Crack and Hip Hop Politically Underdeveloped Young People
by Guest Contributor M.Dot, originally published at Model Minority
On a fluke a few of weeks ago, I picked up a dvd about the Black Panthers and the student and employee strike at SF State that created the first Black Studies department in the country.
It was in watching this video that realized that both crack and hip hop politically underdeveloped young people. Much of this statement comes out of my reading two or three books a week along with five or six articles last month, while simultaneously watching the fall out from Sasha Frere Jones’s post about the end of hip hop and a post about rap critics. Blog posts, long blog posts take a lot of work. At least coherent ones do.
Reading and writing is labor and I am thinking about to which ends, those of us who are in our twenties and thirties, are reading and writing.
While watching the responses percolate, I wondered what would happen if we invested the same time in rap blogs in making politics to address our lives?
What is our investment in a music that has made it clear that it doesn’t give a fuck out us in a time where we live in an unsustainable world?
For the folks who say that hip hop is related to a political project, I would say, place a link in the comment section. By political I mean a group of people organizing to serve a communally determined group agenda. This doesn’t mean that it hasn’t served as a conscious raising tool, in the past, but Post Chronic or even Post Blueprint, the music has ceased being for itself and currently exists for Black respect and White dollars.
Given that this is the case, what does this mean for Black people and what does it mean for Black music?
To the extent that this applies globally, remains to be seen.
Chuck D has argued extensively that young people globally have used rap music as tool to make sense of their position is society. Based a couple of documentaries that I have seen about hip hop in Cuba and North Africa, to a certain extent this is true. Given the impact of AIDS mass incarceration and the systemic undereducation of Black, White and Latino students, what are the ways in which that the music, at least since The Chronic, has helped us make sense of our world?
I come from the Leroi Jones school of Black music, which looks at Black music both as it relates to our history in this country, and as being representative of a particular point in time in this country.
Three months ago, Rafi said that rap music used to be the street talking to the street. In commenting on the ways in which Nike used Cube’s “Today is a Good Day” for a skateboarding commercial he writes,
It’s just another example of hip-hop’s transformation to lifestyle marketing tool and its astonishing disconnect from the reality it used to represent….Three years ago I saw a big hip-hop show in New York City just days after Sean Bell’s murder. The city was buzzing with rage and confusion everywhere except inside the show where the incident wasn’t even mentioned. I said back then that there was “a time when rap was supposed to speak to and speak for the streets”. But shows like that Rock the Bells performance and ads like this one from Nike show how far we’ve come from that.
The acts and songs of that era are being used to market to aging hip-hop fans like myself but it is all sound and no fury.
Rhythm & Blues affirms Black humanity, modern rap music affirms our subhumanity.
This doesn’t mean that Rhythm and Blues was all warm and fuzzy as Black humanity encompasses both the aspects that we are proud of and our collective darkside as well.
Birkhold thinks that this is really crude statement, and criticizes me for saying so. Yes it is crude. But I stand by it, because Black music has changed from a being for itself to being for others. Rafi’s comment
is an illustration of this.
This isn’t a conscious vs. thug dichotomy. My argument is a little more nuanced than that. Cube, Dre, Too Short, were dudes, street or not, talking to the street. Peep the VH1 NWA documentary, “The World’s Most Dangerous Group”. Popular gangster rappers wanted to make some money but they weren’t trying to become corporations themselves. That wasn’t an option, so it wasn’t a goal.
I mentioned the content of this piece to Birkhold shortly after I wrote it and he disagreed with my statement that rap use to exist for itself, and is now existing for others (thuggin’ for cash).
His issue was with the fact that rap has always been, for the most part, about Black men performing Black male, machismo, fantasy. Being for others. Cold Crush brothers, Funky Four Plus One, Africa Bambaata were either on some party shit, some machismo steez, or some super Black masculinity. He tried to say that Cube was from the suburbs, but he’s from South Central, according to Wikipedia. However he did attend Phoenix Institute of Technology in the fall of 1987, and studied Architectural Drafting. Chuck D, Russell and I believe, Run DMC were middle class cats from Long Island and Queens respectively. In rap, Black men have always been performing some other ‘ish and I agree with that.
However, I responded that, while it very well may be true that early rappers were performing a macho, fantasy, partying, Black masculinity, the scale, risk and harm in the1970s and 80s isn’t analogous to
1990s and 2000s.
The fact that Byron Hurt made a movie, Barack and Curtis, about Black masculinity comparing 50 to President Obama is indicative of this.
Currently, rap music is conflated with Blackness. As a result some Black children who are not from the ‘hood feel compelled to perform thuggery in order to be accepted. After all the sacrifices their parents have made, pursuing higher education, moving to the suburbs, working the corporate gig, the children want to be exactly what their parents have been sheltering them from, a thug. The pervasiveness of rap music in 1990s and 2000s plays a big role in making this possible.
