Body piercing and baggy clothes express identity among black youth, and not just beginning with hip-hop culture. Moreover, young black entrepreneurs like Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs and Russell Simmons have made millions from their clothing lines.
Identity has several parts, and the self needs to expand. Black youth should be encouraged to have as many parts or as rich an identity as possible. It's a form of allowing them to be curious about the world.
At the same time, you see in those studies, you see the emergence of various movements among black youth that are really challenging the ideology of neoliberalism since the 1980s.
Hip hop music is important precisely because it sheds light on contemporary politics, history, and race. At its best, hip hop gives voice to marginal black youth we are not used to hearing from on such topics.
New York white youth were killing victims; that was a 'sociological' problem. But when black youth killed somebody, the power structure was looking to hang somebody.
And that the arming of so many black youths, uh, and loading up our community with drugs, and then just having an open shooting gallery, is the work of people who obviously don't have our best interests [at heart].
I am often asked why I started to write poetry. The answer is that my motivation sprang from a visceral need to creatively articulate the experiences of the black youth of my generation, coming of age in a racist society.
We need to eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white.
So, rap has that quality, for youth anyway; it's a kind of blues element. It's physical, almost gymnastic. It speaks to you organically. Rap grows out of what young people really are today, not only black youth, but white - everybody.
I do want to bring up the fact that Hillary Clinton were the one that brought up the words super-predator about young black youth. And that's a term that I think was a - it's - it's been horribly met, as you know. I think she has apologized for it. But I think it was a terrible thing to say.
Leave it up to me while I be livin' proof, To kick the truth to the young black youth.
If I use the media, even with tricks, to publicize a black youth being shot in the back in Teaneck, New Jersey. . . then I should be praised for it, and it's more of a comment on them than me that it would take tricks to make them cover the loss of life.
What good does it do a black youth to know that an employer must pay him $2 an hour if the fact that he must be paid that amount is what keeps him from getting a job?
