Courtesy of Dr. Boyce Watkins): 1) Hip-hop music, once a product and reflection of the black community, has been morphed into something else. The imagery of the music being promoted on the radio has become a sad and degrading reflection of the very worst that black people can be. Whites have picked up on this and then falsely believe that every black person wants to be a thug, n*gga or a hoochie. 2) Iggy’s rise to the top is no different from Elvis Presley, Vanilla Ice or any other white person who utilized black cultural expression to rise to the top of the charts. But remember: Whites are the ones who buy hip-hop the most, largely because they’ve come to enjoy the minstrel show. So, no differently from whites who once paid money to see other white people wearing blackface, there are whites today who will pay Iggy money to act like she’s one of the “n*ggas.” 3) When young people aren’t raised with strong value systems and self-respect, you find that principles are easily traded in for money. Also, many artists come from economically-impoverished communities where money is not only difficult to come by, but it is also worshipped and glorified. Financial strain, conjoined with excessive materialism, form a winning combination for any executive seeking to convince a young black man to call himself a n*gga in front of a stadium full of white people. So, economic inequality and low self-esteem give whites the ability to buy our souls. Be thoughtful of these tradeoffs in your climb to the top of the economic ladder. Money means nothing if it only turns you into a rich, powerful, self-destructive coon. Black people are better than that.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Jul 2014 22:08:27 +0000
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