Blackosphere

Yeah, I watched Oprah...This ain't about poetry, hip hop...or censorship!

I am a poet, and I took exception to Russell Simmons donning the breastplate of artistry, while standing on his righteous indignation over censoring said artistry to defend and legitimize the output of various rap performers. (I refuse to give many of them the dignity of being called poets much less artists.) His naming, those who write and perform rap music as poets, without making distinctions regarding the type of rap music they perform was circumspect, best case scenario, or worse case scenario, duplicitous.

As far as I'm concerned, all rap is not created equal, and Hip Hop is not the commodity mass produced and blasted on radio and television stations. Hip Hop depicts a culture of consciousness one that observes, analyzes and reflects the world in which it exists. It seeks to educate and uplift, to offer criticism and critique, to mobilize its listeners to pursue positive change, both inwardly and outwardly. Sometimes, Hip Hop is just plain fun. Hip Hop lives mostly off the screen of mainstream entertainment, creating the occasional blip--Common....Mos Def...Eryka Badu....Jill Scott.

In my opinion, much of the rap music produced, sold and shoved via the spoon of mass marketing down the throats of those who once loved it, is an over exuberant exercise in mediocrity. Rap has become a festival of depravity in which the most base and debasing elements of human existence are glamorized and presented as life pursuits. I won't focus on the misogyny of rap, because it is guilty of many other abuses as well. From its perspective, the world is full of black people who are moving targets which receive every type of abuse, mental, physical and sexual, especially from their own.

I have lived most of my life in a “white-news” media environment. In my experience, “white-news” can be defined as “daily facts mixed with propaganda prepared and controlled by whites for the purpose of maintaining white people’s unreasonably exalted self-image and their privileged status in American society and the world, while systematically depriving others of information that would help Blacks and others to improve their status or support their positive self-image.”

The existence of Black History Month is an official acknowledgement by white America that white-news has been so pervasive historically and remains so pervasive that Blacks and whites have systematically been deprived of positive information about Black people, so much so that only by focusing on Black people intensely for a month each year can we begin to undo the damage done by “white-news”. (Ironically, Black history month continues to be necessary precisely because white-news remains so pervasive.)

But now that we have blogs, to what extent have American blogs changed the white-news paradigm? In my experience, white blogs are just as committed to white-news as is the mainstream media. White blogs are mostly dedicated to exposing injustices that affect white people, for the purpose of empowering “progressive” white people to gain more control over society and make society more “progressive”.