The notion of acceptance and assimilation is an important one. In fact, much of the homophobia that we observe in both American culture and in Black culture stems from the resentment that a gay man or lesbian woman has the audacity and courage to walk around being who they want to be, not who others expect them to be. We have been socialized to resent the courage to be queer. We are angry because they refuse to fit into the box that society has created for them, and we are uncertain of how to get ourselves out if it.
Back to Huey. Watching the documentary on The Panthers, the irony of fact that Huey Newton was murdered in a dope deal gone bad on the streets of West Oakland isn’t lost on me.
In listening to Eldridge speak in the documentary, it became to clear that while I was familiar with his open and aggressive misogyny, as he famously
stated that he practiced raping Black women, as preparation for raping white women. He was also charismatic, extremely handsome and in some ways the clip of his speech reminded me of many of the rappers that I grew up listening to.
All these cats accomplished a lot in their twenties and their thirties.
What are we doing?
How can our generation build a movement when we can’t even be honest with ourselves about where we are?
There has been very little analysis about the ways in which Black communities have been impacted by 20 years of the war on drugs. There has also been very little analysis of the ways in which crack wiped out the last vestiges of 60s and 70s era Black resistance.
What does it mean that 30 years later our young people and many older people are more concerned with whether the music is dead than with whether neighborhoods that birthed the music will survive over the next ten years given the impact of globalized gentrification of ‘hoods in the US and around the world?
Have you been to Biggie’s old block lately?
How was the FBI able to eliminate the Black Panthers but unable to contain The Crips and The Bloods?
If Black people’s contribution to this country has been music and free labor, what does it mean when our music is a lifestyle marketing device, and that Black men are systemically under and unemployed?
Thank you for reading this. Clearly, I am trying to work some thangs out.
In proofreading this piece it has become clear how Sociology of the Self is teaching me how to look at the person and society simultaneously. WOOT.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Justin wrote:
Great article…it would be interesting to see statistical data representing your claim. I would argue that it is true that rap and crack has stunted black youth to the point where all they care is “money, cars, clothes…”.
Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 2:28 pm ¶
Sean wrote:
“How was the FBI able to eliminate the Black Panthers but unable to contain The Crips and The Bloods?”
That’s a question I have been asking for a long time. It definetely relates to things that are beneficial to the community being nutralized with a quickness, and those things detrimental being allowed to thrive and flourish.
Kinda like the way gangsta-ism in hip-hop is being pushed by the media conglomerates. The attitude seems to be if it weakens the underclass, keeps them complacent and/or hastens their extermination, let’s have more of it.
And unfortunately, hip-hop music has long ceased to be the egaging socio-political force it once was. It’s essentially easing into the continuum of other once relevant black cultural artforms such as blues or jazz.
Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 3:16 pm ¶
urban Suburbinite wrote:
This was a well thought out and intriguing read. Thank you.
Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 3:36 pm ¶
Serious wrote:
I’ve thought often about the shift from hip-hop as a militant force in black life to something that white Russians use as a sign of their braggadocio.
That said, its transcendence will have relevance long after their reigns in the limelight are done and for that, I feel the genre has become something more than a fad, but a true mark of what America is.
More than baseball. More than apple pie.
And for that, something born out of abject poverty and miserable to be catapulted around the world into something grander than its forebears could’ve ever imagined, it’s far better than some militant underground soundwave that some people want it to remain.
With that, those elements still exist and always will, because even more than punk music, hip-hop is a sonic tour de force that leaves people quaking at its rhythmic pulse of “Fuck you. I’ve frankly had enough of it all.”
No other music does that. It’s why every form of music (sans country, though it creeps up occasionally) has tried to piggy back the wave at one time or another.
Hip hop owns something all of the cool kids want to be part of, because it’s so different than what they do, unapologetic in its posture. It adapts and thrives in the same way any good evolutionary character does, because if it doesn’t survive, the positive messages and uplift don’t either.
In the end though, it’s music. Nothing more, nothing less.
Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 3:50 pm ¶
bane wrote:
What about The Last Poets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY1gtyzxAGw
and The Watts Prophets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISUoTJaXVBQ&feature=related
Spearhead
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf6vhdpXrgc
Ty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvrJXw-3dZg
Soul Position
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmS3hKwYW6o
Saul Williams
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCv2OSQkKa0
Pharoahe Monch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G74lZZNXiR8
Immortal Technique
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlAXbUz0YqQ
It’s not necessarily tied to an organized social movement, but there’s plenty of progressive hip hop out there. You’re just not gonna see it on MTV.
Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 4:19 pm ¶
Keith wrote:
Hip Hop and rap are not the same thing, although they are related. Hip Hop is the culture while rap is an art form used within Hip Hop culture.
