The Hip Hop Generation
In 1995 the Traveling Vice Lords were charged. In 1996 nineteen gang members were charged and 15 convicted guilty. In the same year 23 percent of the inmate population were made up of [...] offenders, 62.6 percent of which were Black – showing the clear relation to race. Now nearly 50 percent of inmates are Black with Hip-Hop being one of their major influences. Many of their influences are shown or picked up in prison to their style of clothes or language. Prison mates are affecting not only physically, but also mentally. Losing focus on dreams, and it becomes a challenge to keep their psyches stable. Families struggle keeping relation with inmates either due to their new lifestyles or the distance of the prison. The new stresses of a single income and no father figure running the house also affects families and the relationships in those families. Prison has become a place to create a gang on the inside or join one for protection, because survivor skills are crucial in prison.
Kitwana believes that rap music is insulting to women, and that black women are objects rather than human beings. Although many issues are touched in hip hop they are all from the eyes of the rapper, and may have an alternative meaning because we don’t know what they have been through in their life. Black women are quiet regarding the voice of rappers that hurt them, which degrades them further. Kitwana describes how rappers don’t understand black women, and can’t talk about their points of view because they can’t see through their eyes.
Films and hip hop soundtracks help them define themselves as well as their life style while still giving the viewing public entertainment. Old films try to portray different concepts about violence or black women, but it was the failure of the civil rights era that made the new generation leave political activism.
The hip hop generation is trying to get into the politics aiming mainly at young adults. They use topics that blacks can relate to, or struggle with in their life such as education, work, and worker rights. NAACP has missed the mark that young Blacks attach themselves too. Conrad Huhammad is creating an advocacy group that could assist these young Black generationers in exactly what they need.
Hip hop has become a definitive cultural movement of our generation. Young adults follow trends that rappers initiate whether good or bad – in our generation today it’s not just a following it’s a way of being. When rap first emerged in the 1980’s politicians challenged it’s content, which created a divide amongst hip hop generationers and the Blacks of the civil rights. Studies show that black boys and girls are actually more knowledgeable about issues such as AIDS and politics when they listen to hip hop.
Part 1:The New Crisis in African-American Culture
Chapter 1: The New Black Youth Culture
The Emergence of the Hip-Hop Generation
The new black youth generation is stereotyped to differ from their parents' generation for their "obsession with the materialistic and consumer trappings of financial success". Therefore, rather than participating in civil rights movement and indulging in political ideals, the Hip Hop generation are more concerned about making money. Nevertheless, their parents' worldview and "black pride" still pervade their thinking, illustrated in contemporary rap lyrics or the tradition braided hair. However, for the Hip Hop generation, individuality still comes first. However, this worldview is different from the hip hop culture and lifestyle. It is what gave birth to the hip hop culture and also the reason of appearance of rap music. There are six causes for this new worldview:
1. The popular culture and the visibility of Black youth within it: One can see rappers everywhere from Coca-Cola advertisements to Nike sneakers, which is the reason why Black youth all over the United States of America wear the same style of clothing or speaking the same style of language.
2. Globalization: Jobs moving to the suburbs and overseas cause unemployment in black youth in urban areas. That leads to Blacks' reliance on the underground economy, [...] dealing and hence a raise in their rate of imprisonment.
3. Lasting segregation in America: despite talks about the end of racism and an equal society, inequalities still persist. Young Blacks are then trapped between America's double standard of an theoretically equal and a realistically unfair society.
4. "Public policy regarding criminal justice that has clear racial implications": The difference between the storage of crack [...] or powder [...] can lead to different sentence. However, those two kinds of drugs are chemically equivalent but powder [...] is more expensive. Blacks cannot afford [...]. Similarly, the Violence Initiative of Bush administration, the Clinton administration's Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 or ban on several types of clothing at schools have the same impact.
5. Negative media representation of young Blacks: Nathaniel Brazill (Lake Worth, Florida), a thirteen year-old black, killed his English teacher. Eric Harris and Dyland Klebold, two white students, killed twelve students and one teacher in Littlelon, Colorado, 1999. In the first case, Brazill was depicted as a monster. In the second case, people blame the coldness of the suburb culture and the lack of parents' care for the crime.
6. "The overall shift in the quality of life for young Blacks": Their quality of life worsened. [...] and unemployment rate is like than before but [...] rate and AIDS disease cases are significantly more than before.
With such problems going on, generations of Black America, instead of identifying them and solving them together, separate themselves. Their clashing values and cultures are the most likely reasons.
