Monday, March 1, 2010

Hip-Hop, Mass Media and Colonization

“Hip-Hop, Mass Media and 21st Century Colonization” and “Hip-Hop and the Corporate Function of Colonization” are columns written by Jared A. Ball, Ph. D. The writer, using intensely pedantic rhetoric, seems to be saying that the popular hip-hop that is heard today is but a caricature of its true self because the elite, [a.k.a. dominant ideologies] control how it is perceived by the public. “Rarely is what we know of as “popular” the initial intention of the culture or individual from which the expression comes. Most often what is the final product is what is decidedly different than what its creator initially set out to make and is more than likely no longer in their best interest.”

Pop culture is a form of social control and the elite manipulate it to control and keep down the very people who created it. “Hip-Hop’s popularity has done nothing to improve Black America’s overall wealth, education, health-care, or certainly rates of imprisonment. In fact, the popularity of hip-hop is used to deny these conditions or explain them as natural to the conditions of African Americans.” This is a case of the elite establishing rules, and those who do not “fit” under said rules are marginalized, “othered,” ignored, made invisible…colonized.

This idea of colonization (repression) is a claim the writer repeats often in both articles. He maintains that only certain aspects of the colonized culture (in this case Black America) are allowed into mainstream America; these aspects being the very ones that will perpetuate the negative view of this culture and thus, keep it down. The reason for this suppression is because the elite who have established power fear that they may lose this power.

The only thing that confused me about this article was the author’s convoluted explanation of the assertion, “censorship is political not linguistic." When I tried to understand his defense of Young Buck’s “fuck the police” lyric, I was more confused than ever.

During our next class, it would be interesting to get everyone’s take on censorship. As a teacher, mother and writer, I don’t believe in censoring music, movies and books, however; (and this may sound hypocritical) I believe in labeling the aforementioned items so that the public can make up their own minds. It’s all about free choice. Do I choose to listen to music with lots of profanity? No, but I shouldn’t decide that for others.

5 comments:

carey said...

i love your wording....

"popular culture is a form of social control"

genius!

Alexandra Berard said...

I really like your quote on censorship!

Samantha said...

glad to see im not the only one confused on the "political, not linguistic" quote to describe, "fuck the police". Maybe we can have this cleared up for us in lecture!

Eva said...

i absolutely agree that we should be able to make up our own minds about what we see, hear, and view, but then we would have more freedom to discuss the cultural texts that they censor and that is exactly what they want to avoid.

power is about control, and we are not a free society

but i agree, and i wish we were

media studies courses said...

I feel hip hop culture is mostly influenced by technology.The accuracy and speed are the main features.

Thanks