The Zulu nation is hip hop:
http://www.zulunation.com/
So is Hip Hop Feminism inc:
http://hiphopfeministnation.org/
Ti
solja boy tel.em
aren’t
The reality is that rap has moved from black empowerment to some extent even an art form, to just a few entertainers competing within a market. And those rappers are, despite what they put out their, are well educated people that came from an upper working class background so for them it’s just business.
Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 5:16 pm ¶
Keith wrote:
Also since we are on the subject the civil rights movement for the most part was a movement of middle class blacks, the issues back then segregation, police brutality, and the lack of equal opportunity still exist in poor and lower working class black communities to this day.
Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 5:26 pm ¶
mestiza wrote:
really really great post
Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 6:45 pm ¶
Keith wrote:
I shouldn’t say that rap was always about empowerment, the first socially responsible rap song was the message by grand master flash and the furious 5 and even then most rap was about materialism and boasting.
Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 8:41 pm ¶
blueblack wrote:
Hip Hop culture has become the most effective retardant of intellectual and social development the black community has ever seen. Its effect on the minds of young black males has been devastating. One need only look at the streets of New York City where half the black men under the age 25 are wearing their pants around their knees. Slavery itself was unable to create the climate of anti-intellectualism that has become second nature among so many young people. We now have a community where those young people who don’t speak ebonics and who show pride in how they dress are accused of acting white. How sad.
Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 11:10 pm ¶
distance88 wrote:
…what are the ways in which that the music, at least since The Chronic, has helped us make sense of our world?…
Dead Prez, Mr. Lif, The Roots, Zion I, Diverse, Empress Stahhr, to name a few..
Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 11:30 pm ¶
R. Prince wrote:
Very interesting read… I never made the connections before between the crack epidemic and the end of black resistance movements in the 60’s and 70’s. Makes a lot sense.
Posted 27 Nov 2009 at 11:47 pm ¶
maus wrote:
“How was the FBI able to eliminate the Black Panthers but unable to contain The Crips and The Bloods?”
What military-industrial interests do they threaten, again?
Posted 28 Nov 2009 at 2:00 am ¶
dersk wrote:
@maus – did the Panthers really threaten the military industrial complex? I’d assume it’s more that gang violence is more normally black / disenfranchised on black / disenfranchised, while the Panthers were more a threat to the system.
By the way, you’ve got the Osdorp Posse and Ali B over here in Amsterdam; both rapping from an underclass / minority law.
And when analyzing pop culture, it’s always wise to remember Sturgeon’s Law. Ted Sturgeon was a science fiction writer who at a convention famously said “90% of science fiction is crap. But then again, 90% of everything is crap.”
The simple fact that hip hop is successful music means that at least 90% of the popular hip hop is going to be just plain crap.
Posted 28 Nov 2009 at 10:47 am ¶
The Hippo wrote:
Great article M.Dot about the transformation of hip-hop. Although, I think you didn’t go deep enough into the corporate media and the major record labels in squashing that voice and replacing it.
The transformation of Rap music from being one of the very few outlets for the disenfranchised Black community to criticise society,the government, and hipocrisy in the fast and loose conservative 80s, at the time when everybody was being encouraged to worship the rich and materialistic,living in a fantasy world, and vilifiying the poor as morally and ethically deficient and not victims of circumstances, to the music that most glorified selfish greed and narcissistic self-fantasy, did not happen in a vaccuum. It was the effect of huge record labels, realising in the late 80s/early 90s they can make alot of money of the hip-hop culture, they could make the most cash by appealing to the mainstream white middle-class paradigm at the expense of the underground counterculture that hip-hop represents, and they could do this by cutting out the political rappers like Public Enemy,Paris, Poor Righteous Teachers, etc. Or even the weird or violent or sexually explicit rappers like the 2 Live Crews, Del tha Funky Homosapien,Arrested Development,A Tribe Called Quest, Geto Boyz etc. basically making hip-hop as bland and undangerous as possible, with acts like the Bad Boys Record Label,Def Jam, and other mostly inoffensive stuff that even someone’s kid sister could sing.
Rap today is not owned by Black people, but white corporate executives behind the scenes. Jay-Z and Russell Simmons are just figureheads. Basically, Rap music is more apart of American culture in general than Black America in particular.
@blueblack: Your partially right, Hip-hop culture has retarded critical thought in the Black community. Hip-Hop culture doesn’t happen in a vaccuum, it is to responsive to outside forces. There has always been a high level of anti-intellectualism in American society in general, with the US’s history of prefering the practical and expedient above all else,our distrust of science and academia in favor of religion and simple knowledge, as well as prefering the idea of risk-taking behavior over caution and despising introspection while praising extroversion. During the 1980s, this anti-intellectualism was accentuated. The only type of education that mattered was that which would get you immediately rich, the concept of deeper thought or meaning derided, to be strong was to use your emotions and don’t think to much,as exemplified by President Ronald Raygun. The White community is not really that much better off than the Black community, its just that Blacks don’t have the resources that would prevent anti-intellectualism from being a severe problem.
