Hip-Hop and Political Change? Apparently Not

by B.J. on 6/23/2008 11:16:00 PM 0 comments Print this post

The Manhattan Institute's John McWhorter says that hip-hop is not a vehicle for positive change, but rather a destructive force for black Americans.

Another one of those "reformed" black guys who act as a vehicle to legitimate conservative, and moderate white America's history of racism and paternalistic, third-person omniscient solutions.

I generally can't get myself to like anyone who can easily dismiss something that is important to a chunk of the population. He seems to goes out of his/her way to hate on something he doesn't really understand, kind of like a spy...or...a stalker. He reminds me of Steve Bowman's piece "You know what's stupid? Everything I don't understand!"

However, upon reading more of McWhorter's material here and listening to an NPR interview, I can't help but feel sorry for the man. I truly do.

Why? Two things: He's a stalker and he's passive-aggressive.

1) Keeping true to that identity as a stalker, he doesn't actually speak to anyone to uncover any truth.

In his main article against hip-hop, he leads with an observation about some kids at a KFC. The kids are loud and annoying in a public or quasi-public space, behavior virtually unheard of from any group or subgroup of teenagers in America. So, what's to blame?

You guessed it! The ASSUMED soundtrack of their lives. These Black kids at KFC...must be that damn Hip-hop! A-HA!

In his radio interview, he mentioned that when he speaks, everyone has been supportive and no one has bothered him. No one, except maybe "one hothead" gets riled up at his talks, probably because he bores his supporters or would-be supporters and he passively aggressively hides from those who want to call him out.

2) When explaining his avoidance of opponents and potential detractors, he calls himself a "homebody", code word for divorced-from-reality, scared, linguist.

I feel bad for him mostly because behind the flowery high-falutin' language and the degrees from Stanford and Berkeley is just a scared, passive-aggressive stalker.


Even though the writer of these books and articles is kind of pathetic in his attempts to disparage hip-hop, what he says is essentially still the same stuff that critics of hip-hop from casual to extreme haters use, so its still worth a response.

I can agree with a few things he says:

-Some of the most promoted and commercialized are those without real positive messages. But I can see where it comes from and I don't think it goes anywhere.
-I agree that we could do without the sexism and violence but they'll keep saying what they want to say
-People do need to adapt to their life circumstances

Where he and I differ is that he seems bent on extracting the worst elements of hip-hop and subsequently, rooting it out based on that.

It's kind of like trying to ban Christianity because you don't like the KKK or Terry McVeigh. In each case, you're trying to look for the worst elements of something you don't like without fairly weighing its good elements.

From this vantage point, this attempt to extract the worst of the genre, his argument boils down to two things:

1) According to him, Hip-hop is responsible for the destruction of the black American.

You'd think that the arrival of hip-hop caused the destruction of the 'hood.

"The rise of nihilistic rap has mirrored the breakdown of community norms among inner-city youth over the last couple of decades. It was just as gangsta rap hit its stride that neighborhood elders began really to notice that they’d lost control of young black men, who were frequently drifting into lives of gang violence and drug dealing. Well into the seventies, the ghetto was a shabby part of town, where, despite unemployment and rising illegitimacy, a healthy number of people were doing their best to “keep their heads above water,” as the theme song of the old black sitcom Good Times put it."

He seems to operate on this romanticized and historicized viewpoint that the 'hood was a rough place but still a place where this "healthy number" of people were doing their best.

Healthy numbers?

I remember a talk with the LA Times Homicide Blogger, Jill Leovy where she said that the black man murder rate has always been staggeringly high from Jim Crow until now. Her point was that there's deep a history of homicide within the black community.

In 1976, before talks of handguns, gangs, crack stuff, the black male homicide rate according to the US Justice Department was still 7x higher than those of whites. In, 1960, according to the Centers for Disease Control, death rates for black man were 14x higher, and in 1950 black male death rates were 17x higher than those of whites.

So bad things were still happening before hip-hop. I think the only difference with hip-hop in the picture is that it gives people like him to pick at and justify structural injustices and hegemonies.

2) His conclusion: hip-hop is antithetical to "helping people help themselves..."

He takes aim at those who try to spread the positive messages. Cites the Dead Prez as an example of conscious hip-hop. He mentions that they're pretty good at noting the insufficient employment opportunities. But he criticizes them for advocating civil and social rights, i.e. standing on top of Capital Hill.

The classic pull-by-the-bootstrapping man, he advocates a personal anecdote to a social and structural problems. He says that plenty of UPS jobs and delivery boys do not require college degrees and they can live perfectly legit middle-class existences. Guess he missed the talks about the disappearing middle-class, here, here, and here.

McWhorts then goes on to criticize those who do try to make their money in the underground economy. I would've thought that he'd think the underground is the adaptive way of making money, and would've applauded them.

Ultimately, Dr. McWhorter's prescription for his fellow black man is a whole dose of mediocrity. He offers a hellvua lot less that than the rappers from the neigbhorhood with the money and the women. He's essentially telling them to become drones of everyone else while other people get their action.

