GANGSTA RAP
ART FORM EXPOSES

BLACK INTRARACIST
BY
La Cin Achim 18:21
S/N Otis Lee Rodgers
1995

"Censure the messenger to censor the message" is the current message of the National Black Leadership (N.B.L.). "When all else fails resort to legislative dictatorship to demand that others do as we in power say". "Freedom being a wonderful idea as long as it doesn't conflict with our agenda" aren't new ideas. What the N.B.L. stiffly refuses to understand is that yesterday's impotent social cures didn't solve yesterday's problems and simply doesn't address contemporary issues and is antiquated and grossly inadequate to solve today's evolved human rights, social disparities and inequities (e.g., Police brutality, Bush's Wars, Anglo-Saxon fascist jurisprudence, social, economical, political and environmental racism.) There are active overwhelming, irrefutable, bona fide challenges to nearly every tenet of what was previously labelled as traditional values.

The abusive language and exaltation of violence in most gangsta rap music are the reality of our present day society. Most of us are intelligently-mature enough to realize that by not talking about something won't cause it to go away.

An organized ban on gangsta rap music would be futile. It would only serve to promote its sale of which would firmly entrench and tend to legitimize its message.

Gangsta rap music is more like a comet than a wake-up call and for the N.B.L., to think of it in terms of the former is bleakly humorous. Truth isn't negated by silence and silence is always a lie in the face of centuries of grievous injustices, a mortal wrong. Censorship is an aging, yet still basic evil. N.B.L.'s attempt to censor the arts is like the last swaggering dinosaur, unrealizant that dinosaurs are extinct.

Political extremism - in human behavior is generally the fault of societal abuse and gross neglect, resulting in intellectual dysfunction by individuals in conflict with society-at-large. To the gangsta rappers this militancy is a reactionary symptom of victimization by socio-economical inequities, traumas, both physical and mental.

Obviously, some of the lyrics in the rap-songs are invidiously disgusting (e.g., bitch, Ho', racist-pig and n-gg-, to name a few). However, the inhumane living conditions in the neighborhoods where these lyrics originate and depict are abhorrently far more insidious beyond comparison. It is moral cowardice, to condemn and vilify the rappers for depicting the truth of their experiences. Rappers are REVOLUTIONIST, they accurately speak the truth of their environment and life/living experiences and need not apologize for this in our democratic society.

Further AmeriKans should feel indebted to the gangsta rappers for creating an art form of which has caused a resurgence of urgent outcry, indignation and raised consciousness about the plight of those in the inner-city neighborhoods.

If the detractors of this art form were sincerely concerned, we would work towards changing the conditions of which has birth these lyrics. Instead of simply the critic, seeking the atypical AmeriKan cosmetic-fix of cover-up and attempting to silence the voices of the aggrieved victims, which tells of the violence, ignorance, discrimination and disadvantaged.

To effect silence in the face of our failures and shame is a far worse crime than the effects of gangsta rap music. It would stand diametrically in the face of decency and serve as the epitome of cowardice to ignore the plight of those who rappers depict. A bandage over a cancer-sore; a finger in the crack of a dam; a new paint job over graffiti - be it black or white, it is still a cover-up.

It rapes the intellect and strips away "our" dignity to be told once again, blacks are in need of some additional protection against the negative effects of gangsta rap music.

The AmeriKan people and in particular the New AfriKan people aren't a mindless herd of cattle forever in need of set-asides and censorship to insulate their fragile existence.

In producing a salable - commercial product by rapping about the intolerable conditions they live in, gangsta rappers effectively swing the pendulum of their lives into sync with the rest of AmeriKKK's hedonistic and materialistic society. Is this not "true capitalism"?

Now and only now as commercial artifacts depicting the miseries of some blacks' appalling living conditions enter mainstream white AmeriKan homes, we are finally shocked and offended.