Chapter 2: America's Outcasts
The Employment Crisis
The hip-hop generation actually did not have a chance in the 1980s and 1990s, when America needed skilled workers. Most of them are either "low-skilled workers" or are "concentrated in urban communities with low job growth". Automation in manufacturing plants did not help. Minimum wage cannot allow sufficient child care or housing. Therefore, they turned to military as an outlet. However, "the hip-hop generation has seen its fair share of wars" and the benefits offered by military are not enough to live in today's economy. Inadequate education is also one of the reasons for the situation. Such dilemma led to:
1. Class warfare: Urban riots where business owners regardless of race are the target
2. Police brutality: The hip-hop generation signifies drugs and crime because of media, which results in police brutality. Racial-based injustice also remained in the judiciary system, which triggers Black youth's disbelief in policing.
3. The explosion of gangs and drugs: The ones who cannot afford the mainstream economy then turn to the underground economy.
4. The generation gaps: Different kinds of oppression/ segregation in different times grow misunderstanding between the two generations.
5. Racial animosity: Black inferiority, the card used to explain the Black youth's unemployment rate and also the affirmative action, has gained the Black youth a priority. That does not make unemplyed whites or immigrants happy.
6. Deferment of the American dream: Denied to mortgage loan, Blacks found it hard to make a business and then to pursue the American dream.
Despite all that, the public still says that racism is over. Being able to benefit from Affirmative action and welfare or the surge millionaire black actors, artists are false and misleading description of the hip hop generation. However, young Blacks are still trying: taking two, three jobs at the same time or spending hours in recording studios. Nevertheless, the government still ignores when chances come. Using imported teachers or employees rather than training Blacks for the jobs is one of the examples. Unless actions are taken, there will always be America's Outcasts. . Out of these percentages, 62.6% were Black and 36.7% were white. These statistics prove that race is a factor. According to statistics, one million Black men are currently under some form of correctional supervision and one third of all Black males (ages 20–29) are incarcerated, on probation, or parole. Currently, [...] offenders make up one out of every four U.S. prisoners. Almost 50% of America’s prison population is Black and of that 50% hip-hop generations make up a significant proportion of that. Kitwana believe that because of these percentages, prison life has seeped into Black language and styles of dress.
Chapter 4: Where Did Our Love Go?
The New War of the Sexes
Main ideas: If we decided to treat each other with human dignity and respect in all our interactions, how far could we go in curbing tensions that pose one of the greatest threats to Black America today?
Hip-hop generation women are not offended by male rappers’ derogatory lyrics and expressions that refer to them. Kitwana believes it has become a common trend for rap lyrics to hold no respect for women and often refers to Black women as objects rather than human beings. Rap music addresses every issue across the board, including dating, gender equality, domestic violence, [...], and [...] harassment. However, most of these issues are addressed from Black hip-hop generation rappers points of view which may not be the most positive perspective. Another struggle in the hip-hop generation is the fact that Black women have trouble finding a Black man who respects them and treats them the way they want to be treated. The issue is not being resolved because black women are over-accommodating to Black men. They do not speak up for themselves when rappers write lyrics that degrade women. Kitwana describes how the problem lies in the fact that many hip-hop generation men lack interest in understanding Black women and listening to their points of view. Although hip-hop generation rappers lyrics are vulgar and speak derogatorily towards women, today’s youth still look up to these rappers despite their flaws. Men going to strip clubs has become a common thing to do, whether the man in married or single. Another issue that has resulted from the hip-hop generation is the now common idea of couples having a child out of wedlock. It has become the norm and oftentimes the parents of the child never have any plans of getting married, so many Black children are raised by a single parent.
Chapter 5: Young, Don't Give a [...], and Black
Black Gangster Films
Main Ideas: "Where they wrong, the misinformation--given the power and persuasiveness of visual images in our information age--contributes to the crises in African American culture."
Kitwana argues that "'hood films" entertain the movie-goer, while defining an emerging lifestyle, with help from rappers turned actors and hip hop soundtracks. However, they tend to misinform the true status of the situation, and exacerbate the new crisis rather than resolve it. Kitwana talks about the rediscovery of blackness as a commodity and talks about the emergence of rap music, black athletes, and black models. These African American figures in society are so involved in the public that they lose their "roots" in the Black community.Kitwana goes into length, the significant 'hood films and how they have portrayed the lifestyle that so many people do not understand. All these films try and prove that the older generation has failed the new younger black generation. Kitwana also points out that it is because of the failure of the civil rights era, that the new generation has abandon political activism.
