“SQUARE”: SOCIOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS
ON THE NON- “HIP” SOCIAL REJECT
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
Back in the 1950's and 1960's, to be
called a “square” was considered to be an insult.
“Hip” was the thing to be! “Hip”
enabled admission into, and retention inside of, “the in-crowd:”
a song and an idiom popularized by Dobie Gray, a popular “soul”
singer of that era.
A definition of a “square” was
never, however, precisely articulated by its endorsers or its
traducers. Neither was its provenance nor its origin entirely
certain. By inference and implication, its definition was deduced to
be the opposite of “hip,” whatever that happened to be, as it was
also being undefined.
“Hip” and “square” were both
overarching, black cultural memes in that era, however. They continue
to accrete: culturally, sociologically, pedagogically, still
essentially undefined, until now.
For example, “Detroit Red,” Malcolm
Little a/k/a Malcolm X a/k/a El Hajj Malik-El Shabazz got his hair
“conked,” processed, chemically straightened, to avoid being
“square” in the 1940's. He also began to wear zoot suits; to
steal and burglarize homes and businesses in order to be deemed a
hustler, with money to flash and women to sport. Prison, his brother
Reginald's love, and his initiation of his self-help reading program
in the dictionary and other works began him on a trail of
rehabilitation. While he was on this path, he was converted to the
Nation of Islam, lead by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
Malcolm X's Boston-based, “Detroit
Red” cultural caricature of black manhood stands in stark contrast
to this Omaha, Nebraska, native's former straight-A high school
background. It also vilifies his father, a Baptist preacher, murdered
by racist whites for espousing the philosophy of Marcus Mosiah
Garvey. Malcolm's archetypal story is brilliantly set forth in The
Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley.
In an effort to remain “hip”
several well-known musicians pursued self-destructive lifestyles,
which culminated in death from overdosing on drugs or alcohol, or
from complications associated therewith. Prominent among them were
Charlie “Yardbird” Parker and Billie “Lady-day” Holliday both
prominent in the 1930's and 1940's. Homicides afflicted Sam Cooke and
Marvin Gaye in the 1960's and 1970's. Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls and
others, all homicides, followed in the 1980's through 2000's.
Whatever “hip” may be, however
defined, its sequel is too often tragedy.
It is also virulently contagious. It
took root and spread rapidly in the North as well as in the South in
rural areas, suburban areas, and in urban areas. In this context, the
cultural hegira of blacks from the South to the North in the late
1870's and continuing in surging waves through the 1950's, in search
of economic opportunity and educational parity, played a key role in
this “hip” vs. “square” dichotomy.
Those rural migrants were branded as
“square” by their pseudo-urbane brothers and sisters, who were
themselves “fresh from the country,” give or take a generation.
Rather than to be teased or ostracized socially, these new emigrants
assumed the lingo, lifestyles and values of their “hip” northern
kindred.
Thus core family values imported from
the South like religion, education, discipline, and hard work slowly
dissipated. These core values enabled these rural emigrants to
survive white-hate oppression and discrimination of the
post-Reconstruction South. There official and unofficial white
terrorism was overt and open, a way of life and legal! In the North,
it was covert and disguised, dissembled behind platitudes about
freedom and equal opportunity. Yet, the police and courts were just
as bad, effectively.
Relaxing their grip once they arrived
in the North, some families were dissolved by the acid of “hip,”
dissolute lifestyles, in which: education was not valued; religion
was “old-fashioned;” discipline was either totally absent or
wantonly abused; hard work—any work—was lacking, and families
dissolved.
Meanwhile, the “squares,” went to
church, finished high school or college, got married and raised
families; disciplined their children and worked hard, sometimes
working 2 or more jobs to preserve their families. “Squares” also
tended to avoid jail and early graves brought on by dissolute
lifestyles.
This “hip”/ “square”
over-generalization continues to be this day over 140 years since the
Black Exodus from the South began in 1879. This dichotomy manifests
in many evils. Among them is black-on-black crime, extremely high
abortion rates, incarceration ratios that lead the world, unenviable
education deficits, religions that conform rather than transform,
unemployment and underemployment and an unreasonable expectation that
the government will save them, somehow.
Black troops saved the government, the
Union, from utter destruction in the Civil War! Remember? Therefore,
how can government, the anomalous salvee, possibly save blacks, the
anomalous salvor, from themselves, from their own “hip” lifestyle
choices? What was once “hip,” has now “hopped,” across the
racial divide and even across national divides, becoming globally
known now as “hip-hop.”
Governments can and must help. As they
now and have historically helped banks, investors, farmers, industry,
unions, non-profit by domestic, tax and fiscal policies. It must do
likewise for those it was once subjugated, terrorized and oppressed.
But governments cannot save! Only people can save themselves.
Once people squarely face and squarely
accept self-responsibility, things will change for the better for
themselves Until then, not!
Geometrically, a “square” is a
parallelogram with 4 right angles and 4 equal sides. A parallelogram
is a quadrilateral with two pairs of parallel sides. Parallel lines
are lines in the same plane that never intersect. A quadrilateral is
a polygon with 4 sides. A polygon is a closed two-dimensional figure
with 3 or more sides. A right angle is an angle that has a measure of
90 degrees. “Squaring” a number is when that number is multiplied
by itself. Example: 7 x 7 = 49; 10 x 10 = 100. (Note: all definitions
used in this paragraph are taken from Math-E-Magic: 169
Astonishing Numerical Challenges, by Raymond Blum, Adam
Hart-Davis, Bob Longe, and Derrick Niederman, “Glossary,”
(Sterling Innovation, an imprint of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. New
York/London: 2010)).
A “square” is complete and self
contained, comprising 360 degrees, unlike its more “hip” triangle
kindred which only comprises 180 degrees! Thus, any square contains
any two triangles. Or, put esoterically, even in a “right”
triangle, the area of the hypotenuese is equal to the combined areas
of the squares of its other two sides triangular sides. Hence, a2
+ b2 = c2 otherwise known as the
Pythagorean theorem obtains.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras%27_theorem.
So, “squares” of the world, look
up! Colloquially, a square deal is a fair deal. Nutritionally, a
square meal is a balanced meal. Since, “square” connotes balance,
fairness, and “right,” “Hip,” its opposite, necessarily
connotes imbalance, unfairness and wrong. You're twice the better of
your “hip” cousins!
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