforce that “metaphysics” are in fact, ment that “all these years of struggling were never cognitive constructions and can be altered based understood” and the claim that “we didn’t die for on human need, even if some of these systems (e.g. nothing” reflect the gaps that had previously existed theistically-oriented systems) often purport to be a within the group’s worldview as well as the preoccu- priori certainties. With these concepts in mind, my pation with death indicative of exaggerated radical thesis is threefold: First, to show that Goodie Mob’s contingency and so prevalent in their musical cata- “The Day After” presents a metaphysical construc- log. Nevertheless, Goodie Mob is “happy” because tion responsive to exaggerated radical contingency. “their eyes are open” thanks to being “finally free.” Second, to suggest that historian of religions Charles Though we (as scholars) obviously do not have access Long’s theory of the first/second creation binary of- to this projected “Day After,” Goodie Mob postulates fers a way of recognizing exaggerated radical contin- that the absurdity of death and the exaggeration of gency as coterminous with the lie of the second cre- it have received a cosmic response that simultane- ation produced by white supremacy. Third, to show ously addresses such absurdity and indicates a day that this examination of Goodie Mob’s metaphysical when there will be no need for explanation. Freedom
VOLUME 40, NUMBER 3 /SEPTEMBER 2011 BULLETIN FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION 21 is both existential and epistemological. Projecting petus for human action is framed around a motif of into the future their desire for this freedom today, resistance to oppression, are juxtaposed with songs the group responds to their existential situation of such as “Free,” where the central concern is to sug- oppression through a construction of a future free- gest, “why I’d rather die than to continue living this dom premised on a metaphysical system informed way.” As a preface to the following final example, it by their material conditions and their questions aris- is important to note that the entire album is framed ing from these conditions. around this issue of exaggerated radical contingen- As a second example, Khujo’s verse depicts ex- cy and what course of action to take in response to aggerated radical contingency as he raps about his it. It is significant, then, that here in the last verse of own imagined, premature, violent death: the last song on the album, this proximity to death is responded to by Cee-Lo through constructing a Pistol still smokin’ from Herndon/Homin’ in on metaphysics built principally on other-worldliness. somebody, gotta pay for restitution weigh heav- He raps: ily on my mind/Free from mental debris, Hold me down, There my physical frame lay returnin’ I know of a place not too far away that maybe you to its rightful place/A quest for forgiveness an- and I can both go someday/But I gotta make sure swered. The death toll tallied but my soul was ’cuz I ain’t tryin’ to stay here. Don’t y’all realize spared. How is yours prepared? that the end is so near/But don’t ya have fear ’cuz you still got time. I hope you wanna come when Khujo’s lyrics connect the violence he encounters I’m done with the rhyme/Let me explain so you in the streets with his own personal psychological won’t claim you didn’t know and you can make state, as the “still smokin’ pistol…weighs heavily on sure that this is where you wanna go. his mind.” The violence he faces is an epistemologi- cal problem created by his exaggerated proximity Cee-Lo has responded to exaggerated radical to a violent death, or his exaggerated radical con- contingency by constructing a closed metaphysical tingency. Responding to his psychological duress, system echoing, if not outright in agreement with, a Khujo’s metaphysical formulations become more rather traditional Christian otherworldliness. Here, oriented towards escaping material reality. he does not talk specifically of either death or social Khujo shows intense concern with questions of struggle. Instead, he appeals to a postulated sum- an afterlife, where “the death toll” will be “tallied.” mation of human suffering and striving into one es- Interestingly, more than simply concerning himself chatological event including judgment, knowledge with his own salvation, he is concerned with the soul accumulation, freedom (demonstrated by the first of the listener as he asks, “How is yours prepared?” example of the chorus), and even “Hell” for the less Through this concern, Khujo’s lines impart to the fortunate. Cee-Lo’s verse continues: listener the severity of his circumstances, as the connection between death and salvation is blurred. It’s all about preparing yourself for the return and Here, death is both the problem and solution. Keep a trip to your soul is the only way you’ll learn/ But if you choose not to go that ain’t my concern in mind that he is asking about the listener’s soul as I guess in hell you’ll just have to burn/The devil he “dies.” More than just expressing his own meta- will tell lies and try to trick your soul to receive physical modality responsive to oppression, Khu- him/They tell you that my Lord ain’t coming’ jo’s comments