The following are the 'hood movies that Kitwana discusses, and a brief description of his views on each:
*Boyz N The Hood: "Boyz was the first file to hone in on the idea of the young Black male under siege by the new economic realities that drive the prison and illegal [...] industries, resulting in early death, most often by gun violence at the hands of another young Black male." Kitwana states that Boyz was the only 'hood film that accurately described the conditions that young Black males face in that type of 'hood environment.
- Menace II Society: Kitwana describes Menace as taking the "on-screen gun violence and [...] to a a new level." He cites that violent beatings are juxtaposed with scenes of calm and normalcy. In Menace, the characters do not feel any remorse for their violent actions, unlike Boyz.
- New Jack City: New Jack City portrays "amorality as endemic to the new Black youth culture but spoke[n] more to an East Coast/ New York City sensibility." It also show more degrading portrayals of Black women than the other 'hood films. Kitwana says, "New Jack City's most significant contribution to the Black gangster genre was its effectiveness at portraying a world where anything goes."
- Sugar Hill (1994 film): Described as Kitwana as taking the new level of violence to the extreme of nearly "replicating Reconstruction-era lynchings." In Sugar Hill, "the contemporary urban Black male takes the place of the hooded Klansman or vigilante." Sugar Hill, like Menace, there is a strong connection between the the older generation and their offspring.
Part 2: Confronting the Crisis in African-American Culture
Chapter 6: Activism in the Hip-Hop Generation
Redefining Social Responsibility
Main Ideas: "Too often voices like these are missing from efforts to create the institutional structure needed to move the hip-hop generation into political power."
Politicians like Amiri Bakara and Jesse Jackson Jr. are sticking around the hood to help fix it, and are not necessarily locked into old school civil rights agenda. The hip-hop generation is the first generation to come of age without legal racial segregation. Kitwana believes that despite the significant gains of the civil rights era, there is unfinished business to be gained by the hip hop generation. Some of the issues that were significant in the 90's include police brutality, minimum mandatory sentencing, and the death penalty; Kitwana agrees that some of the issues still stand, but the hip hop generation is driving it in a new direction. Kitwana points out that problems with mobilizing the hip hop generation comes from young activists working in isolation, focusing on racial profiling, environmental justice, electoral politics, youth issues, parenting, and globalization. The hip-hop generation is more apt to embrace alternative political perspectives and is not as rigidly confined to the political boundaries that often undermine the older generation's long term goals. Kitwana states that Blacks gain popularity with association with corporate products, and that there is little to no support of black political activists in the entertainment arena; i.e. Jay-Z rapping for Jesse Jackson Jr., or Dr. Dre collaborating with Van Jones, etc. Activism from rappers is a part of their persona; Kitwana refers to them as activist-minded. Despite the political mindedness of the black music industry, through lyrics, none of them are in the "trenches" doing the dirty work. Some of the activists that Kitwana discusses include:
*Ras Baraka:Son of poet-activist Amiri Baraka, Ras has been working as a political activist since his days at Howard University in the late 1980s. He was the co-founder of Black Nia F.O.R.C.E. (Freedom Organization for Racial and Cultural Enlightenment). Ras is very committed to his community and the eighth graders he teaches. Ras focuses on local politics, and is important because he represents the symbolic link between the Black power generation and the hip-hop generation.
- Thabiti Bruce Boone: With roots in student activism at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, Thabiti has set his sights on developing youth activists. He co-founded and is currently the director of FIST (Fighting Ignorance, Spreading Truth). As a single father, Thabiti is also active in the national fatherhood movement, advocating for fathers' rights and responsibilities.
- Jamal-Harrison Bryant: Bryant can be described as a "spiritually centered" activist. He is a part of a generation of young ministers who are building on the activist-minded tradition of churches. Currently, Bryant is in the developmental stages of forming the Empowerment Temple , a church centered around community activism.
- DeLacy Davis: As a policeman in East Orange, New Jersey, Davis founded the community-based group Black Cops Against Police Brutality in 1991. With several other chapters on the East Coast, the organization's mission is to improve community police relations, to be the conscience of the criminal justice system, and to enhance the quality of life for the "people of African descent."
- Donna Frisby-Greenwood: Donna Frisby-Greenwood's focus on galvanizing the youth vote, her track record as a fund-raiser, and the familiarity she enjoys within public policy and activist circles distinguishes her among hip-hop generation activists. Donna was the developement director and later co-exectutive director of Rock The Vote from 1995-1998.
