Critical Investigation Task #2

Critical Investigation Task #2

Academic research and bibliography

Book- ‘Black Demons: The deception Of The African American Male Criminal Stereotype’

"The news media, for example, have taken the lead in equating young African American males with aggressiveness, lawlessness, and violence.”

“Likewise, the entertainment media have eagerly taken their cue from the journalist, and these false images not only affect race relations but also create achievement can be predetermined for them by suggestions in the media.” 

“It is interesting that, as a group, whites have managed to escape being associated with crime.” 

“Each year, whites account for almost seventy percent of the total arrests, and today they compromise about forty percent of the prison population.” 

“I was told that all back men were inherently aggressive and violent”

“Many fulfill white American’s image of them legitimately by becoming successful gangsta rappers; others fulfill this image illegitimately by becoming 

‘baaad-ass niggers’ Rappers therefore reinforce the popular belief that as ‘baaad-ass niggers’ young blacks can achieve fame, a recognition and a sense of being (somebody). If they lose however they face a long stay in our jails and prisons or even bodily injury and death.”

“Studies indicate that African American teenagers are aware that they are stigmatized as being intellectually inferior and that they go to school bearing what psychologist Claude Steele has called a ‘burden of suspicion’.  Such a burden can affect their attitudes and achievement.” –

Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority

“The genesis of all these attitudes can be traced to American slavery. It was in America, in the ‘Land of the Free’ that Africans were chained and branded, both physically and psychologically, as subhuman beasts.”

“Blacks, who’ve been conditioned to expect less from people who look like themselves, automatically insert these high profile black achievers into the ‘exceptional expectation’ file.”

“Regardless of our individual social, economic, or media success, it has not affected the black bottom line.”

“Therefore, though black progress is more visible today than ever before, I maintain that the unwritten, audacious promotion of white superiority and black inferiority was (and still is) the most effective and successful marketing/propaganda campaign in the history of the world.”

“African Americans, no matter how savvy, educated, or finically privileged, could not completely avoid the conditioning that resulted from the increasingly sophisticated bombardment of subtle and not-so-subtle messages created to reinforce how different and inherently inferior blacks are when compared to whites.”

“Although Jews, like blacks, suffered under a deadly campaign of propaganda and brainwashing, the effort doesn’t seem to have hampered their long term cultural evolution or caused stifling psychological impairment.”

Book- Suspicion Nation (Trayvon Martin)

“Historian David Levering summarizes it:  “Whites commit crimes but blacks are criminals.” While whites can and do commit a great deal of minor and major crimes, the race as a whole is never tainted by those acts.  But when blacks violate the law, all members of the race are considered suspect.”

“Remember Zimmerman’s false syllogism? A few blacks committed burglary, Trayvon was black, therefore Trayvon was a criminal.  Similar logic is used daily in the assumptions police and citizens make about African Americans, especially young males.”

“The archetype is so prevalent that the majority of whites and African Americans agreed with the statement “blacks are aggressive or violent” in national survey.”

 “In support of these findings, other research indicates that the public generally associates violent street crime with African Americans.”

“Other nationwide research has shown that the public perceives that blacks are involved in a greater percentage of violent crime than official statistics indicate they actually are.”

“The standard assumption that criminals are black and blacks are criminals is so prevalent that in one study, 60 percent of viewers who viewed a crime story with no picture of the perpetrator falsely recalled seeing one, and of those, 70 percent believed he was African American. When we think about crime, we “see black,” even when it’s not present at all.”

“In contrast, white slavers, who should have been the real criminals, imprisoned African Americans on their plantations, forcing them to live short, harsh lives in extreme poverty, working without any compensation, constantly subjecting them to regular beatings and threats of violence.”

“Rampage killers are often in the news.  Nearly every one who has murdered a large number of people in one horrific event has been white.  American bomber Timothy McVeigh took 168 lives at the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, many of them preschoolers at day care, in the worst incident of domestic terrorism until 9/11”

“Yet even though these shocking events generate round-the-clock media attention for days or weeks afterwards, that level of attention does not scare anyone away from white men…Every American presidential assassin – the killers of presidents Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy -- has been white, as was the killer of JFK’s assassin, and the murderers of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.  Ronald Reagan’s attempted assassin was white, and so were all those who made attempts on the lives of presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Gerald Ford (Ford’s two attempted killers diverged not on racial but on gender lines, as both were white women).”

