Media Chin-Check

I would just like to say that I am very disspointed in what I have been hearing and seenig in African American culture.I always hear people say that hip-hop is black culture or youth culture, but honestly I am truely sadden by this because of the way in which hip hop degrades woman,drugs sex,pimping,and materialism.I am a person who is not about talk but action I want to teach African American children to be proud of who they really are and to be proud of where the came from.African American kids need a culture that is about heritage not based around music but around something that is about their people and the land in which they came from.I like some hip-hop but kids really need way more than what they are getting.

I feel ya on that Mondez

I agree, except for a couple things.
This is my sermon for the night.
I feel like it's not so much that hip hop itself degrades women, but it's anyone who gets sucked into the vicious cycle within it. Because if you respect women you're looked at as pussy whipped, or some kind of homo or somethin. But if you want respect from your boys, you gotta disrepect them. But it's not that it's actually like that though, it's a state of mind a generation is in, that is being misguided by others who were misguided first, rather than thinking for themselves.
Rebellion is deeply rooted in hip hop, and that's a good thing TO AN EXTENT. But when you begin to rebel against everything, you doom yourself to destruction. LAWS ARE MADE FOR A REASON. When they tell us drugs are bad for us, why don't we listen? What in the hell would give us any idea that we know more about what they're talking about than they do?
Oh it's just the white man tryin ruin our fun. Then I guess it's also the white man's fault that AIDS is such an epidemic. That black-ON-black crime is at an all time high. That crack is in the ghetto, well, thats one I can agree with, but thats beside the point. If the "white man" really is the enemy, then he has us right where he wants us, believing that everything that goes wrong is his fault, so there's nothing we can do about it.
No, we need to stop lying to ourselves, and blaming everyone else for our problems. Half of the black students in this country with F's are fully capable of gettin A's and B's, but they don't because either A) "its not cool" or B) they're too lazy. Can you imagine what it would be like if that half lived up to their full potential, and became leaders in America? I guarantee you we wouldn't have such a dumbass for a president as we have now.
Its time for the youth to stop and think before we go out and smoke that dime bag; before we go rob old man Quilles's cornerstore; and before we "fuck that bitch givin you da eye" at a party. Is it possible to hold an intervention for an entire nation?

I couldn't agree with the above posting more, and although there are some out there who are anxious to remind me that I'm not part of this debate because I'm a white male over 30, the fact is, Hip Hop is a worldwide cultural phenomenon whose influence is unavoidably everywhere. I am a schoolteacher and and most if not all of my students imitate the fashions, speech and attitudes of black, urban males. It's become a fact of life in the classroom,that pop culture, especially the culture of rap-music, allows for kids to identify with the power and the freedom and the sex appeal of this music, at the expense of their grades, their personal development, and their social interactions.
They are incapable of civility or respect not only for teachers (which is common at a high school level these days), but for each other.
The atmosphere is poisoned with intimidation and an incomprehensible lingo that sounds impressive around one's peers, but won't impress an employer when these students get out of high school (if they graduate at all). The English language has been in decline for a long time, -- decline and also expansion. The Hip-Hop lexicon, that some academics believe is unassailable because it's coming from a direct experience of oppression, sounds out of place and lazy when spoken by non-black kids, many of whom are from affluent homes.
As much as I care about the progress of my students and can see their intelligence and potential, as an educator, I feel utterly alone in this battle. Who am I up against? A multimillion dollar recording industry that exploits rap "artists" who are made popular and saleable by virtue of how buffoonishly they can play up their "street cred" act, and how they are given license to promote hatred of women, gays, and each other even. They are unwittingly playing the cartoonish roles of the "Sambo" that most enlightened black people have been wanting to get away from for a long time. Another disturbing trend I've witnessed is how young women have also bought into the mysoginay directed against them and have come to accept their degradation as a way to ingratiate themselves into the "cool" circles. It's very frustrating to watch the deterioration of our social future in front of my eyes, every day. The bright kids are too intimidated to show that they can perform academically, and the rest just imitate their slouching, epithet-spouting, "thug"life or "pimpin'" heroes. Some might argue, quite naively, "bring it on,"-- that it's about time that white civilization collapsed under it's own weight of hypocrisy and injustice, but I would caution those voices that the imperfect institutions of law and justice are there to protect the rights of the minorities and the weak and if we allow for the accelerated decline of civility, it will affect us all. Our future generations will inherit a future where the weak will be intimidated and dominated by an elite group of bullies both black and white. Already we are dominated by a bully clique of economically powerful white men. Should that justify the further disintegration of our neighbourhoods and our cities into warzones of young men posturing and threatening those who are even more defenseless? Are we going to become like Sarajevo circa 1993? or perhaps Rwanda?. We are returning to the dark ages and moral decay crosses all lines it seems. I am happy to see one of my students come to class and be friendly and polite and most importantly -- motivated to learn,-- that to me is the ultimate form of rebellion nowadays,(if you define rebellion as having the courage to be who you are and not what the marketer's of pop culture tell you who you should be.)
Sadly, those are few and far between and it's hard to be reminded that as a Teacher, I sometimes am forced to recognize that I'm fighting on the losing side of the battle. For all those kids who believe that "school isn't cool" I have to quote James Brown who had learned after being released from prison the importance of knowledge -- and in particular the power that knowledge is enabling, he said: "if you don't know it / you can't do it."
It seems as if our entire culture and civilization is doomed to be blind to the fact that ultimate value and power is gained not through the pursuit of the exterior riches, but that a truly "strong" individual possesses inner riches that tell him/her that it doesn't matter what fashion you wear or how "nasty" you gotta be, what matters is that one is strong enough in their own self-knowledge that none of that means anything.