White Negro

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"White negro" is an essay by Norman Mailer recording the wave of young white people in the 20's, 30's and 40's, who were so enamored of jazz and swing that they adopted the black culture as their own. They would enshroud themselves in black dress, black jive language, and black music, and associate mainly with black people, distancing themselves from white society. One of the early characters of the white negro movement was Mezz Mezzrow, who was born white in 1899 and had declared himself to be a "voluntary negro" by the 1920's.

This movement gave rise to the hipster of the 40's, the beatnik of the 50's, the hippie of the 60's and 70's, and the wigger of today.

Full title of Mailer's 1957 essay is "The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster"