Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Blog #7 - Hiphop 4 Hip hop controversies ---- Reflection

When I first read this article, I like many others was COMPLETELY confused as to where to start, and what to talk aboout.
But I decided to reflect upon the article and how it made me felt, bear with me while I fight off this cold. If anything seems a bit messed up let me know.



Ball's outlok on Hip Hop confused me a bit, but I think what he was trying to say was that he wasn't necessarily trying to downplay hip hop. He was just trying to open people's eyes to the underlying meaning and why a colonialized America struggles with such topics. Ball stated "colonialism requires a
domestic and foreign policy to which empire-promoting concepts of people and
the world, of the exchange of money and culture can be grafted..." and I believe that is true, however it is often challenged. For example hip hop took great pride in the 2008 voting election.



The Respect My Vote campaign is a project of The Hip Hop Caucus and The Source magazine. Caucus, with over 700,000 members nationwide, aims to "to foster civic engagement among young people of color on issues of social and economic justice, human rights, the environment, and international peace."

The Respect campaign, which was restarted after lying dormant since the 2008 elections, aims to educate, mobilize and register to vote people of color between the ages of 18 and 39. Most of those targeted live in urban areas or attend historically Black colleges.

In 2008, the campaign registered over 50,000 new voters, 32,000 of them on a single day. (Info/Picture found at http://www.peoplesworld.org/labor-hip-hop-forge-vote-alliance/)

They also made VOTE OR DIE t-shirts and many hip hop artists co-signed the importance of the black vote.


I myself struggled during election time because I did not know who to vote for. Don't get me wrong I WAS going to vote for Barack Obama just because he was black in order to change the course of the usual, but that wouldn't have been fair. If Obama was not capable of doing the job I waould have not known until it was too late because I did not educate myself and understand what he stood for. I had to sit and watch the press confrences and actually get involved.

3 comments:

  1. J - really interesting reflection. I like the connection of political participation to hip-hop in your reflection.

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  2. My take was that Ball was saying that cColonialization is still taking place in the way in which economically white dominate American media monopolizes, shapes and profits off of black music productions.

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  3. Jasmine your last paragraph is so true. A lot of blackpeople was backing him with knowing his viewpoints. I think our race failed to see that if Obama was not qualified as a president and made a mocary of the office it would further degrade us. More stereotypes would have arosed. Thankfully he is doing the best he can do given the conditions. I think the black culture need to have the same realization you dd

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