That doesn’t really change the fact that the Hip Hop Caucus is using hip hop as an organizing tool, or that Black Agenda Report and Color of Change are players in the media reform coalitions that are pushing hard on the radio issue, as well as other media reform.

I think if you followed online Black activism; CoC’s organizing around Jena, Al Wynn’s loss to Donna Edwards, etc., you’d probably see that there is something of a revitalized movement forming, and that hip hop is playing a role, if right now a small one. Maybe, though, it’s all happening because black people want to have the opportunity to be just like me. Right?

Finally, denigrating multi-racial activism shows at best a serious fucking disregard for history, and at worst a desire to see the social justice movement isolated as a purely racial one. Jews and liberal whites gave their lives in the civil rights movement alongside African Americans. Just because I don’t suffer under injustice doesn’t mean I can’t fight to end it. I mean, until “opposing racism” is entry 200 on SWPL, then I’ll be sure to stop doing it, so as not to get mocked by ignorant fucking tools like yourself.

See also:

“It is a poorly guarded secret that, deep down, white people believe if given money and education that all poor people would be EXACTLY like them. In fact, the only reason that poor people make the choices they do is because they have not been given the means to make the right choices and care about the right things.”

–stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com

1) Look! Black people using hip hop as an organizing tool: http://www.hiphopcaucus.org/
As a news junkie, you might remember Reverend Lennox Yearwood getting jumped by the capitol police outside of a congressional hearing on the war. That was in his capacity as president of the Hip Hop Caucus.

2) The question of what type of hip hop people in general, and various groups in particular, like is rather complicated. Access in urban areas is extremely limited, and even with new availability through the internet, the radio is still the # 1 media for getting hip hop. In a lot of inner cities that means a few Clear Channel stations playing the same shit. People come to know it and like it, and much of it has great beats, but there’s still a cause and effect question. Reforms like the Low Power Community Radio Act (check out Free Press for more) would give community organizations and other groups the ability to open up FM stations in cities, greatly increasing the availability and diversity of music, and yes, making it easier to combine socially conscious music with community organizing.

3) George Bush doesn’t care about black people.

While most folk music is about god, or the old country life, or what-have-you [[or, like most music ever, is about heartache]], folk music is still seen as overtly political & always will be. That’s because folk music hit mainstream listeners in a way that was inexorably tied to politics. Even while folk music seemed to be coming from poor white country folk, the Appalachians, eastern tennessee, etc… it was mostly being made famous by Jewish kids from NYC & Minneapolis, and was being listened to by liberal urban youths across the country.

Substitute “black” for “white,” “inner-city” for “Appalachian,” and “1980s” for “1960s,” & you have rap music.

Rap has hit in a way that folk never did, but that doesn’t make it any less intrinsically tied to the politics in its roots.

Now, most rap music is still never going to be about politics, and it shouldn’t be. As you so aptly pointed out, “It’s just music.”

But that doesn’t mean rap music isn’t political, & it really doesn’t mean that rap music can’t be the backbone of a political/cultural movement involving inner-city youth.

The idea that “it’s just music” ignores both the breadth of what music can be, and the awesome power that music has & has always had in lighting emotional fires in the masses & spurring them to action.

I disagree strongly. I’m not sure you fully understand the power of hip hop. I live in the Bay too, in Oakland but I’m also a naturalized African immigrant. I have seen hip hop have a profoundly positive and negative effect in my home country of Kenya and throughout Africa. Anywhere there are black people now, there is a strong hip hop culture (not to mention in places like Sweden where I went to a show and Japan).

I think all that needs to be done is to have a rapper with moderate success, such as Common or Talib Kweli, really do something big or do something together.

I also seriously disagree with your take on Mos Def and the like and Black people’s affinity of them. Most black people have heard of them and even listen to their music. But to understand black culture is to understand that we also like to dance. When we go out its not necessarily to drink, but to dance and perhaps look fly for the other gender (I’m generalizing a bit, but its to underscore my point). So we can’t really play a lot of the “conscious” rap as we call it, in the club b/c its not really dancing music. But we will listen to it otherwise. Now my 14 year old sister, she likes T-pain, Chris Brown, and bubble gum radio rappers, but she knows who Mos Def is and listens to Talib (not through my influence either, I was gone when she got into Hip Hop). So my point it this, don’t be so glum, chum. Hip Hop can still be used yet. It also helps that Common and Talib have mastered the art of radio song and “concious” song. Kind of like actors who do “one for the studio and one indies”. Anyway, be interested in knowing what you think.

Well, folk music….especially labor songs…..and damn good at it too….

Regards to your folks,
Mark