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"One guy, who will remain nameless jumps up and says that Hip Hop is not a “Black thing”. This is more than disgusting because he is an African American. We go back and forth on this point (which is so sad really). I explain that Kool Herc (Black man), Grand Wizard Theodore (Black man), Afrika Bambataa (CLEARLY a Black man) Jo-jo (Black man), the Nigga Twins (you guessed it, still Black) and countless other African Americans were at the roots of all the elements REGARDLESS of who else got involved later."
This is messed up!!! Brotha on some multi-cultural shit. Check out this article from www.conscioushiphop.com
SLAVES TO MULTICULTURALISM? by prodigal child
http://www.conscioushiphop.com/html/articles/multiculturalism.html
I spent this past Labor Day weekend at an African Arts & Culture fest on Chicago's Southside. It was 4 days of African and African-American culture — politics, music, dance, clothes, worship, food, art... It was peace 'n' luv like I hadn't seen in a long, long minute. Every tongue of the Diaspora was there — West Indies, Africans, Caribbean Islanders, southern black folk, you name it. It was 4 days of dialoging and sharing of our own cultural fruits with each other. The luv was thicker than the Shea Butter the cats from Mali were selling. It felt like family. But it also got me thinking about multiculturalism and hiphop.
Is the movement that's forcing black folks to embrace multiculturalism actually sacrificing black folks' culture?
You can't turn on the TV or open a book without hearing someone tout multiculturalism. There's multicultural stars like Tiger "Don't call me Black" Woods and Vin "All Of The Above" Diesel. MTV is eating big-time off the multiculti plate — even though they wouldn't play black artists at all in the early 80s. Clubs and radio station formats are multiculti. Fashion is multiculti. The whole world is turning beige.
I peeped a recent Donahue interview with Russell Simmons. Big Rush said whites and non-blacks purchase 80% of all hiphop albums. 80 percent. Add into the mix that some 40% of all hiphop gear like Russell's Phatfarm gear and Diddy's Sean John and Jigga's Rocawear threads. Combine that with the fact that black music (i.e. hiphop, soul, blues, R&B, gospel) black art, black fashion and black entertainment is run by primarily white-owned multinational conglomerates (i.e. Viacom, Universal, Sony, Nike, Disney, etc.) and you have the dynamic of a mostly white consumer-base dictating black culture to white manufacturers and marketers. That's "them" to talking to "them" about what they accept from "us".
I hit a few reggae spots recently and two-thirds of the crowd was Asian and white kids rockin' dreadlocks, drinkin' red stripes and doing their Bob Marley impression. I see the same deal in hiphop, jazz and blues spots all over the world. Remember rock 'n' roll before multiculturalism got hold of it? When black folks were creating it, rock 'n' roll was deamed "race music", "nigger music" and "jungle music". But Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Pat Boone, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Metallica, Aerosmith and friends come along co-opting it and suddenly, rock 'n' roll is white and acceptable. Remember house music before multiculturalism got hold of it? It was black soulful dance music from Detroit and Chicago. Multiculturalism shows up and suddenly house music becomes "techno" and "drum 'n' bass" and very, very white.
If a Japanese kid, a German kid or a White American kid wants to ignore their heritage to go on cultural safari, that's on them. At least they have the comfort of knowing their culture is still in tact. And when little Samantha Suburbs gets bored with having sex with black guys from the 'hood, she'll settle down and go mainstream. When Trevor Mainstream is ready for a career, he'll pull up his pants, lose the backwards baseball cap and go back to his roots, too. Meanwhile their safari jumping "let's go multiculti" leanings are destroying our cultures.
You can't go to Japan and tell Japanese people what their culture is or what it should be. You can't go to Russia or France or Italy and dictate their culture to them. Can't do it to the British, the Irish or the Spanish or the Greeks. Yet, when it comes to the African Diaspora; from America to the islands to the motherland, everyone else wants to dictate blackness to us, participate in blackness and profit from blackness all in the name of multiculturalism.
But black folks don't have the luxury of playing the multiculti game. We have spent the last 500 years piecing together our identity and heritage. We've been fighting a storm of lies, half-truths and disinformation about what we are, where we're from, what we've done and where we're going. Now, on top of all of this we're supposed to let everyone else co-opt our flavor in the name of unity?
But I can't front. I believe in true multiculturalism — it's a beautiful thing. But what's going on in America is not multiculturalism. Multiculturalism only exists when the cultures that come together are on equal footing. If one culture is respected less, seen as a product/commodity for the rest to control, or viewed as a marketing tool for selling chicken, sneakers, cars and CDs, then it's not multiculturalism — it's cultural colonization. It feels to me like black culture is only accepted when non-blacks get to define it, control it and profit from it.
Multiculturalism seems to be liberal code for "Black culture belongs to us now and we'll define it and use it as we see fit". Culture is the soul of a people. And when you control a people's soul, you control those people. They enslaved us once before. If we're not careful, multiculturalism will be the next set of shackles they throw on us.
FOR QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS, THE WRITER CAN BE CONTACTED AT prodigalchild27@yahoo.com
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