- Jesse Jackson Jr.: Jesse Jackson Jr. represents the 2nd District of Illinois, an area that includes Chicago's South Side and southern suburbs. Jesse Jr.'s appeal is mostly with Black middle-class hip-hop generationers, their parents, and their white peers. Serving a district that is 35 percent white and one-third suburban, Jesse Jr. has placed a great emphasis on hi cross-cultural appeal and on the new Black middle class.
- Van Jones: As an activist, Jones has focused much of his attention and legal expertise toward ending police abuse. Jones is the founder and national executive of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in San Francisco, CA. This center began a program called Bay Area Police watch in 1994, which maintains a hot line for victims of police misconduct in the Bay Area. Jones is also committed to the youth with his "allies" in the Youth Organizing Committees and Critical Resistance Youth Force
Chapter 7: The Politics of the Hip-Hop Generation
Identifying a Political Agenda
Main ideas :“The question now is not “will rap become a political force?” but “How soon?” • Russell Simmons turning his attention to how best to bring the hip-hop generation into the mainstream political process.
• Campaigns aimed at registering 60 million young, telling them to “click and be heard” by registering on-line at Election.com.
• Important political agenda to blacks: education, employment and workers rights, reparations, economic infrastructure in urban communities, youth poverty and disease, anti-youth legislation and foreign policy.(This agenda has yet to be articulated holistically, it centers around main issues)
• Political worthy black’s not supporting or endorsing majority black issues (not playing “the race card”) … has contributed to turning young blacks off to the political process.
• NAACP has missed the mark with the issues that matter most too Black youth.
• Strong forces within hip-hop used as a sound vehicle to bring hip-hop generation’s political interest into the mainstream political process.
• Conrad Muhammad may be well on his way to a creating the effective advocacy group that hip-hop generationers need.
Chapter 8: The Challenge of Rap Music
From Cultural Movement to Political Power
Main ideas: “All the components for a mass political movement in our lifetime are in place and functioning-but separate. Do we dare join them together?”
• Russell Simmons convened a hip-hop summit in New York City, with the theme “taking back responsibility”. Signaled hip-hop as the definitive cultural movement of our generation.
• Rappers, the emissaries of the new black culture, advocate more anti-establishments slogans like “[...] the police.”
• Hip-hop as the primary vehicle through which young blacks have achieved a national voice and presence, rap music transmitting the new Black youth culture to a national audience.
• The way the mainstream media establishes the parameters for national discussion for the nation at large, rap music sets the tone for Black youth. Rap music has done more than any one entity to help the black youth generation forge a distinct identity.
• Rap music has become the primary vehicle for transmitting culture and values to the millennium black youth.
• In the late 1980s when rap first emerged, community activists and mainstream politicians of the civil rights generation began to challenge rap’s content, this resulted in a dialogue that revealed one of the black community’s best kept secrets, the bitter generational divide between hip-hop generationers and the Blacks of the civil rights/black power era.
• Key concern was Black cultural integrity: how the very public images of young Blacks in hip-hop music and culture affected the larger black community.
• Generational culture movement must bring hip-hop generation activists to local entrepreneurs to the everyday hip-hop kids on the bloc- must not only be brought to the table, but must have a major voice.
• Disproportionate representation of African Americans in both the penal system and on death row.
• Study’s show that after Black Boys and girls 11–14 years old listened to rappers, they were more knowledgeable about AIDS and were better prepared to discuss political issues.
• Powers a unified front of rap artists, industry insiders, hip-hop generation activists and everyday kids on the block can harness... can enhance rap’s potential to contribute to needed sociopolitical transformations.
About The Author
Bakari Kitwana is an American nonfiction author and journalist, activist and political analyst. He is a native of Long Island, New York. He holds a B.A and two Master degrees in English and Teaching from the University of Rochester. He is He wrote his first book in 1994 titled “The Rap on Gangsta Rap.” Ever since then he has been the Editorial Director of the Third World Press, the Executive Editor of the Source, and co-founder of the first ever National Hip-Hop Political Convention. He speaks often at top colleges such as Harvard University, Princeton, Stanford, University of California - Berkeley, Columbia University and countless others across the country. He is an active writer, his essays have appeared in The New York Times, the Village Voice, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, Savoy and the Progressive.
Bibliography
- Groundwork:Selected Poems of Haki R. Madhubuti Don. L. Lee
- The Hip-Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African-American Culture
- The Rap on Gangsta Rap
- Why White Kids Love Hip-Hop
- ''The Hip-Hop Church: Connecting With The Movement Shaping Our Culure
''
See also
- Hip hop culture
- Hood film