19. The Alpha Male Through Hip-Hop Culture

♪ [music playing--no dialogue] ♪♪.
(Jasmin Stareich). "The Alpha Male Through
Hip-Hop Culture" by John Naret.
Okay, an ideology can be powerful.
The idea of race and power has been one of
many factors that have led to misunderstanding between
ethnic groups and gender relations.
The stigma attached to hip hop culture aids
to the degradation of black male in general.
The burden of acting white does not help the mental health of
black and hip hop culture that has a negative stigma to
society's gatekeepers, summarizes his view on the gap
between black youth and the elderly in the black community.
This culture gap is not progressive.
Youth, a concept developed by white middle
class values, is for the priveleged.
Whites who can afford the time and energy to participate in
activism and culture had the chance to develop themselves.
This is not the case for black males who
do not see any future besides poverty.
The music genre of rap, most particularly
gangsta rap, romanticize criminal exploits.
These reality-based stories, which were often supported by
former gangster rappers known as Ice Cube and Ice T brought fear
into to mainstream America that black youth were out of control.
Nihilism is defined as the lived experience of
coping with life of horrifying meaninglessness
and hopelessness and lovelessness.
Aided with the market economy and the lack of support systems,
the black community was at its weakest.
[Unclear audio] mention that leaders of the black community
were not educated by the white society, instead leaders were
dramatists, novelists and poets.
The meaning of music to youthful blacks has
an almost entirely different meaning.
Alan Lomax, a white folklorist asked a
black singer the meaning of blues.
The meaning was revenge.
Compared to the meaning of rap music in modern time,
revenge is not the meaning behind the
drive that young black males become exploit.
The de jure segregation oppression of blacks through
slavery, the black diaspora which was greatly affected by
deterroritalization, encouraged the alternations of cultural
practices, public policies, psychology, institutional
arrangements and social discourses that impacted the way
blacks lived and processed information.
In [unclear audio] article, he expresses a concern for the lack
of ability of white society to understand blacks.
W.E.B. Dubois stated that TNS was the belief that whites had
limited understanding of people of color whereas the later have
a profound understanding of the cultural frameworks and
institutional barriers that whites employ to oppress them.
Mayor Kilpatrick of Detroit represented the worst of leaders
in the black community using the exploitation
of blacks to suit his own needs.
Kilpatrick just was flashy, arrogant and undisciplined.
When he ran for mayor for Detroit, his gusto related to
many young black males and females.
Kilpatrick's use of the word 'momma' during a city council
debate and the urging of black youth to vote for him
on the local hip hop station was
exploitation to the black community.
Regardless of skin color, Kilpatrick was a perpetrator.
In the realms of politics, Kilpatrick was not only a black
male working in the system to rise in the white dominant
carrier path, but his actions resounded in a
negative stigma in mainstream society.
The conditions in which Detroit was in
did not help the black community.
Regarding black males' perception on his masculinity,
most swagger or charm was not present when it came to rappers.
The rapper Nelly was shown in a music video swiping a credit
card in between a woman's derriere.
Models on set claimed that rappers did not have any game.
Apparently, the commercialized image of black male's confidence
was not as real as thought out to be.
If models wanted to keep on set,
sexual favors were made for the rappers.
If modern day rappers actually told like this, then the
minstrel show would not be as degrading as it actually is.
The glory of being a rapper is real.
The confidence is sporadic, and the sex is forced.
Any charm laid forth was charm to be kept on set.
In a way, everyone is happy.
[Unclear audio] writes, "Many black women and men choose to
fight racism, while ignoring black gender relations."
If not black politicians and black music artists,
black communities are pointing out what
is wrong with the black male.
Critics of hip hop also say that women involved in the projection
of the culture must also take responsibility.
There seems to be two sides of the rapper
that mainstream society sees.
The first being an educator and fighter for social equality and
the second representing men who justify calling
women a hoe because she shakes her butt.
Hip hop is seen as the way out of poverty.
Besides sports, education is a foreign concept.
The ticket out of poverty is through music and sports.
This is the black male's American dream.
The influence of rap as a voice of resistance and liberation for
urban youth proliferates through such artists as Lauryn Hill,
Praz, Wycleff Jean of the Refugee Camp, Public Enemy, Naz,
and Mos Def who endeavor to bring an accurate, yet crucial,
depiction of the urban situation to a hip hop generation.
Some teachers are using hip hop to promote
cultural awareness and social justice.
The education received by the students
would fight the ignorance of mainstream society about
the perception of black culture and music.
The problem with this theory is that it assumes that all hip hop
is progressive and promotes social awareness.
That is not the case.
When teachers pick rappers to exemplify the black community
and the hardships that rappers supposedly have gone through,
teachers must look back at the late 1980s and early 1990s to
get a glimpse of the hip hop golden age.
The likeliness of American youth understanding the exploitation
of black males and the black community
through modern day hip hop is slim.
[Unclear audio] states that it would be foolish and naive to
believe hip hop would change the world for the better.
Progressivism is not an essence of hip hop culture.
If one would have to attach essence to the
hip hop culture, it would be stagnation.
Since its inception in accepted society,
most consumers are white youth.
About 80% of the consumers are white society.
Embedded in the system and society
are priveleges for certain people.
Equal footing is not a reality.
The exploitation of black males in the black community is heard
by teenagers with their windows down
blasting the latest club hit.
The likelihood of that belonging to the
hip hop culture is strong.
The problem with American youth is that any critical analysis of
their favorite hip hop song would be destroying the essence
of the feeling they get when listening to it.
The statement, "I like what I like" is devoid of any
intellectual discourse--a discourse in which hip hop
greatly needs not only, but its performers,
producers, but by its listeners.
The get rich quick idea to the United States.
Instead of finding gold, it has become a
sophisticated [unclear audio].
♪ [music playing--no dialogue] ♪♪.