The White Negro

"The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster" is a 9,000 word essay by Norman Mailer that recorded a number of young white people between the 1920s and 1950s who liked jazz and swing music, and who were so dis-enthralled with what they saw as a conformist culture, that they adopted black culture as their own. The essay was first published in the Summer 1957 issue of Dissent, before being published separately by City Lights. It later appeared in Advertisements for Myself in 1959.