By now, surely everyone has heard how the Texas Board of Education voted in favor of making school textbooks more “conservative-friendly.” Apparently, this means substituting Christian right champion John Calvin for non-religious founder Thomas Jefferson, inserting chapters on the rise of the Moral Majority and NRA, while describing our country as a “capitalist republic” as opposed to “democratic.” Now, the merits of these new inserts have been debated ad infinitum at this point, but there is one decision made by the Board that has gotten far less coverage: that hip-hop should not be taught as a cultural movement. While I can understand how this decision has not generated controversy the way the ones pertaining to religion and politics have, it is nonetheless completely wrong. Hip-hop is a movement that, in today’s economy, is more relevant than ever.
In his tome of hip-hop history “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop,” journalist Jeff Chang notes “if blues culture had developed under the conditions of oppressive, forced labor, hip-hop culture would arise from the conditions of no work.” In other words, the development of hip-hop has been directly related to its economic backdrop. In the late 1960s and early ‘70s, this backdrop consisted of a formerly middle-class South Bronx that had been carved and isolated into poverty-stricken black and Hispanic ghettos, due to the development of massive interstate highways dividing neighborhoods and driving out jobs. Hip-hop originally started as a musical light brought into the darkness of destituteness; as Chang said, “The sound systems ... [made] dance entertainment available to the downtown sufferers and strivers.” But this was only the beginning, as hip-hop — whose culture formally consists of emceeing, break dancing and graffiti art — soon gained a social consciousness.
The consciousness fully emerged in the 1980s, when the proliferation of crack cocaine made the ghettos even more dangerous and music producers made hip-hop accessible to a wider audience. The artists did not just make music, they told stories, attempting to bridge the gap between the privileged and the downtrodden. But instead of simply talking, artists such as Grandmaster Flash, Chuck D and Ice Cube grabbed you by the collar, slammed you against a wall and forced you to listen. Gang violence, cocaine addiction, theft and urban decay were all fair game. It was provocative and controversial. But it did exactly what it meant to do — give a loud, clear voice to those too oppressed to have one.
Never has this voice been more needed than in 2010. I would urge these Texas lawmakers to visit Wilmington, Ohio, where, in 2008, thousands were out of work after the town’s main source of income, the shipping company DHL, turned its domestic air shipping services over to competing UPS. I would urge them to go to Detroit, which was reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to have a job loss rate of 7.2 percent from 2008 to 2009. The turn of the decade has ushered in a new age of economic uncertainty, with Americans facing hardship just as they did in 1970. And they are just as deserving of something that will give them a strong voice.
These new textbooks don’t worry me too much. Kids are adept at learning from outside of school. I do find it ridiculous that a movement that helped define political and popular culture in America is being deemed unimportant, but I don’t know how much it will matter in the end. As Public Enemy once declared, “It takes a nation of millions to hold us back.”
Isaac Stone is a sophomore in the School of International Service and the College of Arts and Sciences and a liberal columnist for The Eagle. You can reach him at edpage@theeagleonline.com.
