Hip-Hop and the Looking Glass Self

In the 1880's, Charles Horton Cooley, a sociologist, developed a theory of the Looking Glass Self in order to explain how humans develop the ability to view themselves from an outsider's perspective. Through this outside perspective, we define our concept of self, based on our interpretation of how others see us.

In American society, black men have traditionally been viewed as simple-minded, violent, oversexed miscreants who would rather hustle or live off of the system than to earn a legitimate living. America has always painted a negative portrait of the African-American male. Black men are often denied proper access to cultural goals, i.e. material possessions, by legitimate means due to racism and class status.

Over the years, Hip-Hop has developed into a subculture with influential effects on the dominant culture. The image of the cool, super-masculine black male deviant as rap artist has saturated the Hip-Hop genre. In fact, a rap artists street credibility and respect in the game is often measured by his criminal rap sheet, length of incarceration, and/or the number of times he has survived sustaining bullet wounds.

According to Cooley's Looking Glass Theory, we imagine how we appear to others around us, we interpret their reaction to us (whether positive or negative), and then we develop a self-concept based on the feelings or ideas we have about ourselves. This self-concept can be positive or negative. Individuals are products of their social inflluences, and since most Hip-Hop artists come from tough inner-city environments, many have constructed their rap persona around the images that pervade their surroundings. Thus, they see themselves through the lens that the dominant society views them with. Therefore, if a young black male believes that society looks at him with fear because he is perceived to be a threat, he may internalize that perception and take ownership of it. Since black males have traditionally been emasculated by society, the young male may enjoy this sense of power and inherit this self-conception of himself.

In The Presentation of Self In Everyday Life, Erving Goffman says that when an individual presents himself before others his performance will incorporate the values of the community or society (p35). In this case, the community or society whose values are being incorporated is the Hip-Hop community. No male wants to be viewed as soft in front of his peers, so it becomes important for an artist to conform to the imagery of gangsters or machismo to save face in front of others.

Goffman notes that people have front stage and backstage behaviors. The front stage is the public or shared experiences, while the backstage is the private behavior. The front stage is the act, or the image we want others to see us as. Men rarely care to expose their frailties, emotional scars, and financial difficulties with others. Men have been trained that these personal limitations are signs of weekness, so they see it as being advantageous to conceal them from public view. These behaviors are only appropriate in the backstage setting when no one is watching. People put on masks to conceal themselves. Goffman states that the mask is our truer self, the self that we would like to be (pg 19).

Many young African-American males use a facade of cool posturing in order to mask internalized feelings of fear, insecurity and inferiority. In their book Cool Pose, authors Richard Majors and Janet Mancini Billson express their belief that cool pose helps to explain the fact African-American males die earlier and faster than white males; are more deeply involved in criminal and delinquent activities; are more apt to drop out of school and are suspended more frequently than white children; and have more volatile relationships with woman (pg 2)

Hip-Hop artists have mastered the art of cool posture in front of the media and in music videos. The tough thug image that is pervasive in many Hip-Hop groups is an example of the front stage behavior. It is the image that they want others to associate them with in order to increase their street credibility. Meanwhile, many live completely different lives in their backstage setting. Many are family men, loving to their wives and children, who run or fund community organizations for children, and give philanthropically to charities, far from the villainous behaviors displayed to the public. While some rap artists have been involved in gang activity and drug dealing, others have simply written about the lifestyle they observed from a front row seat.

The violent imagery of Hip-Hop cannot totally be blamed on the irresponsibility of the artists. Often what is displayed is reactionary behavior toward a repressive society, which has historically marginalized and emasculated Black males and blocked the pathways to traditional means of expressing manhood and masculinity for African-American males. However, Hip-Hop has to face itself and, in the reflection of its looking glass self, determine the image it will embrace in its future.