(Okay we knew it was coming...)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2002-10-29-oped-goldblatt_x.htm
10/29/2002 - Updated 12:19 AM ET

Hip-hop's grim undertones
By Mark Goldblatt for USA TODAY

The mainstream media are slowly catching up with the buzz on hip-hop Web sites about a possible connection between John Allen Muhammad, indicted in the Washington-area sniper case, and a virulently racist black group called the Five Percent Nation of Gods and Earths, to which several of today's most popular rap acts have acknowledged longstanding ties.

The Associated Press has reported that notes left at two shooting scenes contain language and symbols associated with the Five Percenters, who splintered off from the Nation of Islam (NOI) in 1964 and consider themselves a culture, not a faith. Muhammad was once a NOI member, but the FBI declined to comment on any connection between the sniper's notes and the Five Percenters, whose leaders also did not comment. If the connection is proved true, however, the repercussions will be felt throughout an element of the hip-hop community that already is rife with suspicion and animosity toward white society.

The group's philosophy rejects most accepted authority and history. It teaches that 85% of people are ignorant followers and another 10% try to lead those ignorant masses to enrich themselves. The enlightened Five Percent who remain have true knowledge and must wage war against the 10% for control. The details of what the Five Percenters believe and how they act on those beliefs are disputed. Some in law enforcement deem the group a racist gang. South Carolina's prison system has rated all Five Percenter prisoners security threats.

Black male Five Percenters are "Gods" and will refer to themselves as God. One letter from the sniper contained the demand that police call the author "God" and a stock Five Percenter phrase, "word is bond," along with five stars, also used by the group. A tarot card left at another shooting stated, "I am God."

'Open season'

As the Anti-Defamation League and a few scholars have noted, Five Percenter theory stands behind the apocalyptic visions of race war expressed in the rap music of some of the more influential hip-hop performers. In Goin Bananas, Da Lench Mob raps: "We're having thoughts of overthrowing the government. .. it's open season on crackers, you know; the morgue will be full of Caucasian John Does. .. oh my god, Allah, have mercy; I'm killing them devils because they're not worthy to walk the earth with the original black man I won't rest until they're all dead."

Sunz of Man, an offshoot group of the wildly popular Wu-Tang Clan, repeats similar ideas in the song Can I See You : "Camouflaged for the mission; use your third eye to see the Israelite; detect those who tell lies carry .45s in these last days and times I was born to survive a soldier, and I strive, with a duty to civilize these 85s an original black man with a plan to run these devils off our land; now listen real close while I explain the operation."

A rap by the group Brand Nubian is even less subtle: "It's all about brothers rising up, wising up, sizing up a situation, but getting fit within the Nation I sing sounds of math on behalf of the Gods and the Earths now face your maker and take your last breath; the time is half past death."

Wide influence

These acts' appeal is largely limited to hard-core hip-hop fans, but even artists who've crossed over to mainstream audiences and whose videos turn up regularly on MTV, such as rappers Busta Rhymes, Rakim and Nas, have flirted with Five Percenter concepts. What's unnerving is that these acts are not only among the most critically acclaimed hip-hop stars, but they are acclaimed precisely because they're considered the most politically sophisticated rappers.

The question, of course, isn't whether hip-hop performers have a constitutional right to express crazy, or even racially incendiary, ideas. Clearly, they do. The question is to what degree their fans are taking them seriously as they try literally to drum an us-against-them mind-set into young black people.

Pubic Enemy's Chuck D., the first overtly political rapper, once called hip-hop "the black CNN." It will be a terrible development if it turns out that John Allen Muhammad was tuning in for the news.

Mark Goldblatt, the author of Africa Speaks, a satire of hip-hop culture, lives in New York.

wow. that's hilarious. next thing you know they'll link hip hop to Al-Qaeda and MC Bin Laden....

Seriously though, I don't know enough about the 5%ers to really say much on this topic. I always doubt stuff like this, especially when they quote Brand Nubian and the Lench Mob's lyrics (since neither of them has put anything out that people would have heard in the last 5 years anyways). I guess if it's true that hip-hop is influencing this kind of behavior then we should be thankful that Nelly and Ja-Rule aren't more "politically minded" or imagine the chaos!!?!?!

