Jenee Desmond – Harris wrote an article called “Tupac and My Non-thug Life,” which was published in an online article called The Root. The title of this article seems very contradictory and that is because it is. This article is about how Desmond – Harris, as a young privileged half white, half black teenage girl, finds herself trying to embody Tupac after his death. The contradiction of this is that Desmond-Harris did not relate to Tupac in the ways of how they grew up. Desmond – Harris had yet to confront any of life’s hard edges when Tupac had passed. She had it very easy. Like she does in much of her other work, she puts her personal experience into analysis of issues surrounding race. She tells this story as her own reaction of the murder
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She wants to tell people the things she did while questioning herself and reflecting on why she did those things along with why she chose to take the path she did as she explored the textures of her identity. She often refers back to Tupac’s music and how specific songs related to specific times. She said it was the “musical score” of their high school transition. Now that it has been 20 years since Desmond – Harris went through this stage in her life, now she reflects on her actions and thinks a lot about how she related to Tupac and his music, even though they came from two different …show more content…
She puts the songs that she listened to as the story folded out on a timeline as they are relevant to that specific part of the story. Her opinion of Tupac’s music changed from then as she now says it was “probably wasn’t made to be a treatise on racial identity” (Desmond – Harris). Her tone is very easy going, but she talks as if she is questioning herself and wondering why she did the things she did back then as she now knows who she is. She also used a picture to provide a visual of her and her friend at the time as they began to change themselves, through their hair, their clothes, and their music tastes. The photo showed how they imitated Tupac’s tattoos with a sharpie. She tends to reference back on her innocence a lot as she explains how they hadn’t yet met their firsts boyfriends, or stated that the most troublemaking thing they did was make prank phone
She wants to tell people the things she did while questioning herself and reflecting on why she did those things along with why she chose to take the path she did as she explored the textures of her identity. She often refers back to Tupac’s music and how specific songs related to specific times. She said it was the “musical score” of their high school transition. Now that it has been 20 years since Desmond – Harris went through this stage in her life, now she reflects on her actions and thinks a lot about how she related to Tupac and his music, even though they came from two different …show more content…
She puts the songs that she listened to as the story folded out on a timeline as they are relevant to that specific part of the story. Her opinion of Tupac’s music changed from then as she now says it was “probably wasn’t made to be a treatise on racial identity” (Desmond – Harris). Her tone is very easy going, but she talks as if she is questioning herself and wondering why she did the things she did back then as she now knows who she is. She also used a picture to provide a visual of her and her friend at the time as they began to change themselves, through their hair, their clothes, and their music tastes. The photo showed how they imitated Tupac’s tattoos with a sharpie. She tends to reference back on her innocence a lot as she explains how they hadn’t yet met their firsts boyfriends, or stated that the most troublemaking thing they did was make prank phone