Giselle Hewitt
November 26, 2002

Differing Narratives of Blacks and Whites in Poverty

Introduction:

I began my research wanting to study the differing narratives between blacks and whites in poverty as seen through books, film, and music.  Due to the current trend in popular culture, I decided to research the differing narratives only through film and music.  I feel that today’s society is being cultured more and more through music and film, and less and less by literature in books. 

First I looked at black poverty in film versus white poverty in film, and discussed my findings.  Second I looked at the differing narratives within music.  I also made a separate division of the narratives that I found within black music, and noted that most poverty music (black and white) was linked to “Roots” music.  The general theme I found throughout the different narratives was the idea of the “American Dream” and the extent of faith within this dream. 

Coming from a very poor white family I was curious about other narratives of both blacks and whites in poverty.  I was also curious on how the different groups perceived their ability to advance out of their social status groups.  I tried to find narratives that had both poverty and success, or a solution for poverty within them so that I could study both of these circumstances together.  I also wanted to look at a few popular culture icons lives who have gone from a lower status of poverty to a higher status of great wealth to see what they felt if anything were contributing factors to their new social status. 

Black poverty in Film

Jason’s Lyric – directed by Doug McHenry

Jason’s Lyric is a story of two brothers Jason and Joshua who growing up in a single parent home in the ghetto streets of Houston, Texas have learned to deal with their situation in two different ways.  The younger of the two brothers Joshua has succumb to the dangers of ghetto life spending time in prison for minor charges.  Jason lives with his Mom and works full-time to help out while searching for a way out of the ghetto.  Jason’s boss has a connection with a bank firm in Dallas and finds Jason a job as an assistant manager of the firm.  Excited about the news Jason goes home to tell his Mom and learns that his brother (who was given a job at his Mom’s work) stole from the money till at work and his Mom being the shift manager was fired.  Jason decides to not tell anyone about his news and instead declines the position in Dallas. 

Even though Jason was not involved in the dangers of ghetto life directly he was affected by them indirectly through his brother.  He felt he could not escape because he was responsible for his family.  In the end Jason does escape the ghetto, but his brother, his new girlfriend (who was making plans to run away with him), and his girlfriend’s brother all died after a get-rich-quick robbery plan failed.  Jason thought he could make a change in his surroundings.  He felt he could change the ghetto instead the ghetto changed him. 

Boyz N The Hood – directed by John Singleton

Boyz N The Hood is a story of a young boy Trey who is sent to live with his father in a suburban black neighborhood in order to teach him a lesson about life.  The story shows ghetto life as a daily way of living.  Hearing gunfire in the background during a family barbeque is seen as “normal”.  Trey is given the chance to get out of the ghetto and to attend college, but he hesitates.  Even though Trey is different from the other boys in the “hood”, he is scared of leaving the life that he knows.  A friend of Trey’s is offered a football scholarship if he can make high scores on the entrance college exams.  Trey and his friend take the exams together, and then go to a party that night to cool off.   A guy from one of the neighborhood gangs bumps into them and Trey’s friend makes a comment to them.  This comment later cost him his life.  On the same day his passing test scores come in he is brutally shot down in a drive-by.  It is only at this point that Trey finds the strength to escape the ghetto.

Much like Jason in Jason’s Lyric circumstances bind Trey to the ghetto.  The strength to escape the poverty-stricken ghetto is only made through severe cases of ghetto reality.  In other words something bad has to happen in order for good to occur. 

White poverty in Film

8 Mile – black and white poverty in Detroit

Detroit’s 8 Mile Road represents the physical divide between the “black” and “white” parts of Motor City.  Regardless of skin color, both sides of 8 Mile are mirrored in poverty where “the street is littered with bars and repair shops that give way to tiny houses and trailer parks (Dirmann 45).”  A theoretical divide remains where your telephone code is a stamp of your roots.  Either you are “313” living in what remains of Detroit proper (area where “white” affluence fled to the suburbs after the city’s 1967 riots), or you are “810” – in the predominantly “black” area.

8 Mile is where Detroit MC Eminem (Marshall Mathers) spent a lot of his childhood.  In the movie 8 Mile his character Jimmy (Rabbit) is similar to his real life persona, but has a twist of the classic cinematic underdog – hero story.  He works a steady job and plays dad to his 5-year-old sister Lily while his “white-trash” Mom (Kim Basinger) sleeps around and banks her financial future on bingo.  Rabbit an up-and-coming music talent battles his way through his financial hard times and intimidating posse of musical competitors.  In this film Rabbit is depicted as a double minority – not only is he struggling in poverty, but he also has to struggle to prove himself in the underground “black” rap scenes.