My questions:
1) are the 5 stars a sign of the 5%er group?
2) is anyone affiliated with this group to help shed some insight into the very strong claims that they are racist and promoting violence against others
3) since when does calling someone "God" or "word is bond" indicate that they are members? is this true?

i'm ignorant in this one, but would love some education....

that sniper was a really sad thing. but what's even worse is the conjecture with which this guy wrote this article...

interesting post...

used rap to recruit people like you guys on thes board in the early 80's?


Clear Channel backed ONA.

Xenophobia's Report card:

Special Ed:
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Usher's Twix Commercial
Heaven I Need A Hug


Gifted and Talented:
Headphone Masterpiece
------
Barbershop A-
Just Tryin To Live B+
Sea Of Change D-
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Comment Of The Momment:
We're now going to worry
about whether or not
hairstyle terminology is
offensive. Can we possibly
form an activist group to
kickstart the unpussifying of
America? If you truly get
offended by the name of a
hairstyle then either kill
yourself or stomp a
shovelfull of dogshit down
the guy's throat that said it
- do anything but get a
general consensus on whether
or not you should be offended
or how you should act.



www.apple.com/switch

Run along, little bigot.

No that's Punk Rock and the Aryan Nation...
you know, Skin heads.
Not all skin heads though, just to clear that up.

in all of his undertakings? This is today's lesson, very much on point w/this article written, which has no points of establishing a concise connection w/John Muhammad & The NGE...very ambiguously written... In any case

>My questions:
>1) are the 5 stars a sign of the 5%er group?

No...what 5 stars?

>2) is anyone affiliated with this group to help shed some
>insight into the very strong claims that they are racist and
>promoting violence against others

No we are not racist

>3) since when does calling someone "God" or "word is bond"
>indicate that they are members? is this true?

These terminologies are in our lessons...We teach that the Blackman is God.

On this note...I AM giving ALL that I have & ALL within my Power to Live a Righteous Life In The Name Of Allah!

BISMILALLAH-I AM BORN (9) POWER (5) INTELLIGENTLY COMPLETE-PEACE
_________________________________________________________________

“True racism exists only when one group holds a disproportionate share of wealth and power over another group (or groups) then uses those resources to marginalize, exploit, and subordinate Blacks. Whites can deny Blacks employment, educational opportunities, business resources, a place to live & or the right to vote. Therefore, according to this definition, Black people cannot be racist. No group of Blacks has the power or the exclusive control of resources to the degree that they can educationally, politically, economically and socially exploit and marginalize the white race.” – Dr. Claud Anderson

>in all of his undertakings? This is today's lesson, very
>much on point w/this article written, which has no points of
>establishing a concise connection w/John Muhammad & The
>NGE...very ambiguously written...

well, that was my problem with the article...journalism today is a very funny craft. you can string a fact or two together with a bunch of conjecture, opinion and hearsay and reach a national (and often) international audience as a representative of the "American Public"...this guy does not speak for me, i do not operate in fear like that.

>>My questions:
>>1) are the 5 stars a sign of the 5%er group?
>
>No...what 5 stars?

The article mentions that one of the notes left at one of the sniper's crime scenes said "I am God" and had 5 stars, which the article claims to be a symbol of the NGE (did i state the name of the group correctly)?

>>2) is anyone affiliated with this group to help shed some
>>insight into the very strong claims that they are racist and
>>promoting violence against others
>
>No we are not racist
>
>>3) since when does calling someone "God" or "word is bond"
>>indicate that they are members? is this true?
>
>These terminologies are in our lessons...We teach that the
>Blackman is God.

were those terminologies generated by your lessons? so all of the references that i've heard in hip hop like "word is bond", which has been a part of hip hop culture practically since inception, are you the originators of these terminologies? can you provide some background?

do you teach that only the black man is God? what about the rest of men on earth? (i am black myself, and believe myself to be a physical manifestation of God, but not because i am black)....

