Hip Hop and racism

Throughout January, Oprah Winfrey Network hosts a month-long celebration honoring civil rights legends, as we approach the 50th anniversary of the historic Selma to Montgomery marches. Her programmes Oprah's Master Class has a civil right special. On of the guests is Jay-Z.  

He said that he believes that hip hop has done more for racial relations than most cultural icons. While the statement might seem bold, he gives nice justification. 

He says: "This music didn't only influence kids from urban areas," Jay-Z says. "People listen to this music all around the world, and took to this music." So the influence is not limited to any one group, age range, background or geographic location. 

He adds that racism is, as he believes, a tought behaviour, most probably at home. He explains that it is not possible to be a racist when hip hop is listened at home. 

It is hard not to agree with his arguments. It is not very probable that somebody would listen to, for example, Jay Z but didn't like his skin color. 

It is not the first time Jay Z touches the subject of racism. Part of his song 99 problems is about racial profiling. 

 

(...)So i...pull over to the side of the road

And i heard "Son do you know why i'm stoppin you for?"
Cause i'm young and i'm black and my hats real low
Do i look like a mind reader sir, i don't know
Am i under arrest or should i guess some mo?
"Well you was doin fifty five in a fifty four"
"Liscense and regestration and step out of the car"
"Are you carryin a weapon on you i know alot of you are"(...)

Additionally, the music video shows him being stopped. The scene is clearly stage-managed, but he gives a date when it happened, so it's quite probable that he really was racially profiled.

This song is just one of many about racism and racial profiling, clearly these are very popular topics among hip hop artists.

Glory

Last week nominations for Oscars were announced. One of the biggest surprise and controversy was lack of people of color in acting categories. Many were surprised that  David Oyelowo didn't get a nomination for portraying Martin Luther King in Selma. 

Selma is a movie about Selma to Montgomery marches of 1965. They were part of the Selma Voting Rights Movement and led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.  

                                        

As I haven't seen the movie, it's hard for me to tell if the actor deserved a nomination. However, the song from this movie has a nomination and I'm hoping for it to win. I came across the song as I was doing research for my paper. I probably won't use it, but I really like it. 

The song performed by John Legend and Common(who also stars in the movie) have been described as a protest song. It mentions many well-known figures like Rosa Parks or Jim Crow and also connects MLK and Selma with Ferguson.

 

It is also worth noticing that the song have already won a Golden Globe for the Best Original Score and after receiving the award Common delivered an beautiful speech: 

"I am the hopeful black woman who was denied her right to vote. I am the caring white supporter, killed on the front lines of freedom. I am the unarmed black kid, who maybe needed a hand, but instead was given a bullet. I am the two fallen police officers murdered on the line of duty.

Selma has awakened my humanity." 

A political band

One of my first ideas for my bachelor thesis was to write about how songs describe power. One of the most political band (at least that I know of) is System Of A Down. 

It is an American rock band. All of its four members have Armenian roots. Both their lyrics and musical videos are often very political.  

During one of my last year classes we discussed A.D.D. (American Dream Denial). 

In this song the band criticises war, particularly War in Iraq or war with terrorism. It is called "...unjustifiable egotistical power struggle...". The conflict is about "all your global profits and all your jewel pearls". The normal people are sent to war because of "the truth you stole"(reasons for starting the war weren't clear) and are send back home in pieces. The part "There is no flag that is large enough, to hide the shame of a man in cuffs..." refers probably to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. All that denies the american dream. "You' that is addressed in the song is probably president Bush, who we see at the beginning of the clip and who started this war. The video to this song offers disturbing images, but is a good illustration to the song. 

The next song B.Y.O.B. is probably their most-known political song.

In this song war is compared to a party and acronym b.y.o.b., which usually stands for bring your own beer, here means bring your own bombs. Lyrics could be interpreted in a many ways, but I think the most important part is "Why don't presidents fight the war? Why do they always send the poor", which asks why the president doesn't fight a war that he started (Bush again), but instead send poor, bad-educated soldiers. Is is also stated that the government and probably the media "feed us lies from the tablecloth".  

And the last song that I'm going to present is Boom!.  In this case the video clip is as important as the lyrics.

The clip was shot during anti-war protests. Attention should be paid to what people say during the demonstration. I don't know if people were asked to repeat the words of the song or the song was made of sentences that people said. Many slogans and statistics are also shown. The only thing that was not shot during the demonstration are animated cartoon characters of George Bush, Tony Blair, Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden riding bombs. 

Those are just 3 songs by System Of A Down that are political. You can definitely state that they are anti-war and that president Bush wasn't their favorite president:) Other songs worth mentioning are: Soldier Side, War?, Deer Dance or Prison Song(criticising American prison system).

