The Appropriation of Cultures

by Percival Everett, LeVar Burton (Narrator)

A young Black musician is heckled by a group of white fraternity brothers, asking him to play "Dixie". His response surprises everyone, including himself. This story appears in the collection DAMNED IF I DO, published by Graywolf Press.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Audiobook, School, Classics, Adult, Historical

1 pages, Audiobook

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Percival L. Everett (born 1956) is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.

There might not be a more fertile mind in American fiction today than Everett’s. In 22 years, he has written 19 books, including a farcical Western, a savage satire of the publishing industry, a children’s story spoofing counting books, retellings of the Greek myths of Medea and Dionysus, and a philosophical tract narrated by a four-year-old.

The Washington Post has called Everett “one of the most adventurously experimental of modern American novelists.” And according to The Boston Globe, “He’s literature’s NASCAR champion, going flat out, narrowly avoiding one seemingly inevitable crash only to steer straight for the next.”

Everett, who teaches courses in creative writing, American studies and critical theory, says he writes about what interests him, which explains his prolific output and the range of subjects he has tackled. He also describes himself as a demanding teacher who learns from his students as much as they learn from him.

Everett’s writing has earned him the PEN USA 2006 Literary Award (for his 2005 novel, Wounded), the Academy Award for Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (for his 2001 novel, Erasure), the PEN/Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature (for his 1996 story collection, Big Picture) and the New American Writing Award (for his 1990 novel, Zulus). He has served as a judge for, among others, the 1997 National Book Award for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1991.

Reviews

[Kaleah · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I ran across this link to the full story thanks to another Goodreads reviewer. The Appropriation of Cultures.

"Black people all over the state flew the Confederate flag. The symbol began to disappear from the fronts of big rigs and the back windows of jacked-up four-wheelers..."

Take a trip down to the beaches of Galveston, TX and you'll notice an ironic spectacle. Parked along the seaweed-plagued sands are rows of jacked-up trucks proudly and unabashedly flying Confederate flags, many times alongside "Blue Lives Matter" emblems, their drunken young white male owners laughing, jeering, beers in hand, seemingly looking to pick a fight with any number of black families also parked on the beach, all while blasting the latest rap music. The scene is jarring and unsettling.

I can't think of a better example than this to illustrate the embarrassment, contradiction, attempted intimidation, and utter outrageousness displayed in "The Appropriation of Cultures," except in Everett's story, the black community decides to adopt the long-hated flag as a symbol of their own.

I'm pleased that this was my introduction to Percival Everett's work, but I'm also disapppointed I haven't read him previously. He clearly has mastered the ability to satirize the most complicated of human conditions, not to mention his knack for creating an engaging storyline in a brief number of pages. Definitely one of the best short stories I've read. "The Appropriation of Cultures" is part of a collection of stories entitled "Dammed If I Do" that I plan to find and read in full.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this sly story, a young Black man of means decides to subvert the meaning of the Confederate flag and begins to display the flag and claim its identity as Black Pride. After some confusion, other Blacks do so too, thus taking the racist meaning away from whites and the state capital quietly takes their flag down. I wish a movement like this could truly happen, and that damn Confederate flag could stay in our past.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Appropriation of Cultures is available at the publisher's website.

[David Blaylock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Take it and own it.

[Gwyneth Ralston · Rating 4 out of 5]

“You should have seen those redneck boys when I took Dixie from them. They didn’t know what to do. So, the goddamn flag is flying over the State Capitol. Don’t take it down, just take it. That’s what I say.”

[Hannah Mull · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written. Great premise.

[pip · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was assigned in my Eng 380 class and I looooved it. It was perfectly paired with the chapter on post colonial criticism and was a helpful example for the concepts written about in that chapter.

[Chrysten Lofton · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0 ⭐ “I was just lucky enough to find a truck with a ‘black power’ flag already on it.”

**mild content spoilers**



♡ LBR 2024 ♡



I couldn’t have asked for a better start to the new year than with a fresh season of LeVar Burton Reads.



Terse. Clever. Thoughtful. Interesting/funny. Poignant in the subject and execution. My only complaint is that it’s a little too short. I need more Daniel.



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- 📚☕♥
Goodreads Official Star Representation
5 - It was amazing
4 - I really liked it
3 - I liked it
2 - It was okay
1 - Did not like it.

[Simon Gonzalez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodreads needs to give stories covers, they deserve them. The Appropriation of Cultures was incredible. I truly don’t understand why some stories that are so impactful and such a perfect example of masterful writing don’t get enough credit. From the beginning, this story presents the reader with a character that is both fleshed out and driven.