>On this note...I AM giving ALL that I have & ALL within my
>Power to Live a Righteous Life In The Name Of Allah!
>
>BISMILALLAH-I AM BORN (9) POWER (5) INTELLIGENTLY
>COMPLETE-PEACE
>_________________________________________________________________
>
>“True racism exists only when one group holds a
>disproportionate share of wealth and power over another
>group (or groups) then uses those resources to marginalize,
>exploit, and subordinate Blacks. Whites can deny Blacks
>employment, educational opportunities, business resources, a
>place to live & or the right to vote. Therefore, according
>to this definition, Black people cannot be racist. No group
>of Blacks has the power or the exclusive control of
>resources to the degree that they can educationally,
>politically, economically and socially exploit and
>marginalize the white race.” – Dr. Claud Anderson

>
>well, that was my problem with the article...journalism
>today is a very funny craft. you can string a fact or two
>together with a bunch of conjecture, opinion and hearsay and
>reach a national (and often) international audience as a
>representative of the "American Public"...this guy does not
>speak for me, i do not operate in fear like that.
>

Co-sign.

>
>The article mentions that one of the notes left at one of
>the sniper's crime scenes said "I am God" and had 5 stars,
>which the article claims to be a symbol of the NGE (did i
>state the name of the group correctly)?
>
>>>2) is anyone affiliated with this group to help shed some
>>>insight into the very strong claims that they are racist and
>>>promoting violence against others
>>

I don't think they promote violence. Their claim of the black man being "God" could obviously be viewed as racism.. but I think they are non-violent.



>>No we are not racist
>>
>>>3) since when does calling someone "God" or "word is bond"
>>>indicate that they are members? is this true?
>>

A lot of cats (in Hip-Hop and on the street) might say "waddup Gawd" but aren't nessecciliary a 5%er. Like with being a Muslim, I think the 5% has become a trend for a lot of Urban Black males.




>were those terminologies generated by your lessons? so all

No, it is in the Bible and probably used in pre-20th century Literature.

>of the references that i've heard in hip hop like "word is
>bond", which has been a part of hip hop culture practically
>since inception, are you the originators of these
>terminologies?

No, but I think the majority of cats are relating terms like that back to the 5% teachings (whether they fully believe in everything they teach or not).


can you provide some background?
>
>do you teach that only the black man is God? what about the
>rest of men on earth? (i am black myself, and believe myself
>to be a physical manifestation of God, but not because i am
>black)....

The Black man is God to them because they believe the Black man is the "original" man (the first man to evolve into huminoid from apes) and being "white" (having a lack of skin melanin?) is a recessive gene.. which would make the black man (with the dominate gene) the supreme being.. and thus God.

I think this little theory of theirs extends to other non-whites (something to do with Asiatic peoples) but I am not sure.





>
>>On this note...I AM giving ALL that I have & ALL within my
>>Power to Live a Righteous Life In The Name Of Allah!
>>
>>BISMILALLAH-I AM BORN (9) POWER (5) INTELLIGENTLY
>>COMPLETE-PEACE
>>_________________________________________________________________
>>
>>“True racism exists only when one group holds a
>>disproportionate share of wealth and power over another
>>group (or groups) then uses those resources to marginalize,
>>exploit, and subordinate Blacks. Whites can deny Blacks
>>employment, educational opportunities, business resources, a
>>place to live & or the right to vote. Therefore, according
>>to this definition, Black people cannot be racist. No group
>>of Blacks has the power or the exclusive control of
>>resources to the degree that they can educationally,
>>politically, economically and socially exploit and
>>marginalize the white race.” – Dr. Claud Anderson


Peace and Love
-Ren

>The Black man is God to them because they believe the Black
>man is the "original" man (the first man to evolve into
>huminoid from apes) and being "white" (having a lack of skin
>melanin?) is a recessive gene.. which would make the black
>man (with the dominate gene) the supreme being.. and thus
>God.

WHAT?!!?!? Where did you get this from?

>I think this little theory of theirs extends to other
>non-whites (something to do with Asiatic peoples) but I am
>not sure.

Exactly you're not sure, so y r u responding to querries that were/are not intended for you beloved? What you are doing is tantamount to the breeding grounds for distorted views, misconceptualized mythologies, & the perpetuation of propaganda.

On this note...I AM giving ALL that I have & ALL within my Power to Live a Righteous Life In The Name Of Allah!

