Professor Brian Sims debunks the "Che Guevara
with bling on" persona, and says that approaching the 15th anniversary
of Tupac Shakur's death, little commonalities can be found in Rick Ross
or Meek Mill.
The views and opinions
expressed in the following feature editorial are those expressly of the
writer of this piece and do not necessarily reflect those of HipHopDX."The American Dream wasn’t meant for me
Cause Lady Liberty is a hypocrite- she lied to me
Promised me freedom, education and equality
Never gave me nothing but slavery." - Tupac Shakur
There are a number of glaring differences between “entertainment” marketed to African America and entertainment marketed to White folks. Perhaps biggest among them is the fact that contemporary Black entertainment is almost always maladaptive for personal and community health. Hip Hop, for example, has been the focus of criticism and analysis from inside and outside the Black community for problematic representations of Black masculinity and femininity, violence and misogyny, psychoactive drug use, and materialism. Regardless of your take on Hip Hop, it can’t be argued that there exists no comparable artform in the White community. In other words, whatever the blame rappers deserve, there exists nothing close to an industry which perpetuates and celebrates blatant attacks (physical, spiritual, psychological) on White folks. I was reminded of this the other day at a party with my brother. Most of the people at the party were White; most of the music at the party was Black. I’ve never been to a party where most of people there were Black and most of the music was White. Except for church.
In contrast, most entertainment in the White community is psychologically healthy and embraced in conjunction with educational objectives. Band and orchestra programs, for example, are staples in the extra-curricular agenda of high schools coast-to-coast. Cultural forms of entertainment such as ballet, opera, and European theatre are universally viewed as enlightening not only for White folks but for Black folks as well.
A critical distinction, then, should be made between entertainment and enlightenment in African America. Unfortunately this rarely happens. As a result, Black folks are left largely unable to decipher the harmful, intentionally destructive messages of entertainment pumped into their homes and minds on a near-constant basis. In their attempts to assimilate into the pluralistic White world of make-believe they mistakenly apply the synonymy witnessed between entertainment and enlightenment in the White community to African America. In other words, they assume that since White entertainment is good for White folks, Black entertainment must be good for Black folks, as well. They then crave, buy, and celebrate as authentically “Black” all manner of ‘hood degradation and debasement.
The good news is that the above applies only to the segment of Black art that has been co-opted by White capitalistic industrial systems. A fundamental dilemma, then, is parceling out those authentic representations of Black thought from the co-opted ones. Sociologically, this dilemma has plagued African America ever since the first descendants of slaves were allowed property designation and the illusion of ownership. It was at that point that what Amiri Baraka has referred to as the “twin character” of the African American struggle began: a struggle for democratic rights and a struggle for national liberation (Nuruddin, 2002; Baraka, 2002). Nowhere was that struggle evidenced more clearly than in the pendulum-swing from the integrationist thrust of the Civil Rights movement of the early 1960s to the Black Nationalist thrust commonly referred as the Black Power movement (Nuruddin, 2002). These two opposing ideologies (nationalism and assimilation) continue to compete for dominance within Hip Hop.www.wsrsradio.net
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