Posted 28 Nov 2009 at 2:40 pm ¶
Sultana wrote:
Very interesting post. While I agree that mainstream, commercialized rap is destructive and negative, I would say that there is much going on in the hip hop world beneath the surface. For example, Seattle (where I live) has a thriving underground/indie hip hop scene populated by artists like the Blue Scholars, Common Market, Macklemore, Jake One and DJ Sabzi. What they create is as far from the “mainstream” corporate-created rap as you can get. There are artists all over America doing the same thing. Why don’t you hear about them? Because they aren’t supported by multi-billion dollar corporations. But bottom line, there ARE many artists promoting an thoughtful, intellectual, non-destructive point of view. In this sense, hip hop has been a tool for good.
Also, I agree with Keith above that hip hop is an entire cultural construct that consists of many aspects, including b-boying, DJing and graffiti-writing (”spraycan art”). Many of these have enjoyed a resurgence in the last few years. We need to be careful and not equate hip hop completely with rap.
Posted 28 Nov 2009 at 2:56 pm ¶
m.dot wrote:
Thank you all for your responses.
@Blueblack
Black children are exposed to standard English from day one. I argue that many Black children make a contentious choice to NOT speak standard English out a clear desire to NOT assimilate into mainstream American culture. My reading of this comes out of Ann Ferguson’s Bad Boys.
Ferguson also rearticulates Acting White as a highly theoretical critical from Black children about racial power relations in the US. Its quite fascinating.
Some Black children could care less about assimilating into a system that is built on their oppression. I don’t blame them.
I refuse to speak standard English, unless I am at work, because frankly, What the fuck for? I like the way my momma talks and thats the way I will speak when I am not being surveilled in a work setting.
@R.Prince.
I am glad you liked it.
In November, I went to the American Studies conference and attended a panel on The End of Black Power.
Elizabeth Kai Hinton from Columbia University presented, “Nixon’s War on Drugs and the Militarization of the Los Angeles Police Force: 1968–1973.” She really drove home the Nixon+Drug War+Post Vietnam connection for me.
@Sultana
You are right. I need to be waaaaay more careful w/ not equating Rap w/HH. I will be mindful in the future.
Posted 28 Nov 2009 at 5:09 pm ¶
ashlynn wrote:
Crack essentially disabled Black thought. Literally, it deteriorated brain cells. The rest of us who weren’t strung out were busy trying to not be robbed by junkies, selling to junkies, trying to aid those with addiction, and really, just trying not to be sucked in themselves. There was no time to organize political movements when people were killing each other over a baggie.
That said, the effects of the crack epidemic show today. Parenting has almost completely broken down in the black community, and there are fewer role models to encourage positive thought and expression. If anything, it’s DIScouraged, which is why “conscious rappers” are often the butt of the joke, even right now.
For some reason, reading this post, Soulja Boy was the first person who came to mind. He is “successful”, he is young, he is black…and he just doesn’t get it.
Posted 28 Nov 2009 at 6:24 pm ¶
jen wrote:
The thesis that crack and hiphop/rap politically underdeveloped or continues to underdevelop young people is borderline offensive, especially how unfounded blanket general claims are.
This is NOT a ‘nuanced’ analysis.
There is already MUCH well informed scholarly analysis that exists already discussing some of the themes of representation, community, and politics or race/class/gender/sexuality embedded within the Culture of hip hop.
Please see
Tricia B Rose- author of “Black Noise”
or Michael Eric Dyson’s works
or Angela Davis’ works
or Cornell West’s works
or Jeff Chang’s book “Can’t Stop Wont Stop”
Or look into The Hip Hop Reader that covers every aspect of the debate you bring forth, with a plethora of active voices from all over academia and the hip hop community.
Hip Hop is a GLOBAL phenomenon and it’s a disservice to the power that this cultural expression affords when it is convoluted with claims of generational affects of crack..hip hop is transnational and as such should merit investigation into why it is continually figured as an exclusively Black expression emitting form the heart of darkness: the hood. The formation of hiphop out of the Bronx crossed nationality statuses and was an expression not only of Black but also Puerto Rican, Mexican, Haitian, etc simultaneously. The preoccupation of Blackness obscures the ways in which hiphop was and is a transnational cultural movement.
Posted 28 Nov 2009 at 9:07 pm ¶
9jah wrote:
@ M. Dot #17: “I argue that many Black children make a contentious choice to NOT speak standard English out a clear desire to NOT assimilate into mainstream American culture…Some Black children could care less about assimilating into a system that is built on their oppression. I don’t blame them.”
—————————————
Rebellion without cause or direction. What exactly is wrong about assimilating into American culture with regard to standard English and how exactly is this a point of oppression?