Is it not abject hypocrisy that National Black Leadership fears gangsta rap music may do what all the centuries of AmeriKKKa's cruelties and atrocities have been unable to do... To shame us before the world for the despicable conditions under which we have all so passively submitted to and even worse, we have cowardly allowed our most vulnerable, weak and disadvantaged to live under.

The middle-class petit bourgeois mindset that music shall return to what it was. Reestablishing an artistic status-quo will allow "them" to go back into hibernation to procrastinate over what to do until they become too old and senile to ponder the issues. Cowardly opposing the forcing hands of gangsta rappers, they've opted to advocate censuring the message-bearers. While the old guard still dreams of a 1960s-style civil rights solution. When in the 21st century it is human rights that need to be fought for, with both eyes open and alert.

After decades of civil rights failures, abuses, festering neglect, gangsta rap is an eleventh-hour outcry of desperation, chiming like a death-knell over an entire generation. Gangsta rap is more than a pressure release, it is a reflection of the horrendous suffering, pain and frustration of an oppressed and impoverished people. If art reflects life, then why aren't these National Black Leaders more outraged about where the source of this art exist than the words exposing these horrible conditions?

Is the strain of honesty - so great that these leaders are unempowered to admit their failures? "We" must learn to be truthful to ourselves and admit our strategies of going along to get along in hopes that racist whites will one day grow a conscience and evolve into morally decent human beings has failed, miserably so and is heavily laden with naivety.

The (N.B.L.) should publicly confess and admit "We don't have a clue" and then resign from whatever office in which is being held, of which is simply not the way of AmeriKan politics; since honesty and moral decency has never been a prerequisite or political virtue.

We need hardly wonder why in "their" visceral anger and frustration, rappers ragingly demean and promote violence towards the police, their own race and women in particular. It is the pecking-order of majority-oppressing-minority; strong-oppressing-weak; and weak-oppressing-weaker, the domino theory. Brutality can neutralize the psyche, it can be subjugated, indoctrinate and coerced into hating itself. The effects of centuries of religious extensive brainwashing, AmeriKKK's ongoing continuous physical, economical and psychological campaign of fascist/racism has not only deprived and alienated its victims, it has also caused the black victims of these atrocities to engaged into:

RACIAL INTRAVICTIMIZATION

We are one people, one humanity and at some point in our psycho-evolutionary growth if we are to continue to evolve, we will have to come to terms with our interdependent and inter-responsibility to each other and accept that there aren't any painless bargain-basement cures for centuries of gross indifference, neglect and domestic war crimes! In the name of sanity and humanity, how could WE have stood idly by and allowed untold atrocities and abuse of any one group by the dominant group without expecting exactly what we're NOW experiencing today in the urban black neighbors. (E.G., epidemic of chronic alcoholism, drug addiction, promiscuity, disproportionate single parenting, domestic violence, dysfunctional families, mental illness; truancy, juvenile delinquency, high unemployment and the list is near endless). The N.B.L., Uncle Toms and zealot pseudo-religious fanatics' answer to the plight of our people's life and death struggles is: Be a better victim, suffer in silence, have dignity and learn self-respect in the face of death, abuse, racial oppression and genocide. Many, if not most are offended by naked truth, not euphemized. There are those who choose to pretend that these conditions don't exist, in order to allow them to go back to their places of worship (hypocrisy) in their fineries and pray to their gods to be saved and taken away from here (Earth) to heaven. Rappers are disturbing and do not fit into the pseudo-standards of old AfriKan-AmeriKan respectability (of which at best is no more than a survival, second-class citizenship in AmeriKKKa).

Nevertheless, these same injustices in the natural order of things will inevitably be visited upon us all. Instead of censuring the messenger for creating a survival art form out of an "urgent alarm", we need to be up-in-arms in opposition to the conditions this art form is reflecting.

When the National White Leadership complained about gangsta rap music it was ignored and discounted as racist. Similarly, now the National Black Leadership condemns and advocates censorship of gangsta rap music, it is still racist.