In the end, Rabbit overcomes his situation.  Not only does he prove himself to the black community, but he also proves himself to the world becoming a well known music artist.  However, this is not a story of black and white rather it is a story of the poor versus the rich.  When battling for the final championship battle, Rabbit exposes himself before his competitor can and then he exposes his competitor.  Saying, “yeah so I do live in a trailer with my mother, but I went to the same school as you and grew up poor like you…” and then exposes the fact that his “black” competitor attended a private school and grew up with money, thus Rabbit belongs in their group more than the other guy.   His situation influenced his dream, and that dream took him out of the ghetto.

Pretty Woman – directed by Garry Marshall

This is a story of a young woman who runs away from home and goes to Hollywood searching for the “movie magic”.   Realizing that the “dream” is not as easy as she thought it would ends up working as a hooker on the streets of Hollywood straining to survive everyday life.  The main character Vivian meets up with a rich businessman Edward in a chance meeting and becomes his paid date for several weeks.  They both like each other, but Edward has a commitment problem and Vivian decides at the end of the week to leave the area, to go back to school, and work her way up in the world.  Edward asks Vivian what she wants and she states “The fairy tale”, referring to her dream of life which Edward feels he can not give.  In the end before leaving Edward rolls up outside of Vivian’s apartment, climbs the fire escape stairs, and rescues Vivian.  Proving “dreams can come true”. 

In the final scene a man walking across the street says, “Welcome to Hollywood! Everybody who comes to Hollywood got a dream.  What’s your dream? Everybody has a dream some dreams come true some don’t… Welcome to Hollywood!”  Who’s dreams come true?  The story of Vivian is not a unique story on its own.  Many young girls run away from home and fall prey to the streets of big city life.  Many of these young girls live in poverty.  The story is neither a black story, nor is it a white story.  It occurs in both groups.  The uniqueness of the story comes with the ending – the fairy tale life.  We do not see movies with young black girls living in squalor being offered fairy tale lives by rich businessmen in three piece suits.  It is true – this movie is not in the norm it’s a figment of the imaginations of hotshot movie producers, but the fact that “whites” in poverty are the only ones depicted in such films shows the main point of the two different narratives.  Blacks in poverty remain in poverty, or they escape after being subjected to the dangers of the ghetto.  Whites in poverty, who do sometimes remain in poverty, find hope and dreams in something and are allowed to fight their way out. 

Black Poverty in Music

The major theme I found in music depicting blacks in poverty is the ghetto story.  Gangs, violence, drugs, and prison are seen as an everyday way of life.  In the songs I researched it appears that there is a dream for a better life, but it is based on making life in the ghetto a little better rather than escaping the ghetto.

A Better Tomorrow – by Wu-Tang Clan

This song parallels life in the ghetto with death, crime, and prison and describes the hopelessness felt in the ghetto as the “never ending battle.”

Yo, in the housing, thousands seen early graves victims of wordly ways, memories stays engraved.  All my life brothers, is locked down with high numbers.  The young hungers, blind to these lies, they die younger… it’s a never ending battle with no ending or beginning, listen zero process, progress, become the hunted America’s most wanted.

Next the song parallels the American flag – which is seen as a symbol of freedom – to the reality of the ghetto.  Red and blue are the gangs, and white is the law that intercedes in the ghetto.

Inside my lab, I’m going mad – took two drags off the blunts, and started breaking down the flag.  The blue is for the Crips, the red is for the Bloods.  The white is for the cops, and the stars come from the clubs or the slugs that ignites through the night, by the dawn.

Last the song calls for unity within the community through action and not just dreams.  It appears that the “Dream” that Martin Luther King Jr. defined in his “I have a dream” speech is being rejected here.  A solution to breaking the chain in the “never ending battle” is seen through cleaning the ghetto with action and making a separation from old ways of thought.

Mama say, take your time young man and build your own don’t wind up like your old dad still searching for them glory days he never had… So many bad want to scheme for the American dream, no more kings… The cash rule everything now, we going down… You can’t party your life away, drink your life away, smoke your life away, fuck your life away, dream your life away, scheme your life away cause your seeds grow up the same way.

