Heavy on the down beat like funk, the impetus and directive is to, well, whoop! somebody who has violated you. вЂњWhoop That TrickвЂќ is a classic shit-talking, I-dare-you-to-step-to-me rap song with a classic southern (and West African) call and response chorus: Whoop that trick! (Get вЂim!) Whoop that trick! (Get вЂim!). Thus, when Memphis crowds began chanting вЂњwhoop that ClipвЂќ during the ClippersвЂ™ series, signifying on the Al Kapone song from the film, вЂњWhoop that Trick,вЂќ and eventually just went all out and actually chanted вЂњwhoop that trickвЂќ-I was immediately proud. IвЂ™ve used BrewerвЂ™s film often in my research about southern cities, southern cultures, and contemporary black southern identity, despite some of its problematic epistemology, and I see it as an important teaching tool.

When I was a Sociology and Southern Studies prof at the University of Mississippi, I made several classes watch Craig BrewerвЂ™s 2005 film Hustle & Flow,В including two very white Introduction to Southern Studies courses and two more or less integrated Urban Sociology courses. You canвЂ™t helpВ it because your life is inextricably linked with that person or object, the love, the pain, and the structures that influence how you experience the love-pain dialectic. In the blues, you donвЂ™t learnto love the one who does you wrong. We are the embodiment of the blues, a blues people, a post-soul people. Many of us have always loved the city, like we love America, despite the fact that it doesnвЂ™t do us right. вЂњYea,вЂќ yes, вЂњyeaвЂќ for white folksвЂ™ вЂњlearning to stop worrying and love whoop that trick.вЂќ But also, вЂњnay,вЂќ since it precisely is white folks (and some misguided black middle class folks) who for structural reasons and reasons of unexamined privileged are more likely to be embarrassed by the cityвЂ™s reputation and public face in the first place. IвЂ™m uttering a lusty and simultaneous вЂњNayвЂќ to the frantic white people energy around the Grizzlies playoff anthem, вЂњwhoop that trick,вЂќ perhaps most notable in this postВ by Apryl Childs-Potter. вЂњвЂ¦the Negro must, while joining in the chorus of вЂњYeasвЂќ which the book has so deservedly evoked, utter a lusty and simultaneous вЂњNay.вЂќ

In Ralph EllisonвЂ™s 1944 reviewВ of Gunnar MyrdalвЂ™s The American Dilemma, he begins by describing his feelings about the massive work thusly:

Whoop that trick dance