foreshadow a theoretical connection back and you believe it/Regardless if you listen between death, the self, and others that plays out to me, in the end we’ll see. through metaphysical constructions. Important to note is that these first two examples Cee-Lo’s verse, as it is the conclusion to “The Day are not isolated instances of metaphysical construc- After” (note the double-entendre of the title), points tions proffered by Goodie Mob, but rather the en- out that for Goodie Mob, the exaggerated sense of ter- tire song “The Day After,” and the album Soul Food, ror and dread faced from oppression are adequately highlights the group’s closeness to death (i.e. their addressed through otherworldly metaphysical con- exaggerated radical contingency). Over the length structions. Again, I am not placing a value judgment of the album, songs like “Fighting,” where the im- on the efficacy of this construction in terms of its
22 BULLETIN FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION VOLUME 40, NUMBER 3 / SEPTEMBER 2011 usefulness for eradicating oppression. However, as the second creation by exposing it as a lie through the next section suggests, when understood in light a signification of death as both the consequence of of historian of religion Charles Long’s work on sig- fighting the second creationand as the very narrative nifications, what he refers to as “verbal misdirection constitutive of the second creation. The second cre- that parallels the real argument but gains its power ation and exaggerated radical contingency are thus from the structure of the discourse” (Long 1986, 2), interconnected. these examples offer a way of exposing and react- Moving to Khujo’s example, the rapper asking ing to white supremacy operating as a metaphysical “How is your [soul] prepared?” becomes a signified construction. sardonic swipe at those who have created the situa- tions leading to his literal and social death, as well as First and Second Creation Constructions a reminder that he is not the only young black male in this situation. What initially sounds like Khujo’s Seen through Long’s first/second creation theory of last dying wish that his listeners be “saved,” can in the religions of the oppressed, the examples provid- fact be read as an indictment of his killers, effectively ed by Goodie Mob also operate as significations of marking them as doomed and reminding them of exaggerated radical contingency that offer a means their damned status. The signification of his own for recognizing the “second creation” as a discursive death is then not simply a way to cognitively “deal “fictive truth” characterized by exaggerated radical with” exaggerated radical contingency, but actually contingency, and an aid in “the discovery of the first fights against it through the postulation of a future creation,” finding “the original authenticity of all judgment premised on a first creation. Goodie Mob’s persons” (Long 184). Through this process, exagger- metaphysical constructions, even in their other- ated radical contingency is recognized as the second worldly-ness, are more than reactions to exaggerat- creation lie produced by white supremacy and is ed radical contingency; they are responses to it. Long fought against through metaphysical constructions. states that “there is a primordial structure which in In this section, I do not mean to paint a portrait of seeking a new beginning in the future, it must per- Long as a metaphysician, but his theory is helpful force imagine an original beginning” (184). Finding for exploring the relationship between oppression a way of dismantling the oppressive second creation, and these constructions. Long’s own words best il- Khujo “perforces to imagine” justice (in the form of lustrate this relationship: judgment) as a component of the first creation. For Khujo, the fight against exaggerated radical contin- The oppressed must deal with both the fictive gency is worthwhile because justice will be realized truth of their status expressed by the oppressors, upon discovery of the first creation. For justice to be that is, their second creation, and the discovery of thought of as a future reality, it is imagined as a com- their own autonomy or truth—their first creation. ponent of an original beginning. The locus for this struggle is the mythic con- Cee-Lo’s verse signifies a similar metaphysical con- sciousness which dehistoricizes the relationship for the sake of creating a new form of humanity… struction of a “beginning.” Cee-Lo, in response to the The utopian and eschatological dimensions of the exaggerated radical contingency produced by white religions of the oppressed stem from this modal- supremacy “imagines [i.e. constructs] a beginning” ity (184). (and end) in an effort to discover or recover the first creation as he claims that, “it’s all about preparing In the chorus, exaggerated radical contingency, yourself for the return.” This projected “Day After” or the illegitimate proximity to death, is signified is actually a return to a metaphysically constructed as constitutive with the second creation. Through beginning. Rather than understand this song as bor- the group’s balancing of death as suffering-induc- dering on lament or as surrender to oppression, it ing and freedom-giving, this signification happens offers a signified image of a future reality through its in two ways. First, death is considered a necessary appeal to an otherworldly eschatological event. For result of fighting against the second creation. More Cee-Lo, radical contingency is not erased by an oth- importantly, the proximity of Goodie Mob to suffer- er-worldly metaphysics (this would be impossible), ing and death is recognized as the lie of the second but rather a metaphysical construction (operating as creation. In this instance, then, Goodie Mob fights other-worldly eschatology) is designed to provide
