Political Science

For the first time in the history of the United States, an Afro-American was elected into the Office of the President.  In a nation composed mainly of Caucasians, this is indeed an extraordinary historical event.  It is expected that history will always cite this chapter as a proof that America has finally gotten over the specter of racism, which has been an issue that has often marred its image as a model of democracy in the community of nations.  The American people are hopeful, especially the Afro-Americans and other racial minorities, that this is the start of a healing process, a solution to a long festering wound in society.  They have thought positively of this not just for its political implications but also for its consequences on culture and economy two aspects in which racism remains more pronounced.  However, it will be impossible for President Barack Obama to solve this problem even with the powers in his hand.  In fact, he is himself a product of such culture.  Racialism persists despite the anti-slavery struggle that culminated with the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement of the sixties.  There are signs it has abated significantly, with an Afro-American in the White House as a proof.  However, a great number of Afro-Americans still live in a subculture that brings about disparity.  As a result, this disparity will continue to accuse blacks of inferiority and whites of racismthus refueling our racial politicsdespite the level of melanin in the presidents skin. (Steele)
This paper discusses about rap music and the subculture being upheld by Afro-Americans, its effect on their psyche, and how it has also resulted in racial tension.  It also points out that the fact that behind the current promotion of rap music, one of the most popular products of the Afro-American subculture is the capitalist drive to make money.  The result of which, therefore, is the no longer just the realistic depiction of the life and struggles of the Afro-Americans but the commercialization of their identity.  This explains the point that racialism thrives in a capitalist society.

When racial discrimination exists in a society, it is natural for stereotyping races to occur.  Many people, not just Caucasians but even other minorities, such as Asians and Latinos, perceive the Afro-American male as someone whose propensity for violence is very high.  Oftentimes, when someone imagines an Afro-American, he immediately gets an image of a gang member, or what the Afro-Americans call as a gangsta.  While such is indeed plain stereotyping, there is basis for it.  In the nineties, the media has been highlighting stories of gang-related crimes perpetuated by Afro-Americans.  This was primarily because of the criminal activities which involved gangs composed exclusively of Afro-Americans.  The most notorious among these are the Crips and Bloods, which both originate from the streets of Los Angeles.  These gangs started to grow in the eighties.  In the nineties, these gangs had achieved a membership of roughly 65,000.  (California Department of Justice)  What made them even more infamous is not just the astonishing membership growth rate but their involvement in the drug trade.  Both the Crips and the Bloods had established control of the distribution of crack cocaine in many cities in California as well as in other states.  The once neighborhood groups of youths who formed gangs to protect themselves from other groups and to commit petty crimes more for the pleasure of it than for the money had become big-time drug dealers.  Once a group of gang members arrive in a city, they do not approach other Afro-American youths to expand membership.  They go there to study the demand for drugs, to identify competitors in the drug trade, and the feasibility of starting their own operations.  (California Department of Justice)

The gangsta or the gang members lifestyle was not hidden from public.  Just as crime stories and intra-gang violence are being provided enough space in newspapers and airtime in the broadcast media, gangsta was glamorized through rap music.  This happened because many Afro-American communities saw gangsta members rose from poverty due to the drug trade and other criminal activities.  In the absence of an alternative model for successfully struggling against the impoverished life in the ghettos or the hoods, gangsta life had become a dream of many Afro-American youths.  Hip hop music, which played a significant part in the entire their subculture, used to be a means of expressing the social, economic and political realities of their lives (Aldridge).  However, when gangsta life began to be glamorized, rap and the entire hip hop genre were used to describe it as a quick method of crawling out of poverty.  Many of the rap hits in the nineties, during the height of the gangs strength, contained explicit descriptions on making money from drugs.  These also depict the intra-gang violence, which are often caused by their respective efforts to control drug trade turfs.  Nevertheless, while these were seemingly narrations of gangsta life, these never failed to relate to listeners the plight of the Afro-American communities in the major urban areas in the country.  When these told listeners of the police abuse on racial minorities, these do not just relate it to drug-related arrests but also to the general problems of poverty, lack of social services, and other discriminatory practices.

However, what the music industry promoted further was not the situational factors that led to the rise of the gangs.  Instead, it gave opportunities to rap artists who write and portray the life of the gangsta without mentioning the social conditions that bred it.  As a consequence, it presented a detailed account of why, for black men, the illegal sector so often trumped the legal one. (Coates)   Ice Cubes Alive on Arrival spoke about a seriously wounded gang members unfortunate fate in a hospital.  Already struggling for life after being shot by the police in a drug bust, he was denied immediate medical attention because of his color.  Alive on Arrival might have started with a description of a scene where drugs are pushed by homies but it ended with lines that depict the discrimination suffered by Afro-Americans in hospitals Why oh why cant I get help Cause Im black, I gots to go for self.  For those taking another perspective, such as those who have not gotten over their racist tendencies, they would certainly point out that such fate would have been avoided had the person not been involved in the gangs.  That would certainly be missing the forest for the trees on two counts.  Hospitals are supposed to be the least likely to discriminate patients.  It was precisely the lack of social services and poverty that drive the young Afro-American to a much-glamorized gangsta life.  With media and government sensationalizing on the issue of gang violence and related crimes while hardly mentioning the conditions that breed it, it became convenient for people to view blacks as the source of the problem (this is in the 1965 Moynihan Report, which blames black women for poverty and it is so on the attack on young black men, who are blamed for a breakdown of civic life). (Prashad p.170)

