Choose one of the below for your main post. Respond to at least one student who answered a different question from you. The answers should come from your textbook, the book of primary source documents, the assigned website, the lecture, videos, and the research you conducted in the APUS Library. Respond as many times as you wish. Your two best responses will be graded. The initial post with well referenced facts is due by Wednesday, 11:55 p.m. ET and 2 peer responses are due by Friday, 11:55 p.m. ET. Do not search on the Internet.
Jessica McKenna
Good day,
Hip-Hop can be described as something more than just a style or genre of music, it is a movement from an impoverished and underprivileged culture that took the world by storm. This culture was a way for Latinos and African Americans who were born after the Black Power period and civil rights, to express how they felt about the contemporary society and its nature. Amistad Digital Resource: Hip Hop (2022) said Hip-Hop was created in the context of high unemployment, a drug epidemic in inner cities, and poverty. Rap was the means by which that generation as able to have a voice about the critique from mainstream society. This type of music speaks to people and breaks down racial barriers as it touches the lives of different races, cultures, ways of life, and age. For the youth it is a source to be creative and industrial, it is a movement that is committed to defying the political and cultural mainstream (Ma, 2011).
Rap became a part of this Hip-Hop culture and one group that stood out to me is the Grandmaster Flash which critiqued poverty, police brutality, contemporary racism, and drug use (Kelley & Lewis, 2005). Hip-hop was way to incorporate other genres such as jazz, heavy metal, Jamaican reggae, and even punk rock. There was a disinterest in Hip-Hop which allowed for control of it by African Americans, eventually movie producers and advertisers saw the money that could be made and it became something needed (Kelley & Lewis, 2005). This has been an empowering way for African Americans to break the norm as it drew in so many and opened their eyes to the talent and benefit of this group of people. This culture of hip hop did not just focus on music but encompassed graffiti, break dancing, deejaying, and rap (Amistad Digital Resource: Hip Hop, 2022). When hip hop exploded, they called it “breaksploitation” which is when it was usurped in movies and marketing campaigns, it brought in lots of money but there was a reinforcement of negative stereotypes involved (Ma, 2011). As with all things new there is good and bad reviews there is a certain image in some hip hop that is negative but in a lot of instances it was used to express what otherwise could not be. I enjoy a lot of the hip hop culture and my husband actually does some work with music which he loves and has helped me see different genres and experiences. I am grateful for the sacrifices and the willingness to step up and be different that those in that era stood for so that my husband has the freedom to do what he loves.
Bibliography
“Amistad Digital Resource: Hip Hop”. 2022. Amistadresource.Org.
https://www.amistadresource.org/the_future_in_the_present/hip_hop.html.
Kelley, Robin D. G., and Lewis, Earl, eds. 2005. To Make Our World Anew: Volume II: a History of
African Americans Since 1880. Cary: Oxford University Press USA – OSO. Accessed
February 16, 2022. ProQuest Ebook Central.
Ma, David. 2011. “Hip-Hop 101: A University Level Course Curriculum for Examining Hip-Hop in
the Modern World.” Order No. 1488133, San Jose State University.
https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/hip-hop-101-university-level-course-
curriculum/docview/848931731/se-2?accountid=8289.
Response –
Kokou Koffigan
The Million Man March (MMM), initiated by Louis Farrakhan, and the March on Washington, launched by Dr. Martin Luther King, both aim to improve the quality of life for black African Americans.
In 1963, more than 300,000 people of all races gathered on Washington’s Mall to hear King’s speech. The goal of King’s march was to denounce physical racial segregation as well as economic inferiority and instructional racism. It was the first to receive extensive coverage in the electronic media. The marchers gathered at the Lincoln Memorial after successfully pressuring President John F. Kennedy’s administration to introduce a strong civil rights bill in Congress. The March on Washington not only influenced the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, but it also galvanized public opinion. At this peaceful demonstration, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic and famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
In 1995, over one million African and American people gathered to hear Louis Farrakhan deliver his speech. The march was intended to be a day of atonement and reconciliation and was focused solely on physical segregation. The majority of march participants were middle-class, elderly, and more educated than black men in general. The MMM will power the mass voter registration drive as well as the African American economic development fund.
The Million Man March was erased from history for a variety of reasons. Farrakhan has been accused of anti-Semitism and racism. He has also criticized some aspects of the Jewish leadership as well as some of the Jewish leadership’s policies. He made disparaging remarks about Christians, Muslims, and the civil rights movement. For example, he stated that Hitler was a great man and that Judaism was a filthy religion (Julian Beltrame, 1995). There are some questions that were raised by the Defamation League: “What if a white supremacist called for a march on Washington? If this happened, no matter what the cause, no matter how legitimate the issue, no one could ignore the fact that a hatemonger was the driving force behind the march (Julian Beltrame, 1995). All of this demonstrated how different people’s perceptions were about the later March.