VOLUME 40, NUMBER 3 /SEPTEMBER 2011 BULLETIN FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION 23 space for a coming to terms with exaggerated radi- cy of non-whites. A metaphysical circle is formed, cal contingency in the material world. Going back to connecting oppressed and oppressor through these my initial distinction between radical contingency constructions. Per Goodie Mob’s example, the op- and exaggerated radical contingency, Cee-Lo’s sys- pressed respond to this exaggerated state by work- tem, read as signification, does not attempt to ignore ing against the very lie that produces the exaggera- death or surrender to it, but attempts to distinguish tion. Simultaneously, white supremacy operates as between death as natural event and the hyper-prox- a metaphysical system that creates and perpetuates imity to death characteristic of the oppressed’s ex- the second creation through stereotypes and social aggerated radical contingency within the second injustices like the prison industry and capital pun- creation “fictive-truth” of white supremacy. In light ishment that exaggerate the connection between of Long, these three examples do more than indicate blackness and death. Goodie Mob’s metaphysical that metaphysical constructions respond to exagger- constructions are thus responsive to a metaphysical ated radical contingency. They show how Goodie construction of white supremacy. Stated succinctly, Mob metaphysically constructs an idealized, utopian white supremacy is a metaphysical construction. beginning in an attempt to destroy the “myth” of the Examining Goodie Mob’s “The Day After” through second creation/exaggerated radical contingency/ Long’s and Perkinson’s work does more than expose white supremacy. A metaphysical inversion takes the relationship between oppressed and oppressor place, where the imagined first creation is deemed metaphysical constructions. Understanding white true while the second creation of exaggerated radical supremacy as a metaphysical construction affords contingency and white supremacy is recognized as religious studies scholars certain benefits that might the actual lie. Through the signified responses pro- not otherwise emerge. Two of these benefits include: vided by Goodie Mob, exaggerated radical contin- First, a heightened awareness of many white meta- gency and the second creation are understood more physical constructions as culpable in the oppression or less as synonyms, and are fought against through of others and subsequent decision to construct new the construction of the first creation. metaphysical systems that are less-oppressive. Sec- ond, an understanding that these new metaphysical Discovering and Dismantling the Metaphysics constructions will require deep reflection by whites of White Supremacy of their own radical contingency if the metaphysics of white supremacy is to be dismantled. If the first creation metaphysical construction by the When unrecognized, white supremacy offers many oppressed responds to the terror and dread of ex- a means of taking a path of least (metaphysical) re- aggerated radical contingency, and if Long’s theory sistance, perpetuating the metaphysics of white su- helps to interweave exaggerated radical contingen- premacy. As Perkinson’s work implies, a metaphys- cy and the second creation as the product of white ics of white supremacy does the work metaphysics supremacy, what does this suggest about how white (as system) is designed to accomplish, that is, it ad- supremacy is theorized within religious studies? dresses questions of ultimate meaning by masking Ethicist James Perkinson advances in White Theol- the oppressors’ radical contingency through exag- ogy: Outing Supremacy in Modernity that “whiteness gerating that of the oppressed. One example of this emerges in the colonial encounter as…an attempt to is pointed out continuously by philosopher Cornel use darker bodies as a denial structure, a medium West, who labels “America a death-dodging, death- between…death and the living that inevitably lives ducking and death-denying civilization” (West 2008, toward such an end in the grave.” White “dread of 26) and all the while so many young black and brown dread,” a “fear of fear itself” (as Perkinson uses the men are disproportionately murdered each year. For Rooseveltian adage) leads to “an attempt to escape many whites, there is not a pressing concern to do the terrors of contingency, by, in effect, forcing oth- anything about this violence and death because the er populations to know that particular experience reality and proximity of such death is transposed of creatureliness intimately” (2004, 128-9). Goodie onto black and brown communities, corroborating Mob’s metaphysical construction emerges because and perpetuating the lie of the second creation. whites’ own fear of radical contingency produces Re-constructed metaphysical systems that re- the second creation exaggerated radical contingen- spond to the metaphysics of white supremacy will
