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RACE_DOWN
March 19, 2009
There's a real problem with
outbreaks of violence at
events featuring hiphop music.
The standard Bay Guardian line
is that the police are pushing This is essentially
for an unjustifiable (and true. Further, the
probably unconstitutional) ban police don't make much
on hiphop events. secret of the fact that This is one
they don't like to hear of those
What the Bay Guardian does not about people doing cases where
explain is that if you do a "hiphop". I'd be
hiphop-oriented event, you're reassured by
almost guaranteed to have fights a little more
breaking out by the end of the hypocrisy.
night.
They clearly
Even if you *weren't* don't expect
worried about getting in to get any
bad with the police, very heat for this
few people would be happy "musical
with organizing events that profiling".
are almost guaranteed to
end in violence.
It is also true that the problem
seems to be much worse at the
hiphop events where the audience
is largely black people...
By this point, it's entirely
likely I've offended someone,
but I'm taking the risk,
because I think that
unwillingness to talk about Racism is not by any means
these subjects can be dangerous. dead when it's been
forced into hiding.
What if I'm completely
wrong in my perceptions 22_FILLMORE
here? I could be
generalizing from too
small a range of
experience, I could be
confused by anecdotal
evidence, I could have, It's really easy to
in spite of myself, think you're one of
bought into media images the enlightened good
or gangsta rap myths. guys and still be
out to lunch.
If I've stumbled into some
error like this, I'm not
going to get any correction
by staying silent.
And alternately, if my
perception of the
problems with hiphop/
black events *is* correct, This is a problem that
then what's going on? correlates with "race",
but unlike a lot of people
What can we do to work I don't think that "race"
through these problems? has much to do with biology.
What I think we've got here is a
problem with roots that are
strictly "social". Myself, I
think the trouble is that black
kids have been sold a bill of
And actually, now that goods about "blackness" and what
Sydney Poitier is it means to be authentically
president, we might black. They feel like they're
see some improvement not standing up for their rights
on this front... if they don't live up to a
particular stereotype of how
black people are supposed to
behave.
But then I wouldn't
want to minimize the
problems of racism
By the way: (and, if you like
Throughout here "classism") that
I'm talking about hang over the heads
a set of people of kids growing up
who are both poor and black:
poor and black.
There are reason
You *do* know that they're suckers for
this doesn't mean the idea that they're
that the two always supposed to be
go together, right? "rough", "crude",
"violent".
*Most* people who are
poor are not black. These are things
And there are certainly that are easy to be...
black people who are
not poor. When you don't
think you can
make it very far
up, then at least
you can compete
to see how low
down you can get.
POWER_OF_PUNK
Paris, "Days of Old" (1992):
Another sad case of the black-on-black.
It's a fact, some of our people don't know how to act:
Can't go to the club, can't go to the store,
Can't chill with your girl, can't go to the show,
Can't do anything without some fool acting up
You start to believe that black folk are savage but
before you do, allow me to say,
that in the old days we didn't act that way... Don't you hate it
when some white
Kings and Queens were the names of the righteous jerk quotes a black
but the sons of slaves are insane and we might just person's criticism
self-destruct and erupt without a chance to grow of black culture?
This ain't the days of old.
Spike Lee's "Do the
Right Thing" was
awfully popular with
white conservatives.
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