Snapshots in Social Issues -or- "It's bigger than hip-hop"
Dead Prez's "Hip-Hop" from the album "Let's Get Free" says:
"The real world is bigger than all these fake ass records, where poor folks got the millions and my woman's disrespected... I'm sick of that fake thug, R&B, rap scenario all day on the radio same scenes in the video, monotonous material, ya'll don't hear me though... Would you rather have a Lexus, or justice? A dream or some substance? A Beamer, a necklace, or freedom?"
Scene: Stubbs in Austin... The Roots on stage. Mostly Caucasians in the audience. Do they hear the message? I know some do, but there are others who are just drunk, jumping, and throwing the "west side"... regardless of the fact that The Roots are from Philadelphia, and the music being played is from the opposite end of hip-hop from West Coast rap. What happens when message is compromised for money? Or even worse, what happens when message is mistaken for entertainment? On every front, the line between entertainment and message has become blurred.
Dave Chappelle on listening to a police scanner: "Calling all cars, calling all cars... be on the lookout for a black male between 5'4'' and 6'7''." Why does the color of your skin make you "a suspicious person"? For a true story about this, ask Harris Bechtol.
Waco, TX... drive down Austin Ave and look in awe at the architecture... two blocks in either direction the scene is different. Take a survey of the racial breakdown of these streets and try to argue that there is racial equality. Better yet, take a trip to the suburbs and then a trip to the housing projects. Is it only coincidence that these lines are still drawn in skin color?
Look at the schools, in the classes. Advanced Placement classes with all the white students... academic classes full of minorities. Martin Luther King Jr dreamed of white students and black students sitting side by side in classrooms... not just sharing hallways or making one or two exceptions.
Before I moved to Waco, I was under the impression that racism and racial tension was a thing of the past. Credit San Antonio and the way I was raised for this misunderstanding. Waco was a wake up call. What is my responsibility? As a white male of the middle class, the world is open to me. But I look around me and see closed doors and jail cells waiting for people not like me.
On top of this, what is my responsibility as a Christ-follower to see justice brought to the oppressed?
If you want to continue your own social education, come on over to the new house tonight and take part in the Chappelle's Block Party viewing. Good music, good truth, and interesting social study all in one flick... Oh yah, and Chappelle is funny (see, the dynamic between entertainment and message collides again).
posted by Singleton @ 12:13 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Great post. I'm still wrestling. Here's where I'm at now... I think the messages like Chapelle and the Roots are akin to satire. Chapelle more closely to me because I associate satire with comedy, but the idea is that it provides a context for those who have none. I remember being younger and watching Sally Struthers among the poor and downtrodden on TV, asking for money, and the images were too stark and too real. I couldn't deal with it.
Chapelle and the Roots are an avenue for conversation and enlightenment for those who have either never been able, or never been willing to admit the reality of the topics covered by the Roots, etc. They provide the context, but those who aren't seeing need help. Like parables about the Kingdom... he who has ears to hear let him hear.
I think part of my responsibility as a Christian is to do whatever I can in whatever situation presents itself. Sometimes it may mean sacrificially giving to someone who needs, sometimes it may require coming to terms with the tension between beauty and ugliness (Harris' blog deals with this question beautifully), and sometimes the very best thing I may be able to do is invite someone who hasn't seen to look, and then ask the questions that help them make connections.
Like I said, I'm still processing this. Great, thought provoking post.
"sometimes the very best thing I may be able to do is invite someone who hasn't seen to look."
—Great realization. One that we could all come to grips with more often. Good stuff Sing-le-ton. holla
LOVED IT. "WHERE ARE ALL THE MEXICANS?" BADABOOM. FTP.
ill block party, Sing-la-ton, ill.
thanks david. I have heard of the boondocks. I think it kind of gets at the same things Bill Cosby got into a little controversy for saying (which I'm not sure how i feel about either... some of what he says sounds true, but maybe over-simplifies the problems). I'll for-sure check it out though. I love it when people use different mediums to convey social awareness/change. Music, movies (Crash, Hotel Rwanda), cartoons, comedy, etc...
I guess it's really hard to "diagnose" the problems without believing that the situation is both internal and external to the "black community" and "black culture."
The thing I like about hip-hop artists like Dead Prez, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, and others is that they work hard to expose both "internal" (self-inflicted) issues as well as "external" (oppressive) issues. For instance, Dead Prez has a track called "they schools" which criticizes the prejudice of the school system against minorities by "the man" as well as a track called "be healthy" which criticizes poor self-maintenence habits from the internal, as well as "hip-hop" which criticizes commercial rap and the "everybody-has-a-record-label" mentality.
I still feel EXTREMELY ignorant on most of these issues and am trying to educate myself (or emancipate myself from mental slavery, in the words of Bob Marley) through any information I can get my hands on, as well as through my own experience and relationships.
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