New generation, same mentality

By Jemrond Booze

Does the Hip-Hop generation equate to “Generation Next?” If we make our judgment based on progress made within education, business ownership, and against poverty, then it looks as if African Americans have reached a stagnant place. What has happened to the growth in the black community that spawned change throughout America? What has changed the road of development to digression, and what are the affects kids now known as the “Hip-Hop Generation” having on our culture?

The digression can be seen clearly, but often not easily understood. As with any problem, one must return to the root in order to arrive at a solution. Our journey takes root in the last 1970’s. As blacks benefit from a recently integrated school system, improved housing, and affirmative action, civil rights voices are silenced as we embraced the American way of life.

America was not only home to whites, but blacks and browns alike. Though things looked on the up for black people after the civil rights movement, there were still many snakes in the grass. Regan-omics is what they called it, but to the black community, it was better known as the “crack epidemic.” Crippling neighborhoods across the nation, the damage released onto the country from the epidemic overshadowed declining and failing public educational systems. During this time, we would also see the rise of the deadly disease known as AIDS, and a re-segregation of the nation would take place thanks to the “tipping point” affect.

However, not all goes wrong for blacks during this period. African American study programs are adapted throughout the country, with cultural sensitivity becoming common-place in the media. African Americans would explore new heights in politics with the first black woman and man running for President and Vice President of the United States. The end result was a generation more aware of their status, in which they would tell the world through rap. Angered not only with impoverished conditions that blacks were limited to live in, but also angered by the war with the police, the glass ceiling of American had taken its toll. Young blacks had enough, and would channel their rage through Hip-Hop.

Though this new art form would grow, becoming one of the most popular forms of music throughout the world, its street lingo and urban outfitting would serve as a division between them and the negro spiritual singing youth of the 1960’s. Rebellious youngsters would speak out against the police and anybody who would threaten them. Growing still, the urban landscape of America would continue to change and be accepted as the music of a new generation growing to become a culture of its own.

Rap, now viewed as more of a feasible career, results in the black youth considering and viewing the dreams of becoming a black political leader, or any other job that requires humility and years of work, as unnecessary. The quick changing trends have made it so artists become rich and famous virtually overnight. Topics in Hip-Hop have also transcended their original formation, causing dope selling and pimping to be the song of the street.

What’s the end result? Confusion. Influence from the outside world and media have manipulated Hip-Hop into a money making corporation, stealing the soul from the black community. Now, a whole generation faces a digression from the great works of the previous, due to unhealthy influences and a communication barrier. Often viewed as a lost cause, blacks, just as much as ever, have to re-invest in their own communities. The mental chains of oppression can only be recognized through education. Barriers can only be dissolved through communication outreach and powerful ideas.

The ideology of the civil rights movement, combined with the influence of Hip-Hop, is a powerful notion. Change such as civil rights to Hip-Hop is something that can’t be predicted, but is inevitable. We as a people have to be able to acknowledge that this is amongst many other things that cannot be predicted, and though the African American people have taken a turn that would suggest the worst, deep in the recesses of all of our minds, the dream of the black ancestors still lives on.