Hip hop and rap music used to be an urban cultural form that belongs to the Afro-American peoples subculture.   What punk music is to the disenfranchised white working class youth, so is rap to the discriminated Afro-Americans.  Rap music is an artistic narrative of their lives and daily struggles in the ghettos of New York and Detroit or in the hoods of Los Angeles and Miami.  However, beginning in the nineties, rap music began to be commercialized by big music labels.  At first, the recordings were made by independent outfits but soon the big recording companies took over and controlled many of rap musics popular artists.  During that time gangsta rap was the only rap.  Because it was selling well, the music industry, by imploring freedom of expression, managed to bring out into the market gangsta rap in its pure form.  This was not because the industry was really serious about liberal democratic ideals nor was it because they believe in the music and its message.  It was merely because it was raking in money.   In a society under the grips of a capitalist system, the desire for profits blurs the line between what is right and wrong.  Americans seemed to adore anything with sex and violence as themes, a fact that transcends races.  The capitalists in the music industry have found in rap music a magic formula for delivering more profits not just from the Afro-Americans but from the entire American society and even from other countries who have been heavily influenced by American culture.  Rap music, which used to belong solely to the Afro-Americans as their distinct cultural form of expression was transformed to become capitalisms own.  It used to be favorite venue for saying aloud their protestations, now its purpose is to bring in the money for the music industry moguls with token rewards for the artists.

Soon, however, gangsta rap received much criticism from conservative sectors.  Politicians found in it the necessary excuse for the alarming crime rate.  Instead of dealing with the problems of poverty and neglect of many people in decaying urban quarters, the dark side of capitalist America, certain politicians and government officials have exaggerated the effects of gangsta rap and, in fact, considered it as a major factor for street violence.  The capitalists in the music industry had to tone down the contents of rap music so that it will maintain its appeal even among the Caucasian youths.  In fact, it had to manufacture a full-blooded Caucasian rapper in the person of Vanilla Ice just to reinvent rap.  True enough, rap departed from its gangsta origins but, even worse, it also became farther from the essential character as a form of protest.  Currently, rap is treading the path of hip hop.  It has become so much part of pop culture.  It now deals with superficial and irrelevant themes such as sex and drug use.  The once heavyweights of gangsta rap, such as Snoop Dog, have become gurus of casual sex.  Nevertheless, this is still reflective of the inequalities that exist in a capitalist society.  In capitalism, despite the lip service about their rights, women are still suffering inequalities in the workplace and raps sexist lyrics are part of a rampant and viciously normalized sexism that dominates in the corporate culture of the music business. (Rose p.16)  While this has degenerated to such themes, it has grown into one of the largest money-making genres in the music industry.  In fact, it has been evolving into another subculture.  It is being used for other commercial activities such as the marketing of sports and clothing lines, colas, and other consumer products.  Many rap artists no longer come from the streets while those who did have been tamed by the dollar.

In 2003, with the introduction of 50 Cent into the music industry, there was an attempt to make rap music return to its gangsta roots.  However, times have changed and the attempt failed because it could no longer fit in the new conditions.  Gangsta revival did not sell as much as it did in the nineties as the number of Afro-Americans who have completed the level of education necessary for employment had risen significantly.  The employment rate for women had risen to 52 percent in year 2000 from just 37 percent in 1989.  (Coates)  Amidst these changing conditions, rap music still has not made the current reality of the Afro-American as its theme.  Although the gangs still exist, its influence has waned so much.  This situation is supposed to inspire a new theme that of the Afro-American wearing a suit and taking on jobs inside a corporate set-up.  With Obama as the president, rap music is supposed to describe the new Afro-American in a society that has finally rid itself of any trace of racism.  It is obvious that rap music cannot evolve towards this direction because rap music no longer represents the real situation of the Afro-American people.  In fact, it is already meant to fill the minds of its listeners with totally untrue stories of the conditions of the majority of the Afro-Americans.

Racism still exists.  It is true that the lynch mobs are gone, the buses are no longer segregated, and any young Afro-American can enroll in a university of his choice.  However, job opportunities are not yet equal and economic conditions are still not satisfactory for Afro-Americans. What they need is a cultural weapon, one that must raise their consciousness unite them again in the continuing struggle for racial and social equality.  Therefore it is necessary for rap music to be freed from the clutches of capitalist owners of the recording industry.  The Afro-Americans can use this again as an artistic form of protest.  This time, they can employ this beyond the purpose of narrating the issues that continue to hound them as a race.  They can use rap music as a tool for changing society into one that no longer see the differences of race and color.