Keep Ya Head Up – by Tupac

Keep Ya Head Up draws a similar picture of ghetto life and explains that even when you are trying to do right in the ghetto things seem to go wrong.  The dominant culture is seen as a group who prefer worry about people outside of its borders than to take care of their own.

It’s hard to be legit and still pay tha rent and in the end it seems I’m headin for tha pen…

They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor say there aint no hope for the youth and the truth is it aint no hope for tha future, and then they wonder why we crazy.

The final message in the song is a plea for everyone to “keep [their] head up”.  A solution is not given to the problems; instead, Tupac encourages everyone to keep doing the best they can.

don’t blame me, I was given this world and I didn’t make it and now my son’s getting older and older and cold from havin the world on his shoulders while the rich kids is driving Benz… I’m still tryin to hold on to my surviving friends and it’s crazy, it seems it’ll never let up, but please… you got to keep ya head up.

Differing Narratives in African American Rap Music

I have found two differing narratives within the African American rap scene.  One is that of the African American who was born in the ghetto, but made it out of the scene.  The second narrative I found was that of the African American who makes enough money to make it out of the ghetto, but remains due to the feeling that this is the only possible lifestyle for he/she.  The second narrative deals more with the pitfalls prevalent within the ghetto – e.g. drugs, guns, and murder. 

The analysis here will focus on two songs: Will Smith’s “Just the Two of Us” and Tupac Shakur’s “Letter 2 My Unborn.”  First of all, the two are very different in their expression of solidarity with the black community.  The connection is quite explicit in Tupac’s song which directly links the song and the experiences it conveys with the plight of the black community.  On the other hand Will Smith’s song, makes very general statements about parenthood without describing anything really unique to the black experience.  In fact, a number of his comments are probably quite different from the average black parenthood experience.

Tupac:

My momma was a Panther loud single parent but she proud… I’ll see you up there in the ghetto heaven…Let me make it and I’ll never steal again, or deal again

Will Smith:

Then to my knees, and I begged the Lord please let me be a good daddy, all he needs – love, knowledge, discipline too – I pledge my life to you… I gotta study just to keep with the changing times 101 Dalmations on your CD-ROM – see me, I’m tryin to pretend I know on my PC where that CD go

The most striking difference I found between the two songs, however, concerns the desperation issue.  For Tupac, the entire concept of the song is one of desperation, as he is sending out a message to his unborn child in case he dies before they’re born (“in case I never get to holla at my unborn child”).  Throughout the song he laments the difficulties of his life and tries to educate his child about the rules of the street, all the while expressing daunting uncertainties as to the future, a feature so symptomatic of poverty-stricken life in the ghetto.  There is nothing comparable to this kind of despair in Will Smith’s song, where just about everything is very positive and presented as a hopeful expression for his son’s future.  Instead, Will Smith gives more general advice that is applicable to just about anyone in any situation.

Tupac:

Will my child get to feel love or are we all just cursed to be street thugs? Cause bein black hurts… On these cold streets, ain’t no love, no mercy, and no friends

Will Smith:

Throughout life people will make you mad disrespect you and treat you bad let G-d deal with the things they do cause hate in your heart will consume you too

Finally, one more quote comparison between these two songs sums up the main difference between these two camps of rappers.

Tupac: 

I got shot five times but I’m still breathin living proof there’s a G-d if you need a reason

Will Smith:

You’re living proof that dreams do come true I love you and I’m here for you

Here, “living proof” of the good side of life comes for Will Smith from the birth of his son; for Tupac this proof comes from the fact that he managed to survive being shot five times.  Thus, while Will Smith is able to approach his subject matter with positivity as a result of his lyrical distance from poor black conditions, Tupac’s outlook is much darker because of its affiliation with this struggle.

White Poverty in Music

One major theme I found in the majority of the music depicting white poverty was the link to black “Roots” music.  The roots of Blues, Jazz, Country, and Rap all lie in the music of slaves, songs sung on chain gangs, and sounds from the fields of the American South.  I also found that all these types of music have been associated to black culture and poverty.

Another theme I found in this music was a sense of hope which is linked to the “American Dream”.  Even though the characters in the songs were down on their luck they were able to overcome and triumph over poverty. 

Fancy – by Reba Macintyre

In Reba Macintyre’s song “Fancy” the vision of hope is seen through Fancy’s mother who spends everything she has on the hope that her daughter will be able to escape poverty.