BISMILALLAH-I AM BORN (9) POWER (5) INTELLIGENTLY COMPLETE-PEACE
_________________________________________________________________

“5% Science demands that the Black Family Master the pro-pensities of Righteousness; to hold error in check w/Truth, to Conquer Ignorance w/intelligence and to Overcome deceit w/probity. This is the “Power” of Universal Thought activating righteously.” - Minister Aleek Jahkim Allah

>Exactly you're not sure, so y r u responding to querries
>that were/are not intended for you beloved? What you are
>doing is tantamount to the breeding grounds for distorted
>views, misconceptualized mythologies, & the perpetuation of
>propaganda.
>

You're right.

The reason I responded was to see your (or Allahs) reaction to how someone else would describe the train of thought which you subscribe to. Cuz I wanted to see if you would respond in a passive way (as in addressing mistakes written and using the same response to answer the original post, thus educating and calmly letting people know the deal) or a confrontational way (personal insults and bigmouthing without any knowledge given to people ignorant of the subject at hand).

Little Okay-gunniea pig experiment.. my fault.





Peace and Love
-Ren

>
>The Black man is God to them because they believe the Black
>man is the "original" man (the first man to evolve into
>huminoid from apes) and being "white" (having a lack of skin
>melanin?) is a recessive gene.. which would make the black
>man (with the dominate gene) the supreme being.. and thus
>God.
>
>I think this little theory of theirs extends to other
>non-whites (something to do with Asiatic peoples) but I am
>not sure.
>
thanks for the 411...

i don't agree, but i understand now...

teaches anything about evolution, and in fact, I dont think they believe in it...and "black" does not just refer to what we think commonly as black, basically, black in the NGE refers to ALL people but caucasians...

call me sentimental, but when
you cum in a women's hair, I
feel you share a certain
bond-david cross

steady puffin' l's and fight
hell like spawn-everlast

aut uh mi hed, things are
different-shuggie otis

I could walk up to the
president and blow smoke in
his stupid monkey face, and
he'd have to sit there
grooving on it-Homer Simpson

Im a reasonable man get off
my case-Thom Yorke

In the year 2000, a stoned
college student will realize
that soy milk, in spanish,
means I am milk.

It's not for you...look, I
like to masterbate in
a closed room while people
are waiting for pie to cool.

black in the NGE refers to ALL people but caucasians...

does that make it better?

we can be civlized or 5%, but not Gods or Earths

call me sentimental, but when
you cum in a women's hair, I
feel you share a certain
bond-david cross

steady puffin' l's and fight
hell like spawn-everlast

aut uh mi hed, things are
different-shuggie otis

I could walk up to the
president and blow smoke in
his stupid monkey face, and
he'd have to sit there
grooving on it-Homer Simpson

Im a reasonable man get off
my case-Thom Yorke

In the year 2000, a stoned
college student will realize
that soy milk, in spanish,
means I am milk.

It's not for you...look, I
like to masterbate in
a closed room while people
are waiting for pie to cool.

Apes come from MAN, not the other way around.

>>in all of his undertakings? This is today's lesson, very
>>much on point w/this article written, which has no points of
>>establishing a concise connection w/John Muhammad & The
>>NGE...very ambiguously written...
>
>well, that was my problem with the article...journalism
>today is a very funny craft. you can string a fact or two
>together with a bunch of conjecture, opinion and hearsay and
>reach a national (and often) international audience as a
>representative of the "American Public"...this guy does not
>speak for me, i do not operate in fear like that.
>
>>>My questions:
>>>1) are the 5 stars a sign of the 5%er group?
>>
>>No...what 5 stars?
>
>The article mentions that one of the notes left at one of
>the sniper's crime scenes said "I am God" and had 5 stars,
>which the article claims to be a symbol of the NGE (did i
>state the name of the group correctly)?
>
>>>2) is anyone affiliated with this group to help shed some
>>>insight into the very strong claims that they are racist and
>>>promoting violence against others
>>
>>No we are not racist
>>
>>>3) since when does calling someone "God" or "word is bond"
>>>indicate that they are members? is this true?
>>
>>These terminologies are in our lessons...We teach that the
>>Blackman is God.
>
>were those terminologies generated by your lessons? so all
>of the references that i've heard in hip hop like "word is
>bond", which has been a part of hip hop culture practically
>since inception, are you the originators of these
>terminologies? can you provide some background?