Book-The Black Male Handbook” A Blueprint For Life

“I had grown up fatherless, reared by a poor young black woman in Jersey City. My concept of manhood, of black manhood specifically, had been shaped by the absent dad and the destructive images I saw all about me: street hustlers, thieves, pimps, numbers runners, drug dealers, and bootleg preachers who seemed to have more interest in our meagre earnings than our souls”

“For sure, hiphop both saved and changed my life, on so many levels: I have been deeply immersed in hiphop since I was a preteen”

“So, as a black male, it has been profound and deeply traumatizing to watch the deterioration of hiphop music beginning in the mid-1990s, all for the sake of profit; to be there in Las Vegas when Tupac’s death was announced; to be doubly shaken when, less than a year later, the Notorious B.I.G was also mysteriously murdered.”

Book-Gangster Rap and its social cost: Exploiting hiphop and using racial stereotypes to entertain America

“Other observers have asserted that hip hop is the result of young people’s being locked out of the American economic mainstream.”

“The belief that one’s actions are more important than one’s words originated in the gang peace dialogue and became a core value of hip hop.”

“Hip hop was not intended to be an ideology, nor did its founders want the movement to assume an intellectualized position. Another core value that emerged from the dialogue between gangs was that a person should not criticize a rival.”

“Using spray paint to tag space was imitation for these young people of what they had seen all their lives.”

“What has largely been ignored among hip hop scholars is the relation between rap and hip hop at this very important transition point.”

Book- Politics in Rap

“Upon mention that Eminem was white, Dr. Dre famously remarked, “I don’t care if he’s purple, as long as he can rap.” His defense of Eminem’s ability in light of his race is notable: Hip-hop, a predominantly African American genre with ever-increasing nationwide popularity, presents a valuable opportunity to examine how racial tension still manifests itself.”

“From its origin in the South Bronx of the early 1970s, hip-hop represented an expression of rebellion and discontent”

 “Yet, Bradley argues that the entrance of hip-hop into the “marketplace of ideas and style” also created the opportunity for artists who did not encompass that stereotypical background to “pick up the pen.””

“The hip-hop industry has been forced to adapt to the tastes of a wealthy, white population of fans that adore its music by creating music characterized by carefully enunciated flow, catchy beats, and relatable stories. Ever since the industry acknowledged in 1991 that white, suburban teenagers consume 80 percent of all hip-hop, mainstream rap culture’s emphasis on characteristics appealing to white men has resulted in slow gentrification.”

“A study done by the Prevention Research Center of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation found a correlation between listening to hip-hop and alcoholism and violence.” 

“Hip-hop no longer speaks exclusively to the marginalized populations within the United States. The genre is now not solely about expressing discontent or serving as a mouthpiece for the powerless.”

“But hip-hop can potentially serve as a model for minimizing the impact of race and removing discrimination. Certainly, it is better than no model at all: No racial divide will be bridged by pushing uncomfortable subjects to the periphery of discourse. We are not colorblind.”

Does Hip-Hop Drive Negative Stereotypes of Black Men?

“Image plays a big role in media—so big, in fact, that those stereotypical depictions may have created a stigma for all black men, suggested panelists at a recent Morgan conference.”

“But one question perists: do black men incriminate themselves into stereotypes or are these images the only ones available for black men to step into?”

“In the 1970’s hip-hop became a means for blacks, “in the struggle,” to express themselves and tell a story about their lives in order to relate to people like them. But the victory of rap was doused by the crack epidemic. When drug dealers begin to rap, the two “professions” became forever entwined—and black men have been associated with that image ever since.”

“Kanye West described it best with his “Heard Em Say” lyrics, explaining how drug dealers are viewed in his hometown of Chicago: “Where I’m from, the dope boys is the rock stars, but they can’t cop cars without seeing cop cars, I guess they want us all behind bars.””

“Drug use continues to inform the music of mainstream rap artists. Their lyrics often tell listeners how they have sold drugs, served jail time and used violence as a means to overcome obstacles. It has also become common for rappers to brag about the number of women they’ve slept with and could sleep with, by sexualizing their bodies in music videos. Rappers wear “chains” and drive expensive cars, while using catchy beats and explicit language to express it all.”

“Some rappers like NWA have used songs like, “F**k the Police”, to express police brutality.”