I remember it all very well lookin’ back it was the summer I turned eighteen. We lived in a one room, rundown shack on the outskirts of New Orleans. We didn’t have money for food or rent to say the least we were hard pressed then Mama spent every last penny we had to buy me a dancin’ dress

The song goes on to explain the mother putting make-up on Fancy, and fixing her hair.  Then handing her a “heart shaped locket” she tells Fancy to go out into the world and make something of her life.

She said be nice to the gentlemen Fancy, and they’ll be nice to you.  She said here’s your one chance Fancy don’t let me down… Lord forgive me for what I do, but if you want out well it’s up to you… now don’t let me down you better start movin’ uptown

Fancy then explains leaving the shack and making a realization about what she has to do to make it in the world.  Making the point that even though she was born into poverty her name fits a lifestyle outside of poverty better and thus she does not belong.

I knew what I had to do, but I made myself this solemn vow that I’s gonna be a lady someday though I didn’t know when or how.  I couldn’t see spending the rest of my life with my head hung down in shame you know I might have been born just plain white trash, but Fancy was my name

Soon after making her realization Fancy gets a break and makes the “American Dream” succeeding to climb out of poverty.

It wasn’t long after that benevolent man took me off the street and one week later I was pourin’ his tea in a five room hotel suite.  I charmed a king, congressman and an occasional aristocrat then I got me a Georgia mansion in an elegant New York townhouse flat and I ain’t done bad.

Lose Yourself – by Eminem

Another song depicting this hope is Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” where he sings about taking the opportunities you get in life and seizing the moment.

 The moment you own it you better never let it go, oh, you only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow, cuz opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo

In the third verse Eminem sings about the “pain” of poverty, and realizing that if he doesn’t make the most of his opportunities he may end up living these pains throughout the rest of his life.

All the pain inside amplified by the fact that I can’t get by with my nine to five and I can’t provide the right type of life for my family, cuz man these g-ddamn food stamps don’t buy diapers… This is my life and these times are so hard and it’s gettin’ even harder tryin’ to feed and water my seed plus teeter-totter… I’m like a snail, I’ve got to formulate a plot or end up in jail or shot.  Success is my only motherfuckin’ option, failure’s not.  Momma love you, but this trailer’s got to go I cannot grow old in Salem’s Lot.  So here I go, it’s my shot… Feet fail me not, cuz this maybe the only opportunity I got.

The lyrics are different from those found in the majority of African American rap songs in that Eminem sees getting out of poverty as an option, in fact he sees it as his “only option”.  In song’s like Tupac’s his success is mostly for surviving the ghetto while remaining to live in the ghetto, instead of trying to escape the ghetto.

Narratives of Success within Pop Culture Icons

Oprah Winfrey

Born in Kosciusco, Mississippi, to unmarried teenage parents, Winfrey had an unsettled and unhappy childhood.  She first lived in poverty on her grandmother’s farm.  From the age of six she stayed on and off with her mother in Milwaukee, where she was sexually abused by male relatives.  At age fourteen, she gave birth to a premature baby who did not survive.  She then went to live with her father and stepmother in Nashville.  In the more structured, disciplined atmosphere of their home, Oprah at last began to thrive, excelling at school and even skipping several grades.  She earned a scholarship to Tennessee State University and, while still in school, became co-anchor of the evening news at WTF-TV.  In 1984, after eight years at Baltimore’s WJZ-TV, where she hosted a talk show, People Are Talking.  Winfrey moved to Chicago to host the ABC affiliate’s morning talk show, AM Chicago.  By 1985, her program, renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show, was expanded to an hour, and the following year it was launched into syndication. 

Oprah has risen from poverty and a troubled youth to become the most powerful and most influential woman in television, and according to Forbes Magazine, the world’s most highly paid entertainer.  Though primarily recognized as a talk show hostess, Winfrey also occasionally acts in television movies and feature films.  Oprah has a very optimistic outlook on life, and feels that success is dependent on our ability to look for the best in life and to dream.  “I don’t look at myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good.  I think of myself as someone who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good.”

