Blacks, Hip-Hop, and the Sociocultural Milieu

• In Event: Hip-Hop-Based Pedagogy as Culturally Responsive Curriculum: Whose Culture Is It Really?

Abstract

Race plays a significant role in virtually all affairs of life in the United States. For example, most citizens, black and non-black, felt helpless as they watched Black New Orleaneans suffering in the wake of Hurricane Katrina; when innocent Blacks such as Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima were shot by New York City cops; or when Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by a vigilante. But while the nation watches those injustices, few are simultaneously concerned about Black people’s other major concerns, such as the fact that while Blacks constitute 13% of the population in the U.S., they are 50% of those living with HIV/AIDS (Kaiser Foundation, 2006). Also, viewers of the abovementioned atrocities were likely not focused on the fact that Black students are 17% of the total public school population but account for 36% of the students who get suspended from school, and 32% of those that get expelled (Hutchinson, 2006, 1). Furthermore it is highly likely that while focusing on the release of Trayvon Martin’s killer George Zimmerman and the nearly simultaneous incarceration and 20 year sentence of Marissa Alexander (who shot a rifle into the air and hurt no one), we were probably not focused on the fact that there are more Black men incarcerated than there are in colleges and universities in the U.S. (Butterfield, 2002, New York Times). There are countless worrisome statistics related to Black health care, socio-cultural issues, and education. In fact, Blacks have continuously found themselves living under precarious circumstances since arriving in North America.
Obviously the most effective way to change the above circumstances is to introduce and socialize Black children to a different reality. That is, teach them to eat differently, take care of themselves and their communities differently overall, in short, teach them to take ownership and control over the “psychic and physical spaces that Blacks call their own” (Akoto, 1992, p. 3). Some efforts that Blacks have made have appear to move them in a more self-determined direction toward creating a better reality for the next generations. Those efforts include the Civil/Human Rights Movements, the Multicultural Education Movement, the Black Arts Movement, Black Nationalism, African Centered Education, the Black Muslim Movement, the move toward Black homeownership, etc. All of those efforts have two important things in common: (1) They are incomplete efforts that deserve merit for the success they have had, and (2) they have all fallen woefully short of capturing the imagination of African American children to the degree that the Hip Hop movement has.
The purpose of this paper is to theorize about the sociocultural situation in which Blacks now find themselves while considering what Hip Hop has to offer toward addressing those situations. What is the sociocultural situation of Blacks? What is hip-hop? What does hip-hop have to offer? Why has hip-hop captured the imagination of Black youth? What can Black people do to change their sociocultural situation?

Author

• Kmt G. Shockley, Howard University