The reason why you hear such terms as "peace God" or "word is bond" is because a lotta cats from the streets hung around people who were "god body", so it was incorporated into black urban speak(hip-hop lingo). When i was growing up in the mid eighties alotta cats didn't know nothing about the lessons, but they would say peace god or "word is born" (erroneously I might add)

Now if the writer really did his homework, he would know that the 5% lessons were actually questions and answers between Master Fard Muhammad and Elijah Muhammad (founder of the NOI), so basically the writer was being redundant because it's already been written that he was a member of the NOI.

Build on the lesson put forth by Wise

Because the people who were his followers, follow Yacub regardless of what they were told to do. If not, they paid with their lives.
>

"Muhammad was once a NOI member, but the FBI declined to comment on any connection between the sniper's notes and the Five Percenters, whose leaders also did not comment. "

What leaders of nge?

.

That is some serious BS.

Theme Song Of The Moment: Tool - "The Grudge"

"You're running and you're running and you're running away, but you can't run away from yourself" - Robert Nesta Marley

♀¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤♀

You can bet this is not the end of this, not by a long shot.

I actually mentioned the 5% NGE last night in a conservative chat and this lady was like "WHAT? YOU"RE 5%??".

Even though I told her no I wasn't I was still surprised she even knew what it was.

And no, 5% did not originate the phrase "word is bond". It is in the Bible (and probably used in other refrences prior to the NGE's conception). Same with "seed" and some of the other stuff they teach and termonology they use.

Get ready for the government to infiltrate our music.


Hip-Hop.. the next black panther party.



Peace and Love
-Ren

so "five percenters" did originated, but not modern ones like
people in Our Nation. There was "five percenters" before
1930....

>That is some serious BS.
>

What about it is BS? Seems pretty onpoint to me.. except the racist part. But a alot of 5%ers ARE racists.



Peace and Love
-Ren

Apart from the lack of basic journalism requirements (such as actual factual information as opposed to innuendo), the article had no immediate spelling or grammar errors. Sarcasm aside, the writer failed to establish any credible link between the alleged sniper and the NGE, nor did it offer anything concrete on the sniper's actaul belief system. It is basically a fluff piece intended to incite people to dislike NGEs through the alleged sniper association. Moreover, I have personally known (for over a decade) plenty of non-racist, upstanding educated NGEs that do not take drugs and work to eliminate gang activity/violence. Basically, the writer's efforts are fucking horrendous.



Theme Song Of The Moment: Tool - "The Grudge"

"You're running and you're running and you're running away, but you can't run away from yourself" - Robert Nesta Marley

♀¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤♀

True.



>Apart from the lack of basic journalism requirements (such
>as actual factual information as opposed to innuendo), the
>article had no immediate spelling or grammar errors. Sarcasm
>aside, the writer failed to establish any credible link
>between the alleged sniper and the NGE, nor did it offer
>anything concrete on the sniper's actaul belief system. It
>is basically a fluff piece intended to incite people to
>dislike NGEs through the alleged sniper association.
>Moreover, I have personally known (for over a decade) plenty
>of non-racist, upstanding educated NGEs that do not take
>drugs and work to eliminate gang activity/violence.
>Basically, the writer's efforts are fucking horrendous.
>
>
>
>Theme Song Of The Moment: Tool - "The Grudge"
>
>"You're running and you're running and you're running away,
>but you can't run away from yourself" - Robert Nesta Marley
>
>♀¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤♀


Peace and Love
-Ren

ted nugent

What is this writer saying, a lot of music has negative undertones, and talks about revolution. Look at Rage Against the Machine, every other song eluded to a Marxist revolution. I guess the only difference is hip hop is geared toward blacks, who are too dumb to seperate what this listen to from revolution, while white kids who listen to Rage are inteligent enough not to overthrow the government.

If this was a race war, then why did the sniper kill two black men....wasn't a couple weeks ago when the media said that the sniper may have targeting blacks, latinos, etc.....hmmm....