This story shows Daniel, a young southern musician who is fortunate enough to not need to work due to his family’s inheritance money. He sets out to play his music at a local joint and connects deeply with his culture and its relationship with music, until he realizes that there’s more to racism and underlying hate circulating around the south and its troubling history. Daniel takes the first step to claiming back what once was taken from his community by buying a truck that has a confederate flag on it.

There are enough elements and topics and feelings in this story to fill in a thorough discussion of it, and that’s what makes it special. This story was not only vivid in its imagery, but insanely smart, depicting a driven character with an impactful ending that leaves the reader thinking and thinking and thinking. Wonderful read.

[Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-listened to this and enjoyed it all over again.

This has prompted me to look up more about the little tune referred to as "Dixie". I am tickled to learn that President Abraham Lincoln had it played at some of his political rallies and at the announcement of General Robert E. Lee's surrender. So it sounds like this song has long been used in many different settings:
minstrelsy --Black and white performers
the Civil War -- the Confederates had different renditions and the Union made parodies
Civil Rights movement -- white opponents to civil rights began answering songs such as "We Shall Overcome" with the song "Dixie"
patriotism -- Chief Justice William Rehnquist regularly included "Dixie" in his annual sing-along for the 4th Circuit Judicial Conference in Virginia. However, its performance prompted some African American lawyers to avoid the event.
athletic events -- In 2016, Ole Miss athletics department announced the song would no longer be played at athletic events – a tradition that had spanned some seven decades at football games and other sporting events

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a peaceful humorous way to challenge the confederate flag.

[Катерина Майковська · Rating 5 out of 5]

i loved this story for it's simplicity, how clear it goes. although it is very simple it hints at huge questions and huge problems in the American society. very gracefully done.

a black musician was asked to sing a southern song about the cotton land. he does it and finds it appealing, he finds his own meaning in it, his own ties to the south. then he buys a truck with a confederate flag on it from a couple of white people and goes on calling it a black power flag confusing everyone. eventually many more black people in the town, and then in the state play along and appropriate the symbols of white supremacists. in the end of the story — the confederate flag is silently removed from an official building.

i love how this story takes a twist and shows a positive example of cultural appropriation. how the same mechanism we are used to think of as oppressive is used by the black community to remove the symbol of oppression and change its meaning.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book 21/52 for 2024. This powerful short story should be required reading at the high school level. It's well paced, succinct and conversation generating. It pokes at the legacy of colonialism and the reality of racism clinging to symbols as a means to mark and divide. Power can be taken back. As it should.

[Mr.Toad · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 but rounding up cause I feel kind today I guess

Read this for the first time a few summers ago, and I recall liking it. Reread it for lit this year and can say I LOVE it. I feel like the writing is approachable and engaging while still holding complex themes and depth.


The writing style and sentance structure sort of reminds me of the play I had to read for american lit last year.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sharp little story about power and taking back ... about finding ourselves in each other, no matter how painful, and then making it our own. LeVar Burton is almost too kind and understanding, but maybe that's what we need right now. A radical act of confuzzlement? Or a radical act of collusion?

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Percival Everett is amazing! I absolutely love the little bit I have read of his. I was so happy to come across this link https://web.archive.org/web/201703221... from another review.

[Chrissy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A poignant vision of a black man reclaiming two celebrated symbols of racism, Dixieland and the confederate flag. I got to the end of the story believing it was real, and hopeful that perhaps in my life time, or my children’s, it can be.

[Tanja Giljevic · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a seriously excellent short story by Percival Everett where an intelligent young man takes the Confederate Flag and makes it his own symbol. It turns people on their heads as they question his motives. I think I have to read James, now.

[anna maziarska · Rating 3 out of 5]

And this is how you do it.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really funny way of turning the tables on things. I particularly enjoyed the epilogue part at the end.

[Sierra]

I

[Annabelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A clever and witty look at racism and the power of symbols.

[Heather Butterworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. Good food for thought, and made all the better with narration from Levar Burton!

[Audrey Shuping · Rating 5 out of 5]

literally one of my favorite reads in AFAM Lit!! so funny and such an interesting take on how we can control the message behind symbols.

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

If only this could actually happen. I'm here for it.

[Brooklyn Thibodeaux ✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

a good and witty story about a musician’s journey to purchase a pickup truck with a special decal ;)

[Sarah Rider]

Read for ENG 480

[Jacqueline Mudge-Cooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story was not quite what I was expecting, in a good way. Feels like an alternate reality for how to take things back. (For we know it would take a lot more than how it was done in the story)

[Candice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great short story by Percival Everett! LeVar Burton does a fantastic job, as always, with the narration of the story on his podcast “LeVar Burton Reads”.

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listened to on LeVar Burton Reads podcast.