Prometheus 6

I've noticed that old white folks getting down are used to sell a number of different things lately, from SUVs to anything else popular in the mainstream. 

You got me.  I've never sat in front of a computer with the complete WTF face before.  I'm glad no one was around to take a picture.  I have no words.

It is funny in a way how when white Americans begin to appropriate the external signs and symbols of African American speaking styles etc. that African Americans begin to slowly move away from using those expressions. I find it funny too that certain terms and phrases that were actually fading from use in the Black community when I was a teenager have reemerged decades later in the Black community with a changed usage and definition.

Take the phrase "homeboy" for example. When I was a child and teenager in the 1950s and 1960s this term was used almost exclusively by Black men who had migrated from the southern United States to describe or refer to another Black man who had migrated from the same city or town and, preferably, the same neighborhood. Two Black men from Texas did not refer to each other as "homeboys" or "homies" unless they were both from, for example, Houston and, preferably, the same section or ward in Houston.

Homeboy was a term of endearment used by people who still had a strong sentimental attachment to the places and people they had grown up with. The use of the term also implied a certain sense of obligation or hospitality. Folks from your hometown might help you find a job or a place to live just because you were from the same city or town. It did not matter whether you actually knew each other or knew each other only in passing, or that a relative or friend had given them your name and telephone number and suggested that you look them up when you arrived "up north."

The phrase carries significantly different and distinct connotations today. One of the reasons for this change, I suspect, is that the term "homeboy" is now used today by whites whereas two and three generations ago only a white person who hung out almost exclusively with African Americans was even aware of the existence of the term. Today, this phrase has become one of the cheap certificates that are offered through the medium of pop culture that can be flashed by its holders to demonstrate that they are "down" and have an understanding and appreciation of Black culture.

Indeed, the death of hip hop is at hand. And I agree with ptcruiser. Our slang do tend to find it's way into mainstream white America. But we are America's trend-setters. Everything we do gets copied - often badly - by white America. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. 

Thanks for the insights, PTC.