In the end, rap and hip-hop is only a medium of expression. It's a piece of marketing, but it doesn't drive any widespread violence that wasn't already endemic. If people want to destroy, that's usually a highly personal decision. I doubt that people make negative life or death decisions based on what they hear from an artist.

Hip-hop is mostly a tool for empowerment because it breeds expression. It has the potential to inspire. A tool for empowerment because this is where people can find their strength.

But ultimately, it's only a tool, it's not going to be the only thing that will make or break a segment of the population.

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A Way to Read the Homicide Blog on the Los Angeles Times Website

by B.J. on 11/21/2007 03:14:00 AM 0 comments Print this post

I just came from a lecture at the LA Public Library about the possibility of eliminating gangs in LA.

The moderator happened to be the writer of the homicide blog at the LA Times.

Homicide Report

My beef with the blog is that while it is extremely informative, it plays onto people's fears because it gives incomplete information about whether victims and murderers know each other or not.

It's a blog full of victims. We read about is the victim's race, age, gender, where they were killed, and how they were killed. We read stats about how black and Latino males are the most adversely affected population. We might even read about how the job market correlates with homicide.

Unless commentors speak online, what we don't read about as often is a relationship a victim and a murderer might have had. We often don't read a story of a life; we read cold, dumb facts about cold, dumb murders. There are no positive stories of people doing anything to prevent anything in the neighborhood.

Not knowing these backstories, a fuller context, regardless of what's in the reporters' capabilities, make the murders seem like murders are randomly executed by people on people they don't even know. Apparently 77% of rape victims know who raped them, I wonder what that percentage is for murder victims. How much acquaintance murder is there compared to stranger murder?

Perhaps there could be better followups, more people assigned to cover stories, better police detail?

Not making these stories or these distinctions of acquaintance homicide paves the way for people from the outside and AWAY from those murders to disengage, stereotype, and label. It is probably this randomosity of the appearance of these murders, uncertainty that really scares people from the outside and causes them to make blanket comments about cutting off people's sources of livelihoods, like hip-hop concerts, parties, gatherings etc. The uncertainty imposed by a few whose own lives mirror that same uncertainty.

In a murder which has plenty of online responses, someone is almost ALWAYS bound to make a comment about personal responsibility like this one from a November 12th murder "Instead of people blaming the police, why was a 14 year old at this kind of party? This is a hallmark of the black community, blame the police for not doing enough, then when they do attempt to help, hold them at fault. Where is the personal responsibility for the parents, family, or friends of this kid?"

While there is reverance and a general sense of respect in the blogs, the dumbassery in some of the comments escalates, especially over the death of young teenagers. This comment was made over a 14-year old who got stabbed to death while the police and response team apparently did nothing to help him. Some commentors used the example of yet another black/brown teen as a springboard to offer all we needed to know to prevent murders: avoid hip-hop functions and listen to their anecdotes on parenting as if this would bring back the kid or that it would teach people a lesson.

In other words, people from the outside can make these big broad generalizations and recommendations because everything in the neighborhood is dangerous. The proof is in their google map of murders.

Left with just the facts of the place of murder, the time of murder, without questions as to why they were murdered (a concrete answer-seeking why) you can only make the same deductions and come up with the same answers.

To get a better grasp of these murders the questions should center around: how often is it completely random? How often is it acquaintence murder? How often is it on stupid young dumb male fighting over stupid shit like the way that x and x looked at x kind of violence? How often is the murder enacted in a whim? How often are these murders premeditated? How often the murderer is employed, has a family, etc...basically if they had much to lose? What was a victim gaining by being a certain place in time?

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About the LA Riots

by B.J. on 11/15/2002 09:10:00 AM 0 comments Print this post

Hey B**ch Motherf*ckers, this is about the LA Riots so enjoy.

Social Inequality
In 1992, an explosion of violence channeled itself through the decrepit neighborhoods of Los Angeles because of a non-guilty verdict read for four white policemen beating a black man named Rodney King. A videotape of the event clearly showed that the police officers mercilessly, needlessly pounded on King. The ensuing explosion of violence manifested itself through lootings of stores, protests, vandalism, shootings, and physical attacks. In Anna Deveare Smith�s Twilight, a compilation of interviews regarding these riots with first-hand observers of many different backgrounds, the people generally speak of the riots as a release of ignored, mounting racial tensions.

As much as people see the riots as an explosion of racial tensions, the problem is truly the result of socioeconomic inequalities, in which race becomes incorporated to easily identify and blame a problem on. In the story, a disgruntled Korean Lady named Mrs. Young Soon Han expands on the point of racial tensions, but mainly highlights the struggle between blacks and Koreans over how much Koreans dominate the businesses in black neighborhoods. In contrast, thinking that the problem is generally white and black, the whites in the story, best represented by the Anonymous Hollywood agent, still contend that the riots are primarily a result of the privileges denied urbanites that white people have. The third opinion, this of the African-American Paul Parker, militant chairperson of Free the LA Four Plus Committee, reaffirms the two previous characters saying that the Los Angeles riots result because of the ongoing tension by the police in the urban slums. In sum, the different characters cite different battles of racial tensions, but all come to the conclusion that the riots result because of socioeconomic inequalities within the urban setting. Though racial tensions may have taken the blame for the riots, the real problem lies within the social inequalities presented within the vast pastures of Los Angeles.