I’m glad you point out that you use standard English at work. Note that the kids being discussed often are not equipped to do even this. Meanwhile Ann Ferguson conveniently utilizes standard English to intellectualize a deficit while the children are effectively rendered voiceless as they will not be prepared to communicate in any space beyond their community. At the same time, you and I conveniently utilize standard English to argue this point.
Kids who don’t have the opportunity should not be judged but the idea of non-standard English as merely an “alternative” is destructive and defeatist.
Posted 29 Nov 2009 at 1:41 am ¶
Joel wrote:
I have to agree with Jen here. There are points to be made but there is way too much generalization going on to judge this argument effectively.
First of all, who’s to say that political disengagement is a purely Black phenomena? What robust White progressive political movement are you watching that I’m unaware of? Ditto for labor, youth of all colors, environmentalists, and a host of other groups. This is not to rag on those groups, only to say that I don’t see what example you think demonstrates better political consciousness or engagement. In an era where too many progressives unthinkingly identify themselves as Democrats (something the movements of back in the day would never do, those folks pushed the government left HARD, and got fucking results), political consciousness is clearly low across the board.
I also think you don’t pay enough attention to the TREMENDOUS violence inflicted on movement leftists, which has likely cowed the crap out of potential organizers/change agents. Lest we forget that most of Huey’s contemporaries were locked up or assassinated in their beds (a la Fred Hampton, or Cesar Chavez who was pushed to death), the most recent generation grew up in an era where all the visionaries were annihilated or converted. Obviously my generation needs to do better, but can you blame many folks for tuning out and keeping their heads down? I’m not even addressing crack, AIDS, and Tuskeegee-era last-straw fear of assault. We live in shock and fucking awe, and it’s only by accepting it as a daily fact that many can get on with their lives. But many people, as a result, don’t see any point at all in politics. I pray that Barack Obama, imperfect as he is, begins to correct this.
Finally, I think you follow a fallacy that many historians follow when looking at slavery-era levels of resistance. True there was no united front in the 19th century, but individuals resisted on individual levels. This is well-documented and underappreciated, but is necessary if we’re to re-envision enslaved peoples as maintaining some degree of agency and dignity. And its necessary if we’re to see our contemporaries as better than un-intellectual hoodlums. I think in an era of cynicism about the potential of movements and broad sweeping social change (in fact, when all social change seems to be in the direction of White hegemony), it is pretty unsurprising that a great deal of resistance came about as a Malcolm-style affirmation of manhood and strength. Was it the most constructive affirmation of strength? No. I really freaking wish there was a more united anti-hegemony movement. But that doesn’t change the individual-level resistance that IS legitimate, even if it doesn’t meet some folks’ criteria of properly political.
This is all not to excuse my generation, only to get away from simplistic ‘hip hop did it’ arguments that serve to empower rightist anti-pc and anti-poc/progressive bullshit.
Thanks for bringing this up, this is always a lively discussion.
Posted 29 Nov 2009 at 2:06 am ¶
bane wrote:
I dunno, how seriously can you take the idea that “standard” english is the only valid form of the language? What we in the US speak is markedly different than UK english. And english in general is an amalgam of many other languages… it’s more like a bastardized derivative than a refined art. Even looking at the history of US english, what we speak now is far and away foreign to what the colonists spoke.
I hear this a lot in HI, where pidgin is derided as the language of (brown) no-class. I trust you can see the irony of english speakers poking fun at a dialect that is a combination of several older languages. I think people sometimes forget that the point of language is to communicate, not to meet some arbitrary standard of beauty. Cantonese is far more expressive and efficient than english. Why shouldn’t we all switch?
Posted 29 Nov 2009 at 4:03 pm ¶
blueblack wrote:
The inability to speak standard english will only create a permanent underclass of young African-Americans who lack the communication skills to navigate through 21st century America. To make a conscious decision to speak a certain way when in a non-professional environment is one thing, but the sad reality is that the overwhelming majority of these young people don’t have that option. They can only communicate in a manner that screams ” I am completely uneducated!”
Posted 29 Nov 2009 at 9:31 pm ¶
g531 wrote:
This is an interesting blog read; the comment you make about homophobia comes off as a generalization and, while I agree there is some resentment about the freedom some lgbt individuals practice in being ‘out.’ Pending on the lgbt individual, much like pending on the hip hop artist–not that they’re not mutually exclusive, there are archetypes, popular constructions that make minstrels out of members of both communities.
Think, for example, about one who practices loyalty, kinship, self policing and or sexual autonomy….just that in doing it outside of social norms, is relegated criminal.
I hear you on how hip hop is selling a lifestyle, marketing a recycling of black degradation, still, who are the primary producers and record company owners?
Posted 29 Nov 2009 at 10:37 pm ¶
m.dotwrites wrote:
@Joel
My piece is about the ways in which Black folks and the multiracial group of bloggers ages 20 to 30 are more interested in the death of Hip Hop and less interested in addressing the lives of the people who live in the cities that grew the music in the first place.