This guy should go on O'Reilly, he'd fit in there. Right between Bill, Brit Hume and some Freepers

they don't have anything, as far as this Nation of Gods and
Earths / sniper connection. Its just some shit to say to make
it seem like they know what is going on.

all things to distract people from the real probelm, military training causes mental problems among some people. Newsweek reported a couple weeks ago that the Pentagon ran a search on their retired or inactive soldiers in the Washington area with some mental probelms and found over 1000 names, they lurk amongst us. This has much more to do with Muhammed's sniper training than the the NOI

April 24, 2002, 8:45 a.m.
On Being Whiteballed
Why my novel is nowhere near your bookstore.
By Mark Goldblatt

Satire, apart from its aesthetic value, has a Darwinian function. In the novel Candide, Voltaire satirized the philosophy of Leibniz — embodied in the character of Dr. Pangloss — and thereby made it harder to maintain the cockeyed theological optimism that skims over human misery and sees only "the best of all possible worlds." Slightly lower on the intellectual food chain, Norman Lear brought a satirical British sitcom called Till Death Do Us Part to America as All in the Family, and thereby it harder thereafter to think and act like the knee-jerk bigot Archie Bunker.

It was the Darwinian function of satire that I had in mind when I wrote a novel, Africa Speaks, which right now is probably not appearing in a bookstore near you. Despite the fact that it was published by a prestigious, literary press. Despite pre-publication reviews that ranged from respectable to downright glowing. So why won't you find Africa Speaks on the shelves of your local bookstore chain?

You be the judge; here's the first paragraph:

A salaam aleichem, in the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate, the one true God. Yo, yo, yo, I'd like to send a shout out to my people, to my kings and queens. You know what I'm saying? My kings and queens. Yo, and a special shout out to my soldiers, my niggas in arms, the One-Forty-Ninth Street Crew — vagina findas, no doubt. Crazy mad dawgs! I got nothing but love for you. Even you, Herc! It's all good. The name's Africa Ali, I'm just 23, and I'm about to drop the four-one-one. Just keeping it real, 'cause that's what I'm all about. Reality to the utmost.

That's right: I satirized African Americans.

When I first approached my literary agent with the idea of a satirical novel, she shrugged; when I told her the topic was hip hop, she begged me not to write it. She said I'd wind up with Al Sharpton picketing my house. I wrote it regardless, whereupon my agent became my ex-agent. Another agent then wanted to represent the book, but she was overruled by her senior partner — who said they'd wind up with Al Sharpton picketing their offices. So I sent the book out myself to one major New York publisher; the editor-in-chief loved it but said he'd never get it past his editorial board. He suggested, however, that I try Permanent Press, a mid-size house based on Long Island — perhaps thinking Sag Harbor was too far from New York City for Al Sharpton to commute.

Permanent Press published it, and, now . . . well, nothing. No new-and-noteworthy mentions. No newspaper or magazine reviews. No bookstore shelf space.

As far as I can tell, I'm being whiteballed.

Which is a shame. Not just for me (though of course for me especially) but for African Americans. For, to return to my original point about the effect of satire, no one nowadays needs to be satirized more than African Americans. If not for the French — who've retired all such trophies — African Americans would currently rank as the most hypocritical, most paranoid, most pretentious group of people on the planet. Quite an accomplishment since, as late as the mid-1960's, their cultural legacy set them on a par with the ancient Israelites. Less that half a century ago, African Americans — like the Jews of the Old Testament — were emerging from centuries of enslavement and subjugation with a culture that was stirring in its resilience, rich in its subtleties and epic in its scope. They were turning out a generation of national heroes like Jackie Robinson and Thurgood Marshall and Rosa Parks — a generation crowned by the towering world figure of Martin Luther King.

And now?

Well . . . look around.

African-American political leaders are, nowadays, with rare exceptions, a ragtag crew of racial arsonists, conspiracy mongers and corporate shakedown artists. Their intellectual leaders are, with rare exceptions, purveyors of absurd mythologies of perpetual victimization — and the exceptions, in this case, are without exception shunned by their own communities. And their artistic leaders, with no exceptions whatsoever, have turned from themes of the persistence and universality of human nature, even in the face of prolonged oppression, to a fetishistic worship of the idea of "blackness" — a connotation for which there is, in reality, no coherent denotation.

