Hip Hop Destroying Black America?
With T.I. dominating Hip Hop news on the Blogosphere and the Net for his recent arrest on weapons charges, it was only a matter of time before the main stream (“you know they ain’t down with the team”, word to Ice Cube) weighed in on the criminal delinquency that is rap music.
First up is the Atlanta Journal Constitution‘s Cynthia Tucker who took T.I. (or maybe it was T.I.P.) and Hip Hop to task in a piece titled, The ‘ideals’ of thug culture are destroying black Americans.
Tucker writes from a tough love perspective, highlighting T.I.‘s rise to super stardom while simultaneously admonishing his current actions and the state of commercial Hip Hop.
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Clifford Harris Jr. would have been celebrated last Saturday night at the BET Hip Hop Awards, had he made it to the ceremony. Instead, he was in police custody, charged with illegal possession of firearms…The young rapper could have stood before a cheering audience in downtown Atlanta and accepted his award for Best CD of the Year, had he steered clear of machine guns and silencers. Instead, he was handcuffed, fingerprinted, photographed, incarcerated.
Tucker weaves in several bars from Tip‘s latest single “Hurt” as she challenges the pervasive culture of violence that many in the spotlight seem to glorify.
“Somewhere along the way, a cadre of young black men and women began glorifying violence, misogyny and thuggishness, accepting incarceration as inevitable, resigning themselves to lives on the margins of mainstream society. They created a thug culture that has been commodified — celebrated in music and movies, sold to poor adolescents in wretched neighborhoods as well as affluent teenagers in upscale communities.”
She also alludes to the heavily debated idea that Hip Hop is one of the causes of violence in the community—particularly communities of color.
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“The violence isn’t just playacting; it’s not just teenagers trying on a rebellious facade. Young adults — many of them men, most of them black — get arrested. They go to prison. They die on the streets.”
Finally, Tucker takes us all to task with a statement reminiscent of the lectures kids receive from a community elder.
If white entertainers were making millions singing about the slaughter of black men and mistreatment of black women, city streets would clog with protesters. Demonstrators would pack the halls of Congress. Commerce would grind to a halt as black activists demanded boycotts.
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