Eminem – Marshall Mathers

After being born in Kansas City and traveling back and forth between KC and the Detroit metropolitan area, Eminem and his mother moved into the Eastside of Detroit when he was 12.  Switching schools every two to three months made it difficult to make friends and stay out of trouble.  Rap, however, became Eminem’s solace.  Battling schoolmates in the lunchroom brought joy to what was otherwise a painful existence.  Although he would later drop out of school in the ninth grade and land several minimum-wage-paying, full-time jobs, his musical focus remained constant.  “He stunned crowds with his lightning-swift lyrical style during improve rap battles and in 1997 took second place at the Rap Olympics in Los Angeles – a first for a white artist. Music executives took notice – including the esteemed Dr. Dre, now his producer – and not long after the guy from the wrong side of 8 Mile was propelled onto the right track (Dirmann 45).”  Many of Eminem’s lyrics have been topics of controversy ranging from homophobia to poverty.  Being a white rapper in a black world has been another issue of controversy which Eminem has had to overcome.  As said in his song Without Me, “No I’m not the first king of controversy I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley to do black music so selfishly and used it to get myself wealthy (Hey!) There’s a concept that works twenty million other white rappers emerge but no matter how many fish in the sea it’ll be so empty, without me.”  Eminem realizes that it is hard for some people to recognize him as a rapper, but also points out that he can not help where he comes from.  “I’m white in a music started by black people.  I’m not ignorant to the culture and I’m not trying to take anything away from the culture.  But no one has a choice where they grew up or what color they are.  If you are a rich kid or a ghetto kid you have no control over your circumstance.  The only control you have is to get out of your situation or stay in it.”

Elvis Presley

Elvis Aaron Presley was born on January 8, 1935 in East Tupelo, Mississippi.  Elvis’s twin brother Jesse died at birth and his parents, Vernon and Gladys Presley, raised him in the kind of loving and religious poor white home which was the very essence of the Deep South.  He came “from poor, derived people who were also fundamentally religious people from a part of the country where poor whites knew intimately, and to a great extent shared, the lives of poor blacks (rollingstone.com).”  After winning several talent competitions as a child, working as a cinema usher and a truck driver Elvis met his first inspiration, Mr. Sam Phillips, the owner of Sun Record Company.  This partnership led to the rise of Elvis’s career.  Presley took black songs, and a black style of aggressive presentation and sold this passionate music as a neat package wrapped in his acceptably white skin.  Years before civil rights legislation, and while the Deep South was still segregated, Presley brought the black man’s blues to the young hearts and minds of a young America.

Personal Narrative

My parents were divorced when I was young.  Mama had no money, but there were 7 mouths to feed.  When I was 4 years old Mama found a school that would take me for free if we told them I was 5.  So four months after I turned 4 I entered Kindergarten at Waco’s Evangelia School in downtown Waco, Texas.  I loved the big buildings.  Sitting on my folded up knees I would strain my neck to see over the crack in the front glass of our Chrysler Lebaron, the one that did not open on the passenger side. 

I remember my first day of school… quietly following the cracks in the tiles down the long hall towards my classroom, I listened to Mama tell me I had to behave.  Mama knocked on the door and a pretty woman with creamy dark skin and brightly colored dress opened the door with a smile.  Ms. Willey was to be my teacher.  As she took my hand and led me into the classroom I peeked around timidly at the others.  Glancing quickly at all of their faces – I was the only pale skin child in the class – in fact, I came to learn that I was the only pale skin child in the whole school.

The very next year I was old enough to go to school in my hometown.  A very small farming community, China Spring was very different from my old school… around this time children from the bigger towns began to go to our school… their parents wanted to get away from the city schools…

In the end of my Kindergarten year my oldest sister, Mary Helen was in a bad car accident and we moved to Dallas for the summer, so she could go to rehab… That summer we lived at the Ronald McDonald House and roamed the hallways of the Rehab Center hoping our sister would remember our names so we could go home…

I think the hospital was tired of us hanging around because Mama had to find places for us to go during the day… Another sister and I went to the Junior Black Academy of Arts and Letters, a summer program for inner-city black youth of Dallas… At first the other kids didn’t like us, they wanted us to find our “own kind of place” – but became friends with us once they realized we were just like them. 

We grew up shopping for new school clothes at the Salvation Army and Penny Pinchers, and sorting through dented and unlabeled cans at the discount grocery store.  I wore my older sister’s clothes of which had already passed through the hands of three other sisters.  We snapped green beans and unearthed potatoes from our acre of river-bottom land, and stole wild fruits from our backyard wilderness:  grapes, prickly pears, and sumac berries.  One time my brother Ian even brought home a special dinner – wild rabbit – taken with a single blast from his handmade slingshot. 

Early on I associated with the black community.  I remember doing an exercise in elementary school about what we wanted to be when we grew up.  I said I wanted to be a black police woman – one that looked like Ms. Wiley.  My teacher scolded me and made me redo the exercise.  I was devastated when I learned that I could never be black:  black is a color.  This color I associated with ran deeper than skin. 