The very nadir of this last phenomenon, the black obsession with blackness, is hip hop. Not the bubblegum hip hop of, say, Will Smith or MC Hammer — whose crossover success immediately undermined their credibility among the genre's purists. They just weren't black enough. (By that logic, though, neither were Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.) More representative of hip hop's hardcore is Onyx, a howling, scowling act of the late 1990's, whose leader once bragged:

Onyx comes from black. Onyx is a hard, black stone. We're black twenty-four hours a day, and our music is hard as a motherf*****. That sh** is in coordination with the mad face. The mad face is 'cause motherf*****s ain't happy. The black man is an endangered species nowadays, so we got the motherf***ing mad face.

This is the very essence of hip hop, or at least the most critically-acclaimed and socially relevant strain of hip hop, which is sometimes called "conscious rap." Though it has affinities with the more notorious gangsta rap of Snoop Dogg, Puff Daddy and NWA, gangstas themselves readily concede that conscious rap is the "realist" form of rap — that is, it's truer to the pulse of the streets. And "real" is the gold standard in the hip-hop universe, the value against which black authenticity is gauged.

So what is conscious rap?

Essentially, it's a noxious brew of racist delusions skimmed from the diverse streams of black separatist rhetoric, Afrocentric propagandizing, Nation of Islam theology and a kind of Cliff Notes Marxism. According to conscious rapper Ras Kass, "My whole point at the end of the day is AmeriKKKa was made by white men for white men. . . . This sh — is made for rich elite, by the rich elite. So they can exploit the f*** outta y'all and me. So until we get man enough and educated enough to say, 'Let's just break this sh** off,' we ain't sh**!"

Conscious rap acts such as Brand Nubian and Dead Prez are among the most influential hip hop acts today, following the path blazed by the first conscious rappers, Public Enemy. PE's leader, Chuck D., now an elder statesman of rap and occasional guest on Politically Incorrect, recently assessed the contributions of the deceased, avowedly racist leader of the New Black Panther Party Khalid Mohammed thusly:
<blockquote>We've lost probably one of the most ultimate fighters that we could've had. Because his thing wasn't predicated on making people, white folks, or anybody feel comfortable about us. . . . You gotta have people that fight for you, no matter what. Because the United States got that. It's a place, they say, of land, milk and honey, but let it be known you f*** up, they'll bomb your ass, jail your ass, kill you. </blockquote>

Chuck D.'s former band mate, Professor Griff, who once got himself in hot water for saying Jews were the principal sponsors of the slave trade (noting, in utter seriousness, "Is it a coincidence that Jews run the jewelry business? And that it's named jewelry?") now perceives dire forces at work keeping black people down: "We go from conspiracy to conspiracy. We go from disease to disease. We go from the government experimenting on the people. So I tend to believe that if you're not aware, you tend to get kind of numb to the fact that everything's not peaches and cream."

But awareness of what? The answer is supplied by Dead Prez's M1 (a name), who declared, in an internet interview with African fans, that his band's purpose was "to let everybody know we are one people with one common oppressor. Our oppressor is this capitalist system run by the same people who raped Africa of our resources." Lord Jamar, of Brand Nubian, suggests a straightforward and final solution to the problem of oppression in the rap "Sweatin' Bullets": "These devils make me sick; I love to fill them full of holes; kill them all in the daytime, broad motherf***ing daylight; 12 o'clock, grab the Glock; why wait for night?"

So it goes.

What's significant here is not the fact that hip-hop stars, in their ongoing attempts to "keep it real," are walking around expressing pinheaded, or even racially incendiary, ideas — which of course is their constitutional right — but the impact of such ideas on their fans. The thesis of my novel Africa Speaks is that hip hop instills in young black people a self-destructive us-against-them mindset in which pathological behavior is equated with black authenticity. The novel is an attempt to dramatize the effects of this mindset. It's told in all black voices — the literary equivalent for a white writer of working in blackface — so I'm not going to pull a Salmon Rushdie and claim I had no idea people would be upset by the book. But I thought it was an important project, and I expected it to be noticed.

To be sure, I'm not the first person to point out the stunting tendencies of black culture. Ward Connelly, Thomas Sowell, and John McWhorter have sounded this alarm before — and become pariahs for their efforts. Even New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, whose ritual focus on black victimology is part of the problem, has noted the phenomenon: "Academic achievement, according to this mind-bogglingly destructive way of thinking, was a white thing, and thus in some sense contemptible. The tragic result has been that in many schools across the country black kids who apply themselves to their studies are often ridiculed and at times ostracized." Herbert mentions a Bronx teacher who told him that many of her black students would rather be perp-walked in front of television cameras than be caught with an open textbook.

