Dr. King and Hip-Hop

Living in the South, race is always a touchy subject. I mean, it's a touchy subject everywhere, but I'm living in a state where there are white people who still believe that they are superior to everyone else because of their pasty complexions. Drive through a rural town, and you'll see the Confederate flag more often than the stars and stripes. Others take the "I had nothing to do with all this but I still feel kind of guilty about it and I'm going to try to be as politically correct as possible" approach to the whole issue of race. Still others just poke fun at the whole awkward situation.

I've never seen myself as a racist. I tend to be of the opinion that I'm no better than the next person, and my skin tone really has nothing to do with the matter. Still, like every other person on the planet, I have the tendency to be attracted towards people that look like me, speak like me, and have the same interests as me. I see it as less of a race issue and more of a culture issue.

That being said, I had the opportunity last Monday--Martin Luther King, Jr. Day--to step completely out of my happy-white-middle-class-suburban comfort zone. My mom is the director of an after school program for inner city kids, and I have taken to accompanying them on a lot of their field trips. So, instead of sleeping in on the day off like most Americans, I rolled out of bed and went to see a documentary, Beyond Beats and Rhymes, that was playing at my school with a few of the older kids from my mom's program.

I was uneasy at first. My mother and I were the only white people in the entire lecture hall, and I wasn't sure how the other audience members would feel about our presence there. I'm definitely not used to being in the minority. But once the lights went down, that didn't really matter. We were all just people, watching a documentary.

The documentary itself was extremely interesting. It was a (sometimes harsh) critique of gender roles in the hip-hop culture by Byron Hurt--a filmmaker who knows what he's talking about. And believe me, he picked a daring subject. To look at a culture you like and are a part of and say "Hey, something isn't right" in the way he does is inspiring.

Following the documentary was a panel discussion that revolved around the question "What would Dr. King think about today's hip-hop culture?" Basically, it was decided that today's hip-hop culture, with its love of greed and violence, and with its objectification of women, defies the cause for which Dr. King died. A culture that scorns education and glorifies violence is no where near King's Dream. The audience discussed solutions for these problems with the panels, while I observed.

As I left I found myself wondering, what can I do to help this cause? The easy way out would be to shrug my shoulders and say "It's not my problem. I don't even listen to rap music." And I don't feel like I could go into a culture that is not my own and say "Hey, you guys ought to fix this." I came to the ultimate conclusion to help by working with my mom's program. By encouraging these kids to open their minds to knowledge and understanding, maybe they can find a path in the world that is truly meaningful.