“Young black fans gravitate towards the images placed in the media by the hip-hop lifestyle whether it is the sex, the drug use or distribution, the shiny jewelry or the expensive clothing. For that reason when blacks see their favorite rapper associated with a particular brand or way of life, they are more inclined to buy a certain items or act certain ways in order to be a part of that same lifestyle.”

“Social media could be a great solution to solving a huge question, why do black men matter? The image of black men in the media wasn’t tarnished overnight and it will take work from within the African American community to create a new and improved image, panelists asserted.”

Book- The impact of rap and hiphop music on American youth

“It is from Big Pun’s “Brave In the Heart” lyrics that affect the minds of young Americans by telling them that they must use violence in order to win or survive.”

“Ever since the rise of rap and hip-hop music, teens have been turning to them to help solve their problems. However, these kinds of music can be very destructive to teens. It is not the youth’s fault, it is the content that the music contains”

“In a recent experiment, 700 fifteen- year- olds were exposed to rap music. One third listened to sexually explicit lyrics, and two thirds listened to degrading lyrics about sex. After the experiment, each fifteen year old was asked about their sexual thoughts. Almost all of their responses had something to do with sex (Degrading). The results of this experiment are very alarming because they show how much rap and hip-hop music is affecting American youth.”

“American youth are a target towards the marketers of rap and hip-hop. They are always influenced by the media and still trying to find their identity.”

“Equally important, the effects of rap and hip-hop music on American youth can be positive, yet can be very destructive. On the positive side, they can make a person feel good about who they are. They may not live a good life, but they can relate to the lyrics in the song.”

The Socialist’s Journal: The Effects of Rap Music

“Rap music is different from other kinds of music. Stylistically it is distinct from all other vocal music in that the artists are speaking rather than singing the words to the songs. That is the surface difference though.”

“Why does any of this matter? Because while rap music has always had a passionate fan base from its beginnings in the 1970s through the early 1990s. Now in 2013 rap music has grown into one of the dominant and most popular types of music in the world. It is the music of choice for youth in the United States. As such it is shaping the way future generations view the world around them.”

“I don’t believe that anyone fell in love because they listened to a Stevie Wonder song, rather their feeling were reinforced by the music. Similarly rap music doesn’t make anyone selfish but it does help to legitimize one’s desires and the efforts to fulfill those desires.”

Hip Hop matters: politics, pop culture, and the struggle for the soul of a movement

“Significantly, the event was arranged because there was a genuine fear that the already violent feud between Ja Rule and his chief nemesis, superstar rapper 50 cent, was spiralling toward another hip hop tragedy.”

“The ‘sensitive thug’ moniker he earned was an oxymoron in the coarse world of corporate rap music. But while the kinder and gentler thug-life persona Ja Rule concocted had increased his record sales, it also opened him up to charges that he was not ‘street’ enough”

“His life as a petty drug dealer, the death of his crack-addicted mother, and his miraculous survival of nine bullets formed a classic ghetto tale that put him on the pop map.”

“The embrace of guns, gangsterism, and ghetto authenticity brought an aura of celebrity and glamour to the grim yet fabulously hyped portraits of ghetto life.”

“During the broadcast Ja Rule told Farrakhan, ‘They want you to stay hood’. But the pressure to stay hood had severe costs; namely, the devotion to the thug life that ran counter to hip hop’s claim that it represents the voices and experiences of generation of marginal youths.”

Hip-Hop revolution: The culture and politics of rap

“The popular fixation of black people as criminal, lazy, witless miscreants in American popular culture has been well documented.”

“It is not uncommon to see black actors in roles as varied as medical doctors, judges, street thugs, or even president of the United States.”

“Hip-hop has been an ever dynamic force with potential for social change, for better or for worse. The question, however, is the degree and the nature of that influence.”

“There was no denying the influence of hip-hop on that spring day in America’s heartland. But my imaging a reconfigured scene without hip hop brought the same hot-headed youth to mind, only in a different cultural display.”

“In fact, under the administration of President George W. Bush, increases in subversive expressions are common among the most mainstream of artists, including Jay-Z, Eminem, Ludacris, Kanye West, and Lil’ Wayne, all of whom have criticized the bush administration for the war in Iraq, the handling of Hurricane Katrina victims, and other Issues. These sorts of political expressions are uncommon among mainstream R&B and pop musicians whose format typically encompasses love ballads and festive tracks.”