Quote:
Originally posted by blackwatch06
After all, if education is more readily available as wonderful08 astutely puts it, then what is so much more appealing about hip-hop to the "ghetto youth"? Some people say that it is not easier, but it is more of a reality. I don't see how. I think that hip-hop is percieved as more of a reality to the youth because of skewed perception, they feel that hip-hop points to their identity as black people more so than education. This is due to the white supremacist notions clouding the perceptions of young people.
I think the education piece is vital, but we also have to consider values. Do we value truth, or do we value self-perception? I think it is easier for the ghetto youth to fall into the nihilism that McWhorter talks about than to own up to the reality of overcomming the world. This is what makes hip-hop more relative to youth, it represents nothing by means of empowerment, but it offers a lot by means of expediency, which ultimately leads to destruction.
Blackwatch!!!!!!
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Good points, I think though that hip hop does offer some form of empowerment otherwise it would not be appealing to anybody. I agree with your theories on it being "easier" to identify with and possibly obtain (through less work) than education. As far as values, that is a sticky situation, I use to believe that ones socio-economic status often was an idication to ones values, but that is an incorrect assumption, so as where education level is usually closely linked to socio-economic status, what are values linked to? I think this question is another topic for the African-American community to address. Since we live in America it is politically incorrect to force ones opinions and values on others so as a race of people struggling to maintain identity and stay active in the race for the American dream we find ourselves behind an ideal called hip-hop. (Sadly we are not even really in control of the ideal as music exceutives and ceo's are) So as children grow up in our society I think it boils down to this. As I said before the majority of Americans not just Blacks DO NOT go to college, so the importance of an education though I am sure stressed in school, is no where near as attainable than the hip-hop dream is to some. If everybody around me goes to college I may think twice about the need to go, but if everybody around me does not, then I am in the norm , and to break the norm would be to break the cycle, how do we break the cycle I think that is the real question?