based on the work of Stuart Hall who defines culture as “patterns of life that
give expression to social and material experience” (80). Hebdige and Hall
invoke the term “culture” because they claim political significance for
groups that do not make specifically political demands. There are people—
easy enough to spot on the street—who express their contempt for authority
and society by the way that they dress: numerous tattoos, multiple piercings
in places other than the ears, heavy ghoulish makeup, spiked hair dyed black
or blue, or some combination of such. It is fairly clear that such dressers are
conveying a message, even if it is more difficult to specify what that
message is, and what effect it might have. Another example of cultural
protest would be American Blacks who wear African influenced clothes to
show their identification with “the mother continent” while rejecting
degrading popular images of African-Americans in U.S. culture.
In Race Rebels, Kelley builds on Hebdige’s work when he offers an
unconventional definition of politics, one that permits dress and anti-social
behavior to be considered political.
Kelley’s book explores “the political
significance of everyday forms of resistance at work and in public space…”
(7). He believes that African-Americans have “struggle[d] and survive[d]
outside of established organizations or organized social movements…”(8).
Alternative dress such as the zoot suit is part of a “dissident political
culture” (8). Drawing on James Scott, Weapons of the Weak, Kelley claims,
7
Convention