Although current analyses of linguistic crossing evaluate the immediate intra-speaker social consequences of crossing, the ways in which crossing reflects and reinforces broader social structures of power and oppression should also be taken into account, as the social meaning of crossing draws not only from immediate social interaction, but also from broader social projects. This study examines the appropriation of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) by Asian hip-hop group Far East Movement (FM). Using a dialect density measure (DDM), I show that FM uses AAVE at higher rates in sexualized party music versus nonsexualized ballads. I argue that this use of AAVE is a problematic subversion of Asian emasculation via the appropriation of Black masculinity.

Strange Affinities collects thirteen articles around two central goals: (1) to articulate analytics of understanding racial formations that center difference and the role of comparison rather than homogeneities and constructed similarities between histories, and (2) to create new coalitional possibilities between groups via these analytics. The authors in this anthology draw from a wide range of sources and methodologies, with the majority grounding their analyses on a foundation of women of color feminism and/or queer of color critique. Through the interweaving of various perspectives, we see not so much one neatly outlined framework of understanding racial formation, so much as we see the beginnings of various threads that invite further thought and discussion as they disrupt normative understandings of racial formation.