When Culture Crosses Over : Mainstreaming of everything from rap to street fashion offends some blacks. But, others say, ‘It almost makes you happy because, finally, they want to be like us.’

Mannequins stand poised in a Westside store window, their hats bearing an “X,” symbol of a fallen black hero. The red, black and green colors of black nationalism shine on a teen-ager’s medallion--the boy with Filipino roots wears Africa on his chest.

And in white suburbia, homes pulsate with a slang and rhythm first given voice by African-American youth on urban streets.

Be it literature, art, film, music or fashion, American pop culture reflects an aesthetic that is distinctly African-American.

As fast as Terry McMillan’s novels are printed or the music of Public Enemy is put on compact discs, the artistic expressions of a minority people flow into the mainstream, moving society to an afrocentric beat.

The same media that once vilified slain black nationalist Malcolm X now put his face on their magazine covers. Calvin Klein and Levi Strauss have brought the gritty, urban style of the streets to Fifth Avenue. And Rappin’, Rockin’ Barbie, boom box in tow, is available to slip under the Christmas tree.

But this cross-cultural phenomenon raises questions. Is the wider American community finally respecting and recognizing the contributions of black Americans? Or is this simply the latest turn in what some deem an endless cycle of a dominant society expropriating the art and icons of a people, only to soon ignore, erase or forget their origin?

The questions might be pointless if the answers didn’t mean so much. Ask a black college student, publisher or professor how they feel about it and their words tumble out in a flood of sometimes conflicting emotions.

“It’s one thing to share and another thing to take,” says Elesia Watkins, a 21-year-old El Camino College student. “We haven’t been acknowledged for years and years.

“There is no one emotion. You feel degraded, angry, ignored. . . . They’re reducing our culture to a fad. (But) culture is your heritage, how you were raised. The reasons we do the things that we do.”

Still, even in the midst of her anger, Watkins says: “It almost makes you happy because, finally, they want to be like us. They don’t want to admit it, but there’s something in our culture they like. I like it because we have it--and they’re trying to get it.”

Gary Puckrein, publisher of the black arts and culture magazine American Visions, sees the crossover as an opportunity for people historically told they had little to contribute to reap financial rewards and widespread recognition.

“In American society, if you want to preserve your culture, you sell it,” he says. “The meeting place is the marketplace. . . . Appropriating means they’ve got to understand it. They’ve got to take it home with them. I think it’s good race relations.”

Yet, Watkins’ anger is justified, say others who believe they have seen this cycle many times before, with black inventors who revolutionized industry but garnered only footnotes in history, with dance steps that rocked a nation but didn’t open ballrooms to blacks.

“That’s the dilemma of being black in this society,” says Walter Allen, a UCLA sociology professor. “A situation where you’re inside, but you’re outside. That position where people scorn you but imitate you. . . . Think of the paradox of the little white kid in Idaho who wants to be like Mike (Jordan)--but wouldn’t want Mike’s kids living next door.”

To be sure, the mainstreaming of black culture is to a large degree a matter of dollars and cents. Products bearing the likeness and name of Malcolm X may earn as much as $100 million this year. Companies ranging from JC Penney to Spike Lee’s Forty Acres and A Mule Products have launched catalogues and clothing lines full of the urban and afrocentric styles so popular with teens.

And urban contemporary, the genre that encompasses most designated categories of black music, was second only to rock in percentage of recording industry sales last year. Rap alone captured almost 9% of that $7.8-billion market in 1991, according to the Recording Industry Assn. of America.

Such figures no doubt played a role in Time Warner Inc. teaming up with Quincy Jones to produce Vibe magazine, the latest entry in a burgeoning array of hip-hop publications. Rap artists, from Hammer to the Fresh Prince, star in television cartoons or shows. And MTV will launch a third program dedicated to black music by year’s end.

It’s not surprising African-American culture has so infused the larger society, sociologists, cultural historians and others say.

“We define pop culture in this country, and by extension the world,” says Puckrein, whose magazine has enjoyed a spurt in cross-cultural popularity in the last two years. “We define cool.”

Says Allen, the sociology professor: “This is the continuation of a theme. Because we’re on the fringes of this society, because our experience has been so unique and powerful, we become alternative voices. . . . We break the lockstep that leaves so many people in society frustrated.”

Many pop-culture watchers say this mainstreaming surge is significantly different than previous ones. This time, African-Americans are getting exposure and financial benefits from their art.