COMMENTARY (1): There are those who'd say that this is just blaming racist whites for "our" lack of discipline, perseverance and failings. The question is not what isn't, rather what is - is it not the failure of blacks in AmeriKa due to the WAR CRIMES perpetuated by racist whites against blacks in the public and private sector? There is no buts, this isn't a trick question, it is simply a yes or no answer? Twenty-first century Gangsta Rappers are Revolutionist and have renounce the Uncle Tom, age-old survival strategy of being a better victim, a respectable, dignified black with a stiff upper lip, the good little soldier in the face of unrelenting, overwhelming racism. Other in chorus would chime that even if that being so, Rappers are a self-serving, self-destructive, having a negative influence on the young and others, promoting violence, criminality as a reactive/response to racial oppression as a means to an end, an end that will most assuredly result in drug addiction, prison, broken lives and even their death - causing even more pain and grief to the black communities in particular. Moreover, the exploitation of women, expletive sexist slurs against women in rappers' songs - is an unconscionable, unprovoked, irremissible attack against women and therefore inexorable unacceptable.

Your point is deservingly well taken and you speak the truth - unfortunately, so do the rappers. Gangsta rappers are in a capitalist business (who many say is harmful), not unlike over half the businesses in this, the greatest of all: Fascist/imperialist, hedonist, greedy/selfish AmeriKKKa - from the alcohol, tobacco, automotive industry, nuclear waste, environmental destruction/pollution industries, all deadly to people and the environment and far more harmful than gangsta rap music. The issue then becomes Truth v. The Greater Truth and not Right v. Wrong. You would dispense with negative truth and promulgate only the positive truth of silence of which is a lie and thus your in denial must fail. Ultimately the human experience is only one truth and that is which is... Very simply you would ask the gangsta rappers to sacrifice the fruits of their harmful capitalist greed in the name of racial unity, womanhood and morality. Yet, neither you nor corporative white AmeriKa is willing or have any intentions of sacrificing the fruits of their deadly capitalist greed in the name of womanhood, decency or for the betterment of humanity. You cannot have it both ways. If you want women to be respected and honored then STOP racism, the rape of the environment and the exploitation of the lives and health of all - only a braindead religious be(LIE)ver would accept the precept of "Do as I say and not as you see me do." Those days of ignorant, darkness and blindly following are gone.

All that rappers say and do is alive, well and happening, not in the studios, but in most black neighborhood (and others) - every day. Your moral outrage, venom and indignation is ill-served directed at the message of paid performers, actors and the likes. You are either cowardly, lazy or your energies are misguided. Women, black women in particular are in real danger and even more pointed: Black men are on the endangered species list, being victimized and murdered in most AmeriKan neighborhoods as we speak and very likely in your neighborhood. You and those who oppose rap music need put aside your shame and guilt and gather up the strength and spinal courage to return to those perilous neighborhoods in question and take your fight where the battle is. Stop your foolishness, you cannot win a battle of censorship against entertainers and their artifacts.

They, not unlike most AmeriKans are in the service of the capitalist god, supply and demand and unless the demand stops the supply will not. Discipline is a two-way street and to demand that the seller/producers of rap music have more discipline than the consumer - is a puerile precept.

Stop chasing the symptoms of the cancer and go to its root cause: White racism. It is rightfully said that blacks in AmeriKa have no stomach for war - obviously since blacks have never declared war against racist AmeriKKKa. Is that the reason why "we" blacks are so cowardly silent about the violence, repression, oppression and disparity in our neighborhoods and choose to make war against entertainers and actors, who refuse to be silenced - who are exposing us before the world.

Rappers will continue to profit and rap about the appalling (negative) truth in black neighborhoods in which many of us live in - until "we" grow the guts to change those despicable conditions in our neighborhoods. And then, once again art will reflect life, reflecting those (positive) revolutionary changes in our neighborhoods to rap about - and you will be instantly and pleasantly surprised at the encouraging, life-affirming, pro-black message of rappers.