If You Want to Change Society, Close Your Legs

Yes. David Banner said it.

Talk about colored girls, homicide and patriarchy.

You would think that Capitalism, the fall of the stock market and the price
of rice were controlled by who we had sex with.

What if a white man sat on that stage and said that? R.I.O.T.

David goes on to say that "Most of these men sell dope because
they want to impress you". So wait, if we stop having sex with D-boys
then they are going to get jobs at Mc Donalds?

I think we need more labor and gender theory.

It Ain't My Fault
Whats incredible to me about this video is two things.
David Banners and to a certain extent Kweli's response is
indicative of an unwillingness to acknowledge the ways
in which our music affects our kids.

Why is that so hard?

We don't want the rappers to have any personal responsibility
because we don't want to hold ourselves accountable.
The minute we hold them accountable we have to hold
ourselves accountable.

Its like this, if your momma is telling you not to smoke and drink,
but she smoking and drinking, you ain't gonna listen to her.

If we start talking about the rappers and their music and
the effect it has on the kids, then we have to start looking
ourselves, the fact that we buy and listen to the music
and the message that this sends to the kids.

We don't criticize the rappers because then we would
either have to stop listening to it, or think about
why we get enjoyment from listening to "It Ain't No Fun,

If the Homies Can't Have None".

Do you know how hard it was to write that listening
to Mobb Deep was nurturing the dysfunction in me?
Type difficult.

But knowing what I know about crack, Oakland,
and crack in Oakland, it would only make sense
that there would be a part of me that would find
tales of murder and crack entertaining.

We try and turn the dysfunctional 'ish entertaining as
as a way to cope. And many times it works. But we are

conflicted over it. Think of the art, music and theater

associated with The Holocaust. However, there is conflict

within the Jewish community over whether art about

whether it is appropriate for something so terrible can
serve as a basis for art, be it comedy, drama or a musical.

Listening to Mobb Deep reminds me that I am not living

in the 1989 war on drugs zone. It's a reminder

that I survived.

However the words have an impact, perhaps an unintended

impact but an impact just the same.

For example, at the Spinna party last Saturday, I was singing alone with
Snoop and I turned to Filthy and said, "If my dad repeatedly telling me over
the years that I could do anything had an impact on my self esteem,
what impact does listening to and singing Ain't No Fun have on
esteems of both men and women?"

You Wouldn't Get Far
Hip-hop in many ways traffics in the Black sexuality and the availability

of Black female bodies as tools for sex.

No one wants to admit it, talk about it or analyze it.

What would these rappers think if their daughters were vixens,
and their sons murdering and hustling?

In a culture where Karrine Steffan's is a slut, but being a pimp is revered,
where R. Kelley marries Aaliyah, is a known longtime pedophile in Chicago
and is acquitted of child porn charges, there are some serious issues with
how we view Black female bodies.

Its much easier to call Video Vixens tramps rather than analyze patriarchy.

Hip Hop's Identity Crisis
While watching this video, I also thought of Hip Hops conflict within itself.
On one hand folks say that Hip Hop is "just music" on the other hand
folks say "that hip hop is revolutionary and political".

What is it gon' be? Just music or revolutionary?

As far as I am concerned, most of it is just another
form of employment.

In fact Birkhold wrote recently about how Hip Hop
isn't the child of The Civil Rights Movement but is in fact
the child of Black youth unemployment. He writes,

I’m tired of people calling hip hop the child of the civil rights and black power movements. Everyone from hip hop artists, hip hop activists, hip hop scholars, and regular everyday listeners have called it that and all of them are wrong. I believe this error is made for two fundamental reasons, as a nation we don’t understand the civil rights or black power movements nor do we understand labor in a capitalist society.

If we did, we would understand that hip hop is the child of unemployment.

Parents Raise Kids Rappers Don't
Not only do we fail to understand how Hip Hop isn't

"revolutionary" but we also fail to understand how

rappers sound like neocon Republicans

when they say "Parents need to raise they kids".

Yesterday, I began do wonder, do these negros sit around reading

The Moynihan Report?

In fact, I know d-boys that take more responsibility for contributing to
the down fall of the hood many of these rappers do.

Why is it so difficult to care about children other than our own?

We know better. Pre-crack we certainly weren't raised like that.
Ms. Johnson down the street would tell your momma if she saw
you doing something out of pocket. I have written about it here before.
This extra parental intervention stopped during the crack era because
while Ms. Johnson would say something to Hakeem, now that it was '89,
he had a 9(mm) and she wanted to keep her life.

We Just Need More Money and Programs
If the solution is economic then our people should be in better shape.
Black people have more money than ever before, and their children
are STILL underemployed and in prison in record numbers,

If the solution is economic, how many people you know have
cake and still decomposing on the inside?

An after school program and a fund raiser is not going to change this.
After school programs and fund raisers are apart of the problem.
We can't party our way to social justice, reduced unemployment,
reduced drop out rates or lower AIDS rates.

Many people who work these jobs, like their work, but are scared of the hood.
Non profit jobs serve as a stepping stone for folks. Its like an urban boot camp.
If you can survive with the darkies you can work anywhere.
They are far more interested in keeping their jobs than changing
society so that the children who are in these programs can have
lives full of options, dignity, humanity and power.

There are a lot of mortgages being paid off of managing Black and/or
White poverty.

I am not dissing afterschool programs. Afterschool and summer school
was my salvation when three and four hundred cats were getting murdered
a year in Oakland 89-92. What I am saying is that it is important to keep
an after school program in perspective and to understand the extent
to which some folks care more about getting a grant, then deciding what
their organizations mission will be. This method of thinking enables them
to put their personal mission ahead of the needs of the people they are serving.

Black children in the hood know that there is a war on drugs. They know
it because they are in the middle of it. They know that we won't, can't
protect them, so they protect themselves. They also know that we care
more about our music than we do standing up for them.

Every time an emcee says "Parent's raise kids" not rappers, the kids are
reminded of this.

We don't also don't understand labor and power, and until we do we will
be on stages saying things like "If You Want to Change Society, Close your Legs".