Racial profiling

On Facebook pages of some stores or boutiques woman often write that they feel like they are being judged. Like based on their clothes or general appearance shopping assistants serve them better or worse. It is called profiling. When you are being judged based on your clothes you can always change them, or as in this case change the store :) But what if someone is profiled based on race, ethnicity or nationality? 

Racial profiling is "the use of race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed an offense." Department of Justice in 2003 issued a document Guidance Regarding The Use Of Race by Federal Law Enforcement Agencies where it describes racial profiling: "(...) at its core concerns the invidious use of race or ethnicity as a criterion in conducting stops, searches and other law enforcement investigative procedures". This was one of many documents where racial profiling was described as wrong and ineffective. But The Ferguson shooting and what happened after shows that it is still very "hot" topic. 

Racial profiling was mentioned in my last-week post, where John Oliver talked about it on his programme. And just yesterday US Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Department of Justice will issue a new guideline that will end racial profiling "once and for all". He is on a tour where he meets law enforcement officials and community leaders and his first stop was Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a pastor. He talked about police militarization(my last-week topic), role of the police in a community, how overall system of justice must be strengthened and, of course, racial profiling.

But what I'm really curious about is how issuing yet another guideline can prevent racial profiling.

 BBC - US attorney general calls for end to racial profiling

2003 Guidance

Ferguson shooting

Unfortunately, |Last Week Tonight with John Oliver won't  be back on television untill February, so what I got left are the old episodes. One of the most important events last year in the United States was so-called Ferguson shooting, and this is what this episode is about.

So what happened in Ferguson? 

On August, 9 a black unarmed teenager Michael Brown was shoot by white police officer Darren Wilson. This caused major protests and then riots in Ferguson, Missouri.

John Oliver doesn't try to explain what happened during, but focuses on what led to it and what happened after the shooting. This episode is about racial tensions and profiling and police militarization. Racial tensions are very American topic(racial tensions of Ferguson is probably great reflection of racial tensions in America) , so it makes them good for my bachelor thesis, but I wouldn't like to write about it here. What caught my attention more in this episode was police militarization, especially what was called "escalation of force". I googled it and found the definition on this website. So basically it's about how to control a crowd and individuals, so that there's no escalation of violence, something that clearly did not work in Ferguson.

John Oliver shows how by using military weapon and pointing guns at people, the police becomes a part of a conflict (sounds very familiar, doesn't it? If not check out news on this years' Independence Day). And again I'm amazed how he chooses his materials and tries to get to the core of the problem. As always he does it a bit different from the regular news do. It would be probably easier to just try to explain or judge the situation. Instead of doing that Oliver explains the two things that were possible causes of it(it would probably look totally different if the boy was white or if it would be harder to use a gun). 

Sadly, the story is continued as just yesterday St. Louis County grand jury decided that the police officer won't be charged with murder(won't be charged at all, in fact). This caused new riots and the Ferguson shooting is the main news again. As the program has a break John Oliver doesn't have a chance to comment on the situation, but maybe he will do it in February when the show is back?

Elections time

Probably the most obvious topic on a blog about media and power are elections. The event  which  is about gaining power and is widely commented. The elections were topic of one of my favourite TV show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

General elections (so called Midterm elections) were held on Tuesday, November 4, 2014. Media across the world focused on the Congress elections, but John Oliver says that this attention is unjustified, mostly because this Congress is the least productive in history(the TV show was aired before the elections, now we know that Republicans have won, so it will probably be even less productive). The most important part of those elections is for state legislatures. 

State legislatures (legislative body of any of the states) pass way more laws than the Congress, and those laws have usually a big impact on lives of the citizens. Minimum wage, gay rights, abortion and guns laws or environmental legislature - those are all issues that state legislatures deal with. Of course, there are some silly laws and weird behaviours (check out the video to see what politicians do during debates) and the problem is that those are usually facts that state legislatures are famous for. 

 The main focus is how important is to know who is in a local Congress, unfortunately many candidates have no opponents so they won without a fight (and I bet that many of the presented candidates would have problems winning against anybody).

Topic of elections is usually presented in a serious way, but I simply love the hilarious way that John Oliver presents basically any topic also significant(theoretically not funny) one - try to watch an episode about the death penalty. Many of his videos are much more informative than many of those in a regular news and makes you want to find out something more about the presented issue. 

Writing about John Oliver and his show(and others similar shows) was one of my first ideas for my bachelor thesis, but that is not the only reason why I write about right now. On this Sunday there are local elections in Poland. So encouraged by John Oliver, find out who your candidates are and vote! :) 

 

More information about state legislatures: http://www.ncsl.org/ 

About polish local elections: http://wybory2014.pkw.gov.pl/pl/

Welcome to my blog about Media and Power. It is a part of my seminar classes and is supposed to help me find an inspiration for my bachelor thesis. As I still don't know what my thesis is going to be about I'm really looking forward to be inspired :)