The scope of inquiry is Blacks and Latinos ( and Rafi, lol) and the tension between caring more about whether hip hop is dead, or blog hits then about making politics to address our lives.
Oh. Thank you for bringing up Slavery y Resistance. I realized that Black women have been resisting since DAY ONE about a month ago, when reading Damita Jo Browns dissertation. She talked about the ways in which afterreconstruction Black washer women would get together and share information on who not to work for, who pays well, who to stay away from because of the risk of rape, SO FASCINATING.
The Black experience in this country is one rooted in resistance. I get it. I ride for it. It keeps me alive.
@Jen
See my response to Joel.
and,
I have read the books you listed above, in fact they have influenced me greatly.
However, the impact that crack has had on Black resistance in THIS country has not been made a central unit of analysis.
The only scholars that do crack are the Freakonomic guys and still there has yet to be a serious scholarly treatment of it. But that, will be my job, I would imagine.
Historically, Black resistance in this country has been connected to Black resistance and folks of color resistance around the world, ie the end of formal colonialism in the 60’s.
The Panthers and the Algerians.
Black Feminist and Third world feminist.
@Blueblack
Perhaps we are operating with two different assumptions. I assume, based on US history, that there will always be an underclass of Americans. This is inherent in a US capitalism. Currently this group is Black and perhaps after the paradigm shift we are undergoing, that will no longer be the case, but until then…
You are right, I do have the choice regarding language, and I make it very contentiously every time I open my mouth.
In the 1960’s the US business community decided that there will be two tracks for public school, splitting at the 3rd grade. One track will go to factories, the others will go to college. These children are dealing the hand they were given and choosing to use the language that ensures their survival.
Given the fact that college educated White children are having a hard time finding employment in the US in 2009, what incentive is there for a working class Black child to assimilate in a service, wage economy that grows more automized by the day?
@9jah
Thank you for engaging.
I do understand the irony of being able to choose my language. Trust me. People don’t know what to DO with me when I open my mouth. Spanish might come out. However, I also ride for it being a contentious choice.
I understand that the language that we use is indicative of our power and standpoint in society.
In some ways low income Black children’s language choice reminds me of the Black men at Morehouse. They are willing to be themselves, to be comfortable, with the understanding that there will be consequences.
Rather than the men at Morehouse changing, or low income Black children changing their language how should society change?
In writing this response to you, I think my new shit is “being force to speak standardized English in order to survive at work is a manifestation of structural domination.”
Yup. Black girls on Gramsci!
Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 1:23 am ¶
bane wrote:
Yes in the real world if you’re not able to enunciate properly, some people will think you are a fool. But then, those people are irrevocably obtuse. The problem is the racism that favors “white” speech, *not* the manner in which you communicate. Again, people who hold this view are apparently ignorant of history. Please do go read some puritan records from the 1700’s and observe how many words per sentence you’re able to interpret. Assuming the only valid mode of speech, as it is understood at this time, in this particular place, is the problem, NOT people speaking their own local dialect.
Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 5:29 am ¶
m.dotwrites wrote:
@g531
I am glad you like the post. I really enjoyed writing it.
In the US the binary is assimilate or be punished.
My comment re queer expression comes out of a conversation that I had with Moya in the post, Tyler Perry x Morehouse x Real Black Men.
http://bit.ly/5o8dvo
Moya asked “What is it that is so fragile about masculinity that it is threatened when cloaked in a dress.”
After seeing Morehouse’s deployment of its pro middle class, heterosexual Black male dress code, and coming across and reading Cathy Cohen’s analysis of why queer theory cannot follow along an assimilation civil rights line if it is going to be radical, I do conclude that people who CHOOSE not to assimilate are placed in closets, placed in prisons, threatened with isolation from their communities, threatened with violence.
Does my comment now seem less like a generalization?
~Renina
Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 11:43 am ¶
distance88 wrote:
Piggybacking on bane’s point about how “white” speech is more valued than “black” speech– The Rolling Stones can say ‘I can’t get no satisfaction” and are considered the greatest rock n roll band ever, but a hip-hop artist says ‘I can’t get no satisfaction’ and he’s considered thuggish and uneducated.
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I think the issue is more about social capital and teaching kids to ‘code-switch’ (this goes for all kids) and not devaluing so-called “black” speech (’ebonics’..hoo boy..as if all black people speak in the same manner). Also, we need to understand that the rules governing “standard English” aren’t any more/less arbitrary than any other form of English–just that there is a time and place where you should probably use it. I certainly drop the -’g’ in ‘-ing’ and can cuss up a storm, etc while I’m in a bar or talking to friends–but I understand I can’t do that when I’m talking to my parents, boss, professor, etc…
Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 2:41 pm ¶
politicallyincorrect wrote:
Hip Hop activists are out there, Rosa Clemente and Immortal Technique, Dead Prez come to mind. I mean Viacom and Clear Channel don’t give them an outlet but they are out there
Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 8:55 pm ¶
PatrickInBeijing wrote:
Great post!! Lots to think about.