“My job is to make these young artists rich,” says Russell Simmons, manager of some of rap’s biggest acts--LL Cool J and Public Enemy--and founder of the nation’s largest black-owned music company, Rush Communications. “Exploitation is what capitalism is about, isn’t it? Sometimes it sounds like a bad word. But I don’t think selling their art, or getting their ideas across to the mainstream is a sellout. . . . Let them make money.”

After all, tomorrow it will be someone else.

“The larger society transforms everything into a commodity,” says W. A. Brower, who writes about jazz and culture for American Visions. “It’s going to happen with Latin culture, with Korean culture. When they get tired of doing the black thing they’ll do something else. And who knows what it’ll be?”

The profit quest can ultimately trigger a broader cross-cultural understanding, Puckrein and others say. In learning about what they sell, people pick up knowledge about a culture they might not have otherwise sought. Then they spread the information outside the community that created the art.

The growing black middle class drives this surging popularity of their culture, Puckrein believes, raising the marketable value of items such as art and books and thus encouraging interest among people outside the black community.

“Historically, African-American culture has been devalued,” he says. “But when you look at books and art, the marketplace is beginning to place a value on it, so people are beginning to merchandise the culture, and in doing that, popularizing it.”

Examples of this ripple effect abound, he and others say: Companies learn about black history to better market products to the increasing number of afrocentric schools, and publishers are more likely to consider works with a black perspective following the success of such writers as Toni Morrison and Charles Johnson.

An exhibition of works by collagist Romare Bearden that originated at the Studio Museum in Harlem, N.Y., recently moved to the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D. C. Artists and curators speak of an increase in books and dissertations about black artists. More galleries, white- and black-owned, are responding to the demand for art by African-Americans among both black and non-black buyers.

There is always the threat of appropriation, Puckrein says, but that can result in understanding. Besides, he says, “The one thing they can’t take is the genius and natural resource that produced it all. It comes out of 350 years of experience. You can’t appropriate that.”

Still, there is a struggle.J. Walker, co-owner of L. A.-based Cross Colours, a multimillion-dollar fashion company inspired by and aimed toward African-American youth, has seen exploitation in his industry.

Walker says the lack of credit given to blacks by major designers spurred him, along with partner Carl Jones, to launch their line, which stamps messages of pride--”educate to elevate”--and racial harmony--”clothing without prejudice”--into the bold colors of oversize clothing.

Since they started the company two years ago, cheap knockoffs have shown up at swap meets, and major designers have co-opted the urban style marketed by Cross Colours and others, Walker says. Sometimes, those more interested in making a dollar than understanding a people show up at their door.

“Because we are a black company and are supportive of the black community, they automatically assume we want to see something that has Martin Luther King on it, or ‘X,’ ” Walker says. “But these sellers are not black and in many cases don’t even understand what these images represent.”

It is just as exploitative for African-Americans to sell such products if they have little or no regard for the message behind them, he adds.

Still, Walker believes some understanding and cross-cultural appreciation flow from the afrocentric fashion trend.

“Some of the kids get really upset when they see someone other than black kids wearing the clothing,” Walker says. “I try to tell them that in order for other people to grow, they’re going to have to know what we’re about. And possibly by wearing some article of clothing and wanting to be like black people, they’re going to learn something. . . . If you get one to understand, you’ve accomplished something.”

Rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot, whose “Baby Got Back”--an ode to the physiology of black women--sold 2.3 million copies, says he believes rap music has done more than any other art form to foster cross-cultural appreciation.

“It’s an exploitative thing when it’s taken from us,” says Mix-a-Lot, whose real name is Anthony Ray. “But with the ‘X’ thing, with rap, with black slang, we’re still in there, it’s still ours. And that’s cool.”

Bob Merlis, senior vice president and director of media relations for Warner Bros. Records, admits his company is eager to make as much money as possible by selling black artists to a general audience.

But, he says, the promotion and embrace of their music is equally driven by the growing open-mindedness of an integrated society: “You can’t give vent to your creativity and have no one pick up on it. Cross-pollination between cultures is much greater than it has ever been. . . . People are just more open-minded.”

And, he adds, an element of voyeurism makes the suburban white want to listen to the black rapper talking about urban violence and poverty.

However, “I think the idea that the ghetto is thought of as other than a source of terror for a white person is a positive thing,” he says. “You’ve got to start somewhere.”

The music of LL Cool J and Ice Cube led Merlis’ 18-year-old son, Alex, to learn more about blacks.

The songs’ driving beat and rebellious spirit attracted him. A freshman at Harvard University, the younger Merlis says he laces his language with urban slang, dropping words like mack and pimp while on campus.

But he also listens to the messages of history and pain. And to the anger, often directed toward people who look like him.

