Black Elitism, White Anti-Racism, Hip-Hop, and Three 6 Mafia.

The choruses have been loud and braying ever since Three 6 Mafia took home a golden statue last Sunday for "It's Hard Out Here for A Pimp." Middle-class black folk are angered and dismayed that yet another crass display of "coonery" enters the American lexicon as an award-worthy representation of the African-American community. Young people and liberal white folk exult in the thumb in the eye to middle-class respectability that their performance seemed to represent. Those who hate hip-hop feel vindicated as they see yet another misogynistic, ignorant display of gutter music endorsed by the Hollywood elite. NYC rap purists bemoan the decline of their artform and the ascendance of "crunk music." And other hip-hop enthusiasts keenly note that Three 6 has been in "the game" for 15 years, and that being independent and uncompromising in your work eventually does pay off -- another version of the American dream.

It's another look into the ugly cancer of race in America, and the sickness and vomiting that 40 years of chemotherapy has visited upon us.

Yes, Three 6 Mafia glorifies pimps, hoes, casual sex, smoking marijuana (in their recent, other most successful single to date, "Stay High," rendered "Stay Fly" for radio), ass-whoopings and tearing the club up, and yes, they were originally the 6*6 (you won't see that number in MY blog) Mafia, which eventually drove their female member, Gangsta Boo, out the group and into (briefly) the ministry. In short, they crystallize the excesses of 60's counterculturalism and exemplify the "bad" images respectable blacks have been combatting since the days of "Superfly." Yes, they are country "bammas" of the type widely reviled by Northern blacks who have strived so hard to excise any of that country-ness from their personas. And I don't think anyone -- not even they -- would attempt to defend their body of music as high art or something they want their children to listen to.

But all of that, in some way, misses the point. Middle-class Black Americans are widely upset because they feel that Three 6 Mafia reflects poorly on them to white people, and that their music is symptomatic of the problems in Black America. All of their criticism is ironic. On an economic and social level, the middle class has been happy to integrate into White America on White terms -- ignoring the poor, striving for wealth accumulation at all costs, and following them wherever they move.

Yet when White America informs Black America that on a cultural level, too, they will be integrated on White terms, not on Black, there's a backlash. Well, sorry, can't have it both ways. Just as Italian-Americans had to suck it up and take the Oscars for "The Godfather," wait for Al Pacino to play a blind asshole to win his trophy, and ended up with a real jerk as their guy on the Supreme Court, Black Americans had to take their turn in the way it was handed to them. It's not pretty, but it's how the process the middle class has been happy to roll with for 30 years works.

On another twisted level, it's yet another vindication of the American dream. Just as Joe Kennedy started off bootlegging during Prohibition and eventually produced a President and a Senator, just as Jews started off being clowns in vaudeville shows and ended up running Broadway, Three 6 Mafia took their dream from the ghettoes of Memphis all the way to the red carpet on March 5. Few in this great country get famous or wealthy because of their noble deeds -- most do it either on the backs of others or by exploiting their identities. Three 6 Mafia chose the latter route -- a popular one these days, if we are to judge by the excesses of reality television.

To be sure, it's jarring to see these three guys poppin' they...COLLA...one day on "106 & Park" one day, and chilling with Ellen the next, but in the narrow way ratified by modern Black leaders from Vernon Jordan to Andrew Young, it's success and progress. They've made it to the mainstream! They can get access to that white dollar now, which, in case you didn't notice, is way bigger than that black dollar. And it should be expected that racist white commentators like Bill O'Reilly would rail against their entrance into the mainstream because it insults their sensibilities. What's funny is that their commentary mirrors that of un-self-critical black commentators who call them racists in one breath and echo them in the next. What the black ones don't see is that the very values they extol are the ones that laid the groundwork for Three 6 Mafia to succeed in the first place.

Taking it as a whole, it looks like a typical day in America -- black shame and black success fighting each other, while white America looks on with scorn and admiration. Business as usual for a complex nation that's trying to heal old wounds without opening new ones.