Analyzing the term “Selling Out”
Before being asked to write this response, I had a pretty narrow view of what it meant to be a sellout. I thought it was mainly reserved for people who somehow betray their “race” by marrying outside of it. Growing up in the Los Angeles area also contributed to my defining sellouts in a way that meant a person was making alliances with “white people”; Uncle Toms; or " trying to be/ look "white"; "acting white" and also anything that "isn't pro-black" . Today, in several dictionaries, the word “sellout” is generally being defined as someone who betrays their original cause for personal gain.
A sterling example of this is the famous so-called "civil-rights activist" and politician Jesse Jackson Sr. His claim to fame was his fabrication of being with MLK Jr. when he passed on: This never happened. When reporters tried to uncover what Jackson was hiding to the public—they were met with serious death threats. Today, Jesse Jackson Sr. claims to be for black people and their advancement, and yet, he constantly demands exorbitant fees to appear publicly and/or assist people in need of leadership. To add insult to injury, he has a particularly long record of behavior linked to fraud activity. This included his Operation PUSH and shady deals that sold aspects of the black community to crooked Chicago businessmen. As a so-called "civil rights activist", he clearly has no integrity; he talks one game and plays another by degrading the mantle of civil rights instead of advancing it.
Another example of “selling out” worth discussing is that of Bob Marley and the Wailers. This group’s sound was modified by an "outsider", a "white" Jamaican producer named Chris Blackwell. Together, he and Marley sat and changed the band's sound from one that only a marginalized group of people could understand to one that used nuances in the world of rock music. These changes to the album, and the sound of Bob Marley and The Wailers are what propelled an increasingly broke and bitter group to international stardom. These changes are what gave these artists full control of their art. By making the music more of a "reggae-rock" style, the band was able to stay rebellious and intensely political without completely racializing the music. It is still disruptive to this day-- even though Bob Marley "sold out" and let "white" people contribute to the production of his music.
Truly, we still feel the effects of Bob Marley and his message to this very day. He saw some value in “mainstream white media” and used those things to make his music transcend more barriers than it could in its beginnings. This form of selling out "...made reggae a musical force to be taken seriously" and it also gave the social, political and economic injustices faced by these people a real stage on which to shine "despite its extensive commercialization.” That is something I hadn't really considered: If selling out could ever be viewed as something constructive and after comparing these two "sell outs", it's clear that it can be.
References
Wint, E. (2003). Bob Marley: The man and his music : a selection of papers presented at the conference Marley's music, reggae, Rastafari, and Jamaican culture, held at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, 5-6 February 1995. Kingston, Jamaica: Arawak Publ.