24 BULLETIN FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION VOLUME 40, NUMBER 3 / SEPTEMBER 2011 overtly address social injustices and reflect on death a sense of radical contingency in the first place. One in a similar way as demonstrated by Goodie Mob. By example of this is Western medical science, built al- foregrounding the metaphysics of white supremacy most entirely around preventing death. Its leitmotif as death-dealing in its historical death-denying role, is an attempt to overcome death by escaping it, quite less-oppressive white metaphysical constructions the impossibility. Thus, the second component of can be developed that operate as correctives to the white metaphysical constructions attentive to eradi- metaphysics of white supremacy. Just as Goodie Mob cating oppression will be a deep reflection and overt “imagines” a first creation in order to work towards wrestling with finitude and the terror and dread as- that realization in history through the dismantling of sociated with it. the discursive second creation, so must this same ac- To conclude, Perkinson notes that for many whites, tivity be present in white metaphysical constructions “God as tremendum awaits honest encounter and un- keen on disrupting white supremacy. As with Good- compromising labor” (2008, 129). Recognizing white ie Mob, the second creation becomes the point of de- supremacy as a metaphysical construction is such parture for whites to imagine an “original beginning” an honest encounter, as it situates white supremacy absent of white supremacy. Instead of perpetuating as the same kind of thing as other white metaphysi- white supremacy by ignoring its metaphysical func- cal ideas, including some of the most foundational tion, new white metaphysical constructions respond (for theists), such as God. More difficult still is the similarly to some constructions of the oppressed, as “uncompromising labor” that should result from both consciously respond to the lie of the second cre- recognizing white supremacy as this metaphysical ation by claiming it as a lie through the construction construction. This “labor,” the dismantling of white of still other myths or metaphysical systems built in supremacy through the construction of less oppres- response to that lie. sive metaphysical systems, will require of whites a Recognition of white supremacy operating as meta- coming to terms with their finitude, their limitations physics only goes so far, as the other half of Long’s and ultimately, with their death, as the metaphysics framework is the discovery of the first creation. This of white supremacy emerges precisely as a denial work will be grueling. For the oppressed, uncover- of the ontological certainty of finitude and death. ing the first creation means an end to the exaggera- Goodie Mob’s “The Day After” is then, in a very tion of suffering and death. For oppressors, however, real way, a blueprint for the construction of “The Day exposing the first creation requires recognition of in- After” oppression, as the group’s ability to balance nate human finitude and limitation. Perkinson uses death as problem and solution to human suffering Rudolph Otto’s aphoristic mysterium tremendum et through their metaphysical constructions offers a fascinosum as a conceptual binary that helps explain starting point for whites and white religious schol- this difference (Perkinson 2004, 121,126). Within the ars to rethink and theorize white supremacy and the binary, “the West [i.e. white oppressors] only knows eventual dismantling of it. God as fascinans,” while for the oppressed “the fig- ure is not fascination, but terror” (129, 126). Discov- References ery of the first creation inverts this binary. For the oppressed, what will be discovered of the first cre- Goodie Mob. 1995. “Fighting.” Soulfood. Arista Records. ation is greater freedom and agency thanks to a non- exaggerated radical contingency. But agency has ———. 1995. “Free.” Soulfood. Arista Records. also been exaggerated and taken for granted by op- pressors through an inability to recognize their own ———. 1995. “The Day After.” Soulfood. Arista Records. finitude and the terror associated with it. So the dis- Long, Charles. 1986. Significations. Aurora, Colo.: Davies covery of the first creation for oppressors necessarily Group. involves recognition of the terror of contingency: a wrestling with human finitude, not a perceptual es- Perkinson, James. 2004. White Theology: Outing Supremacy cape from it. Freedom and finitude go together in the in Modernity. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. first creation, and yet, white supremacy allows for whites to reap the benefits of freedom while ignor- West, Cornel. 2008. Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wis- ing the finitude component, the aspect that produces dom. Carlsbad, Calif.: SmileyBooks.
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