In terms of crack. During the Vietnam war, everyone knew the CIA was dealing with the heroin producing warlords of SouthEast Asia. The wealthy had drugs for their parties flown into the country in their private planes.
Hollywood and the music business are still full of all the drugs you can use (music business, here, referring to white mainstream music). How many Hollywood stars and rockers go to jail? You have to be totally out of control before you are even sent to Rehab….
But, crack? Gee, how come people who sell it don’t go where there are people with money who might want it? The police are able to keep white neighborhoods free of it (relatively, at least keep it from being epidemic).
In every city, there are lines. Dealers know where they can sell and where they can’t.
After WWII, the civil rights movement in America was jump started by the return of Black veterans. Tough guys, who had seen a taste of rights, and had bled for freedom for white folks and thought they should get some freedom too.
The American Oligarchy isn’t stupid. It must have occurred to them that after Vietnam the country would be flooded with tough smart Black folks with strategic training who just might want more rights. How to keep that from happening?
First, make sure there are no strong mass organizations for them to fit into, the Panther Party must go (and people like George Jackson must not live).
Second, lots of drugs, cheap and powerful targeted at the POC communities.
Can I prove this? Can I prove that Einstein was right? Can I prove that gravity keeps me in one place? Nope. Don’t need to. I can see it.
As to Hip Hop, thanks for the names of more folks for me to check out. I think that the form is not inherently one thing or another (I remember listening to Gil Scott Heron and The Last Poets). Certainly the white record stations and companies decide who they want to promote, and what kind of message.
The same thing happens to white music, just in a different form. It is mostly insipid and stripped of all meaning, stripped of all culture and certainly of anything that resembles class!!
It’s a mess. Thanks again for shining some light on it.
Posted 01 Dec 2009 at 9:30 am ¶
Regend wrote:
“Upset the setup” although I have no links to offer I remember attending youth conferences in Oakland with plenty of Political awareness with urban music as a means to reach out to youth and enable them with some sense of political responsibility for their own surroundings. I also agree with your argument that in the 70’s and 80’s, becoming a corporate entity was not in the goal of the pioneers.
Posted 01 Dec 2009 at 3:12 pm ¶
L8on wrote:
I don’t think Hip hop music has done this harm you speak of, it is the lack of education (and probably the crack too).
I am one of these young black males that hip hop has supposedly destroyed (currently 24, I’ve listened to hip hop music since I was 6). I had great parents who educated themselves to move up from their humble beginnings to lead a comfortable lifestyle doing something they love (which, in my parents’ case, is educating public high school students). Somehow, I ended up also educating myself, generally making good life decisions, and (*gasp*) I had no intention of becoming a drug dealer at any point in my life.
Hip hop did not teach me that I should be a thug, it taught me that black people all around the country are talented and clever, and many of them lead extremely tough lives. Instead of falling into the same problems as some of these rapper (clam to) have, I decided I should take advantage of my privileged situation. Even the often panned sub-genre of gangster rap is still a valuable source of a different point of view, whether you agree with it or not. If people cannot figure this out for themselves, it’s not the hip hop music that’s doing the harm, it is the lack of education and support from their parents/guardians. Without the ability to think critically about the information they are receiving, they would be lost regardless of their choice of music.
Furthermore, as Jay-Z said when he was on Oprah, hip hop music has helped the racism issue in this country if only because it is harder for all these white kids listening to hip hop to think that all blacks are inferior while they worship their favorite black rapper.
My last point is that, in the end, rap is poetry over music. I believe that learning how to decipher rap lines is as valuable as learning how to decipher Robert Frost. If one can move beyond radio hits, even listen to the non-radio songs of popular artists, rap can be the most accessible art available to these young black males. I never knew it was a bad thing to be able to appreciate art…
Being a life long listener has definitely helped me communicate in my life and work. It helps with auditory memory (I can remember what people say verbatim most of the time), and it helps one to communicate concisely and effectively (I am often asked to help other people find the right words to get their point across).
So please, can we stop blaming specific genres of music (or any subsection of culture) for our problems and start teaching our children how to parse the world around them?
Thanks.