To that teacher's testimony, I'll add an anecdote of my own about a young black woman — I'll call her Tanisha — who came to my remedial English class several semesters ago with what's now known as an Ebonics problem; she made decent progress for the first half of the term, then began sabotaging her own assignments because — she confessed, in tears, after I handed back her final essay — her "peeps" were telling her that going to college was turning her white.

I wrote Africa Speaks with Tanisha in mind. And I tried to keep it real — in the sense that many of the more grotesque passages are taken directly from conversations I overheard on the streets, or quotes from hip-hop magazines, or rants on public access television. I just strung them together into a narrative. For that reason, however, the book is not for the young or squeamish. It contains graphic language from the first page to the last. That's the nature of the subject matter; it is intended to be a shocking book.

And it is intended to be read — which is the reason I'm writing this.

I hope you'll stamp your feet for it, in a polite way, at your local bookstore.

— Mark Goldblatt teaches at the Fashion Institute of Technology of the State University of New York.

just making sure

>— Mark Goldblatt teaches at the Fashion Institute of
>Technology of the State University of New York.


nuff said...

.

LMAO

The media is always clouding the issue by throwing insinuations and particles of fact into messages that are read and heard around the world. The NGE has all but collapsed under the weight of bling in the Hip Hop world. Now the media is kicking up dust around a few quoted phrases from these letters. The fact remains that there have been no convictions and that those two men are still innocent, even if they are finally convicted by a racist and manipulative judicial system that is fueled by the media and political gravy, they could still be innocent. Have we heard their voices yet? Have they been appointed competent defenders and will they be judged by their PEERS??? I can already tell you the answers...



"You're obliged to pretend respect for people & institutions you think absurd.
You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral & social conventions you
despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent
contradiction between your ideas & desires and all the dead formalities
and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and
unbalanced. In that tolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all
feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain
and check the free play of your powers. That's the poisoned and mortal wound
of the civilized world."

The Torture Garden--Octave Mirbeau

I didnt know that meant you were in the NGE if you said this phrase, and I dont think Intelligently95 and Allah have even used this phrase on the site...and furthermore, just cuz old dude said he was God ("I am God" not the "black man is God") and hes black all of a sudden hes a member? fucking people, Im sick of folks jumping to conclusions and then trying t-fuck it I dont even wanna write it out, yall know this is phukk'd

call me sentimental, but when
you cum in a women's hair, I
feel you share a certain
bond-david cross

steady puffin' l's and fight
hell like spawn-everlast

aut uh mi hed, things are
different-shuggie otis

I could walk up to the
president and blow smoke in
his stupid monkey face, and
he'd have to sit there
grooving on it-Homer Simpson

Im a reasonable man get off
my case-Thom Yorke

In the year 2000, a stoned
college student will realize
that soy milk, in spanish,
means I am milk.

It's not for you...look, I
like to masterbate in
a closed room while people
are waiting for pie to cool.

.

i can't find it in my bookstore, but i've seen it available to order online.

based on what i've read in the two posted editorials, i believe the cat has endeavored to analyze and critique from the outsider's perspective.

frankly, i thought there were a couple of valid points in his writings (notably the talk about caricatures), but i think he's mostly way off-base ('specially when it comes to talk of the nge and racism).

obviously, the cat doesn't understand the experience of walking around in brown (or other) skin. i suppose he might argue that his yiddish roots provide him with enough credibility to articulate the african experience. but that would be akin to an oppression olympics and that's a pissing contest no one wins.

the real shame in this lies with the response from mainstream entities. will they accept his opinion as fact? will there ever come a time when public perception doesn't villify hip hop?

sadly, i think the answer to the former is yes. ever sadder, the latter can be answered no.

I wish Hip-Hop was as big a threat to national security as the media is making it out to be

I wish white america would put pressure on major corparations such as Time Warner until they severed all ties with Hip Hop music

I wish Mark Goldblat, Bill O'rielly, and Paul Nice could walk around in a black skin for a year

I wish rappers like Brand Nubian and Dead Prez were as influential Marc Goldblat seems to think they are

I wish, I wish, I wish

five stars? i must have the wrong flag