Struggling for influence in the decrepit neighborhoods, Koreans and blacks battle for influence because of the lack of black businesses in the neighborhoods. Ninety-eight percent of the businesses robbed and run to the ground by rioters were Korean owned (Smith 175). A sorrowful Mrs. Young-Soon Han claims that while she admires America, she wonders aloud about the status of Koreans (Smith 245). While she does appreciate blacks for opening the door to freedom for other minorities, she still maintains that the lack of racial acknowledgement from the mainstream results in their being forgotten, and thus increases anger and frustration within the Korean community (Smith 246). Asserting that Koreans do not get the same benefits as blacks, she angrily pounds, �Many Afro-Americans who never worked they get at least minimum amount of money to survive. We [the Koreans] don�t get any!� (Smith 246). She asserts that while Koreans do not get the same benefits as the blacks, they still tolerate the same second-class treatment (Smith 248). In response to this second-class treatment, the Koreans make the blacks feel insufficient in their own neighborhoods by monopolizing the businesses and making the money, as Katie Miller, a black account claims (Smith 129). Even though Mrs. Young-Soon Han likes to acknowledge racial tensions as the root of the problem by nothing the violence of blacks, she acknowledges that the problem lies within this struggle for influence and power within their own neighborhoods between Koreans and blacks --- social inequalities.

Thinking that the riots are fostered mainly between blacks and whites, the anonymous Hollywood Agent highlights all the advantages he has over minorities. He underlines the guilt he carries as a white man, �All the, frankly, the white upper class, upper middle class---whatever your, the definition is---white successful . . .spending too much money, too ya know, too good a restaurant, that kinda thing. We were just getting ourselves into a frenzy, which I think a lot of it involved guilt, just generic guilt� (Smith 135-136). Essentially, the Anonymous Man absorbs generic, indirect guilt because of his powerful, unearned status as a white man. Like Mrs. Young-Soon Han, he acknowledges that the system fosters the riots because of its mishandling of the urban inhabitants. However, unlike her, he lumps the minorities into one group and cites that the problem lies more deeply between the whites and blacks, which oversimplifies the problem (Smith 139). The idea, however, remains consistent with Mrs. Young Soon Han�s view --- urbanites struggle to address socioeconomic inequalities (Smith 139). Further addressing the lack of socioeconomic equality, Peter Sellars, a director in the Los Angeles Festival, best affirms America�s ignorance of urbanites when he describes a metaphor about a house, representing America, being reluctant to address a fire in the basement, which symbolizes America�s urban scene (Smith 199). He asserts that ignoring the fire will only cause it to ignite even further (Smith 200). Race and socioeconomic inequality intertwine because minorities seem to lose out to whites.

Lastly, the African-American Paul Parker asserts that the riots will go on as long as peace is denied the urban scene. He diminishes any argument of the riots being mainly about racial equality when he claims victory over the business-owning Koreans (Smith 175). By claiming the victory, he implies that only the strugglers, not necessarily the minorities, deserve the chance to be heard by rioting. He reflects with disgust at the attention Reginald Denny, a Caucasian male, receives from the media after being beaten by black men in the midst of the riots, �If Denny was Latino, Indian, or black, they wouldn�t give a damn because many people got beat, but you didn�t hear about the Lopezes or the Vaccas or the, uh Quintanas or the, uh, Tarvins� (Smith 172). In Parker�s eyes, darker people suffer from police brutality because of their standings as minorities, which connotes socioeconomic insignificance and powerlessness (Smith 178). Expanding on police brutality, Teresa Allison, Founder of Mother Reclaiming Our Children, recalls �They [the police] used to take our kids from one project and drop �em into another gang zone and leave �em in there and let those guys kill �em and then say it�s a gang-related thing� (Smith 38). Basically, she underlines that the poor children in the housing projects suffer from police brutality. Even black middle-class children become shocked at the poor quality of life in the projects (Smith 208). In having even black middle-class children being shocked at the turmoil of South Central Los Angeles, the argument that the riots result because of racial tensions diminishes as the black children inadvertently claim no relation to the inner-city cause with their surprised reactions.

The Los Angeles riots resulted because of the social inequalities within the urban system, which in turn fostered much of the racial tensions inherent in Los Angeles. Before the riots, most Koreans simply fought to keep their businesses safe in their own neighborhoods and in the process alienated the blacks. Mostly distant from the inner cities and feeling guilty about the riots, most whites simply offered suggestions from afar for social reform. In response to the turmoil with Koreans and ignorance from the whites, urban blacks saw their actions as justified because of their plight in the inner cities. As long as even just a bit of minorities are kept subverted in the system, people will continue to complain about racial tensions as the main problem.

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