Posted 02 Dec 2009 at 12:59 am ¶
i dot c dot wrote:
ok, where to begin. . . . .
i co-sign with jen. not only is the argument that hip hop underdeveloped black ppl borderline offensive, it is incredibly unuanced and at this point, an incredibly boring argument, boring because it refuses to acknowledge its’ lack of nuance and its lack of self-reflection.
firstly, the argument you appear to be making/cosigning (as much as i can make sense of it) is that hip hop/rap music is no longer “the street” speaking to “the street,” as its move into the mainstream has removed most, if not all, of its consciousness-raising ability. to me this position, along with the example of rap artists that you give (Dr. Dre and Jay-Z), tells me more about the era that you grew up in than it does about the current state of hip hop. while yes, rap’s move to the mainstream resulted in the co-option, with the rise of the internet as a means for hip hop distribution and the resulting change within the music industry over the last few years, i would argue, means that the mainstream can no longer be used as a primary barometer for the state of hip hop. rap fans go to the internet now for their music, where there are plenty of “street” rap artists talking to the “street,” (Pill and Freddie Gibbs immediately come to mind as two examples) as well as more “politically conscious” acts. just because *you* don’t hear it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
furthermore, while gangsta rap/rappers are and will probably remain popular for a long time, i would say that within mainstream hip hop we are seeing a sea change of sorts, spearheaded by kanye west and continued by the likes of kid cudi, wale, drake, wiz khalifa, etc. the “thug” is no longer the modus operandi for black masculinity within hip hop, what we have now is a group of young men who are talking about the daily realities of being a young black man grappling with growing into manhood, falling in love and getting your heart broken, trying to be the best at whatever it is you do, dealing with the desire to shine vs. the awareness of materialism, feelings towards the usefulness if education, just having fun, etc. no gun-toting, no drug running, no excessive violence, yet they’re receiving major rotation. when i went to the mall last weekend in my hometown of atlanta, i could see this change in hip hop reflected in the way many of the young black men were dressing. gone were the XXL clothing of only 5 or so years ago, instead numerous folks were rocking skinny jeans, frohawks, and close-fitting tees/button-downs. of course fashion trends come and go, and just because you’ve changed your pants doesn’t mean you’ve changed your mind, but i think it signals some kind of acceptance that large white tee =/ black manhood.
secondly, i have to agree with birkhold: your statement that “Rhythm & Blues affirms Black humanity, modern rap music affirms our subhumanity” is incredibly crude and so biased to the point that i’m not sure that there’s any point in engaging with you about it, but here i am. i think it would be useful if you were to turn the critical eye you have on hip hop towards r&b, especially when you (ironically) launch into a discussion of homophobia in the later half of your post. while r&b might not have the blatantly homophobic reputation that hip hop has (although once we consider post 1970s/contemporary r&b, which you probably are not, that becomes open to debate), much of r&b implicitly encouraged homophobia by its acceptance and embrace of heteronormativity and its sexism. and really, i’m not sure what to make your brief foray into homophobia and black folk; you say “we have been socialized to resent being queer,” but you don’t say by who. could it be by an educational system that erases queer voices from history, especially queer voices of color? could it be middle-class mores, with its emphasis on traditional gender roles? could it be the black church, which has surely contributed to the political underdevelopment of black ppl more so than hip hop has? could it be that the very things that have been pegged as our means of salvation are also some of the things that are oppressing us?
i also sense a sort of nostalgia here, one that ive seen from all corners of black communities, where we sort of reach back to the civil rights movement/black power movement and bemoan the youth for not being as politically active/aware as they were, and not being as unified. i personally know a lot of black men and women in their 20s who are doing amazing organizational work in their communities, and have read/hear about many more, enough to know that the idea that black ppl just want to stunt and profile is a red herring. we not might be receiving the same media attention, but it’s a different historical moment, with different things at stake. besides, the idea that the civil rights movement/black power movement was indicative of a unified black community is a myth itself. there were generational rifts in the CR movement, and queer folks and women were often sidelined in both the CRM and the BPM. the BPM in particular, advocated a vision of blackness that was incredibly male-centered, heterosexual, and patriarchal (could this be one source for homophobia within black communities? could this be one reason why female MCs have such difficulties getting put on, since hip hop IS conflated with blackness, as you said before?). where’s the unity in that?
finally, you assert that “Black music has changed from a being for itself to being for others.” music, including black music, has never been made “just for itself.” it’s always been made for someone to listen to. otherwise what’s the point?
i do agree with you that not enough attention gets paid to the crack epidemic and its lingering effect on black folks. but by conflating crack with hip hop, you are becoming one of those folks you blast for conflating hip hop with blackness, and you are willfully ignoring hip hop’s multifactedness.
i would encourage you to become a little more attuned to rap music in its contemporary moment. i would also encourage you to consider the role that other institutions w/in black communities, such as school and church, have had in developing political consciousness, and their intersectionality with hip hop – what are some of their shared values and shared responses to issues facing black folks? you say that rap music has not encouraged us to think about “the impact of globalized gentrification of ‘hoods in the US and around the world,” what has the church done to encourage us to think about this? what have the schools done?
hip hop does not exist in a vacuum. for your purposes, i would encourage you to widen your lens before you go laying the blame for political underdevelopment at the feet of any one institution.
Posted 02 Dec 2009 at 9:42 am ¶
DB wrote:
This was a very good read. I often have conversations with my close friend on how Black culture as transitioned from radical to bafoonery.
Posted 02 Dec 2009 at 4:28 pm ¶