“Rap music has been the medium by which I’ve been able to learn about a culture I’m not a part of,” Alex Merlis says. “I’m fascinated by black culture.”

Still, he doesn’t always agree with the messages, and he is confused by some blacks’ resentment toward those who adopt their music, fashion and slang.

Many young blacks are eager to explain. Non-blacks can take off their red, black and green clothes as quickly as they put them on, drop the slang of urban America as fast as they pick it up, and slip out the rap disc as effortlessly as they slipped in.

Bruce Autry, 20, of Hawthorne, says he is black. Always.

“You see white kids wearing African medallions. That makes me angry. ‘You ain’t from Africa,’ ” he wants to say. “ ‘What are you wearing that for?’

“I used to wear mine every day,” he says of the medallion. “I stopped. It got so exploited. There were all these white kids wearing it, and they didn’t even know what it meant.”

Imitation can be the highest form of flattery. It can be a mockery as well.

The black manager of the Hip Hop Shop in Los Angeles, who goes by the name Design 9, embraces teens of all colors who gather at the eclectic store to dance, listen to music and ruminate about the brotherhood of hip-hop.

“It’s a universal thing,” he says of hip-hop. “I know blacks started it, but there were whites there too, Asians. It’s not racial. It’s all in the heart.”

But Design 9 admits he has met false brothers: “They wear all the hip-hop gear. They’re into anything red, black, and green. They have Rodney King and Mandela shirts and say, ‘I’m down for the struggle.’ But when blacks walk by them on the street, they’re the main ones grabbing their wallets. That’s hypocrisy.”

Such ambivalence triggers suspicion among some blacks as they watch the mainstreaming of their culture.

Still, some caution that past pain shouldn’t prevent blacks from sharing. “First, we have to respect our own culture,” says Molefi Kete Asante, author of more than two dozen books on afrocentrism and black culture and the head of Temple University’s African-American studies department. “But we also have to have the kind of maturity and confidence that we can feel it’s not an invasion because someone else also finds our culture enjoyable.”

Others say they don’t mind sharing but do fear being forgotten. Many young blacks even say they don’t have a culture. It’s the tragic result, critics contend, of a society that co-opts black art and traditions, then neglects to say where they come from.

The appropriation includes much more than music, ethnographers and sociologists say, pointing to literature, slang and dance.

The Harlem Renaissance, for instance, was a 1920s heyday for black writers and artists. But its writers and poets were often sponsored by white patrons who essentially controlled the product. Linguists note the black community’s uncredited contributions to American slang over the decades.

Historians say such dances as the jitterbug and Charleston, often associated with white faces, originated in the black community. And Madonna ushered into the mainstream the dance known as “voguing,” which evolved at balls thrown by Latino and African-American transvestites in New York.

Of course, such cultural exchanges are not restricted to black and white. In a country as diverse as the United States, the melding of customs, traditions and art forms is commonplace: Tacos and spaghetti are staples in many households; Latin-American culture has spawned popular dances and music; people of all shades enjoy evenings at the opera.

“There’s borrowing whenever two cultures come in contact,” says UCLA sociology professor Allen. “But (black) culture is constantly told we have offered nothing in this exchange, that we’ve only taken. . . . What is important is that each culture acknowledge the gifts from the other.”

Allen believes blacks today have a slightly bigger hand in the popularization of their culture. Talk-show host Arsenio Hall and comedian Martin Lawrence, for example, have brought certain slang, music and fashion to a broad audience.

But, Allen says, blacks still lack the ultimate, and critical, power to preserve their legacy and control their images.

When it comes to power, “we have next to none,” he says. “We’re deluding ourselves to suggest otherwise,” he adds, pointing to the takeover of Spike Lee’s film “Malcolm X” by a bond company shortly before its completion.

“It’s at those key moments we understand our power deficit,” Allen says. “We’re really at the whim and preference of a process that’s dominated by white Americans and it’s for them to decide whether what we want to have done should be done, how it should be done, and the matter of money that should go into doing it.”

Perhaps, he says, that is why black culture takes a new shape as soon as the previous form makes its way to Madison Avenue.

“I guess that’s because we know once they get it, it’s no longer ours,” says Allen. “So, as fast as someone appropriates it, we change it. When they finally figure out how to do (it), it’s gone. Therein lies our power.”

It is critical, Allen and others say, that, in a society racked by racism and strife, Americans are reminded to view the nation as a gathering of peoples, each with something of value to offer.

And it is important that children be able to look back at their legacy --and know they have the potential to contribute as much as those who came before.

“We need to be acknowledged,” says Bruce Autry, “so we can take our place in history.”