Posted on 11/19/2005 4:03:27 PM PST by neverdem
After 9/11, everyone knew there was going to be a debate about the future of Islam. We just didn't know the debate would be between Osama bin Laden and Tupac Shakur. Yet those seem to be the lifestyle alternatives that are really on offer for poor young Muslim men in places like France, Britain and maybe even the world beyond. A few highly alienated and fanatical young men commit themselves to the radical Islam of bin Laden. But most find their self-respect by embracing the poses and worldview of American hip-hop and gangsta rap.
One of the striking things about the scenes from France is how thoroughly the rioters have assimilated hip-hop and rap culture. It's not only that they use the same hand gestures as American rappers, wear the same clothes and necklaces, play the same video games, and sit with the same sorts of car stereos at full blast. It's that they seem to have adopted the same poses of exaggerated manhood, the same attitudes about women, money and the police. They seem to have replicated the same sort of gang culture, the same romantic visions of gunslinging drug dealers. In a globalized age it's perhaps inevitable that the culture of resistance gets globalized, too. What we are seeing is what Mark Lilla of the University of Chicago calls a universal culture of the wretched of the earth. The images, modes and attitudes of hip-hop and gangsta rap are so powerful they are having a hegemonic effect across the globe.
American ghetto life, at least as portrayed in rap videos, now defines for the young, poor and disaffected what it means to be oppressed. Gangsta resistance is the most compelling model for how to rebel against that oppression. If you want to stand up and fight The Man...
(Excerpt) Read more at freewilliamsburg.com ...
BTTT
"American ghetto life, at least as portrayed in rap videos, now defines for the young, poor and disaffected what it means to be oppressed."
Silly me, I always thought it portrayed lazy, illiterate fools to dumb enough to take advantage of the opportunities available to every American.
Who knew?
'wretched of the earth'????? Oh, hellO. Of those who work against civilization, perhaps that. Of those who thumb their noses at the establishment, prefering to deal drugs and etc. to an honest day's labor, perhaps. Of those who seek to make their marks by outward defiance rather than by being quality humans, perhaps that. But 'the wretched of the earth'???? Oh, just SPARE ME.
haha, you are right -- lazy illiterate fools.
Every other word from Lil John consists of: "Yeah! What?! O--Kay!"
I can't make it out. What is it?
well, if they're $100 bills, could be 10 to 20 grand...
BDA is hard to do.
Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta.
Durr, I are stoopid. Other way around.
Precisely. He is a very agreeable person.
Then hit it again anyway!!
Shot, over.
Thank you. I noticed the pawing of flesh in one hand, but I was expecting some hardware in the other.
Uh...yeah. Whatever.
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