In this lifestyle we learned to stretch the boundaries of our creativity to its fullest extent.  For example, patchwork carpet samples, the outdated throwaways from a local carpet factory, adorned our floors adhered by strips of duct tape, creating a colorful allusion of wall-to-wall carpeting.   We played basketball with a makeshift hoop, from a cardboard barrel tied to a tree, but were disappointed after several rains had dissolved our hoop.   I still remember the time we played “Mary Poppins.”  We climbed atop our flat-roof and one-by-one jumped off with an umbrella onto the mini trampoline, an investment of several months of can collecting.

Today, Mama buys on credit and owns the luxuries she only once dreamt about:  posh white sofas, lavish white carpets, and fluffy white towels.  Instead of our stray pets we had as kids, Mama’s dropped hundreds on precious pure bread Siamese kittens and Whitey, her miniature toy poodle.  Last time she visited she pulled up in her brand-new white Lexus.  Mama has now assimilated into the dominant culture with a perceived wealth. 

Race Matters – by Cornell West

This article links black poverty to the “racial caste system” that once denied the opportunity of advancement to black people.  It states that “redistributive measures” are needed in order to better the lives of blacks.  Affirmative Action was created to better the chances of blacks in the job market.  Affirmative action is “neither a major solution to poverty nor a sufficient means to equality”, but without it the poverty situation would be worse than it is.  The author then states that the “crisis in black America is twofold: two much poverty and to little self-love.”  This idea of the need for “self-love” or unity within the community reminds me of the voice in many of the black poverty narratives.

Conclusion:

The overall linking theme I found in the narratives throughout my research is the idea of hopes and dreams, or the lack thereof.  Most of the white poverty narratives contain elements of the “American Dream” where they were able to overcome the odds and step outside of their situation.  I am not sure if this is what happens in reality to whites in poverty, but this is how their story is perceived in popular culture.  On the other hand, in most of the black poverty narratives I saw elements of “The Dream” often associated with the minority dilemma.  The blacks in poverty have to overcome more than their social status, but they also had to deal with the element of danger within ghetto life including the fear of leaving the ghetto.  Many of the narratives called for “self-love” and an overall unity within the black community. 

Success in the narratives seems to be in part whether or not they had a dream, and then it is based on the level of faith one has in that dream.  For example, those in the white narratives seemed to believe more in the “Dream” which more than likely links to their identity with the dominant culture.  But those in the black narratives appear to either not see the “Dream”, or reject the “Dream” in revolt against assimilation with the dominant culture.  Those who have become successful within pop culture are seen in different light as well.   Oprah speaks of knowing her “responsibility”, and contributes her success on this early realization.  Oprah is often said to be “whitelike”, or assimilated into the dominant culture.  Even though she holds on to some of her past roots, she has joined the dominant culture in many ways.  Eminem, on the other hand, has risen up out of his poverty and chooses to assimilate the other way around.  Holding on to his past and working in a medium mostly associated with black culture, he is seen as “blacklike” because he has resisted assimilation. 

I do not believe by any means that the narratives shown in this research journal are the only existing narratives, but I do feel they are the dominant narratives heard in modern pop culture.  I feel a lot of the difference in the narratives deal with the person’s association with either the minority or the dominant culture. 

Works Cited

8 Mile.  Dir.  Curtis Hanson.  Universal Pictures.  2002.

Boyz N The Hood.  Dir.  John Singleton.  Running Time.  1991.

Dirmann, Tina.  “Will the Real Eminem Please Stand Up?”  US  18 Nov. 2002:  42-47.

Eminem.  “Lose Yourself”  8 Mile: soundtrack. 2002.

Jason’s Lyric.  Dir.  Doug McHenry.  MetroGoldwynMeyer.  1994.

Macintyre, Reba.  “Fancy.”

Pretty Woman.  Dir.  Garry Marshall.  Pioneer Entertainment Europe.  1990.

Shakur, Tupac.  “Letter 2 My Unborn.”

Shakur, Tupac.  “Keep Ya Head Up.”

Smith, Will.  “Just The Two of Us.”  Big Willie Style.

West, Cornell.  Race Matters.  New York:  Vintage, 1994:   93-5.

Wu-Tang Clan.  “A Better Tomorrow.”

http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/bio.asp?oid=2024.  Biography of Elvis Presley.

http://ksks.essortment.com/oprahwinfrey_rkcr.htm.   Biography of Oprah Winfrey.