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Stereotypes and judgement
Stereotypes on racial profiling in the justice system essay
Stereotypes and judgement
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Public Enemy, though controversial, was a band crucial to the late 80’s - a time when the civil rights movement was at a standstill, and various other artists such as N.W.A. were feeding society's stereotypical ideas of low income African Americans. It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back is an extremely powerful album as it discusses and expresses emotion on a range of issues both political and social plaguing American society at the time. It touches on the topics of black pride, stereotyping, media libel, and the oblivious nature of many citizens. Public Enemy was angry, and had every right to be. The society they lived in was not fair to them, and the used their music to speak up and protest the injustices they and other African Americans faced daily. …show more content…
Merriam-Webster defines Afrocentrism as the “emphasis on African culture and the contribution of Africans to the development of the western world.” Essentially it is the glorification and pride of African American culture and progress. Public Enemy shows this through their song Don’t Believe the Hype. In this song, Public Enemy calls attention to the media and societal portrayal of African Americans. “They claim that I'm a criminal. By now I wonder how some people never know the enemy could be their friend, guardian. I'm not a hooligan.” Public Enemy is expressing the fact that though they are seen in this light, it is not true, and they are still proud to be who they are. They’re encouraging people to open their eyes and realize that African Americans are just like white people; they aren’t a stereotype and do not all fit into one large generalization. But, no matter what is said about them, Public Enemy is proud to be
Conformity can be very crucial, infact a lot of people eventually start hurting themselves or doing drugs just because they don't feel themselves anymore.Why can't society change? why can't that one kid that always follows everyone in the back can turn into the kid that just hangs with the people they really wanna hang with?We need to embrace ourselves so we can stop all this conformity from consuming us.Tupac was a nonconformist, he always did what made him happy and always told the truth.
“My job is to write shocking lyrics that will wake people up,” said Chuck D. This was his goal as the leader of Public Enemy (Dery, 1990). He wrote lyrics that were awakening and energizing. Public Enemy was a spokesperson for the African American community. Their lyrics contain controversial and popular issues such as drugs, crime, racism, and poverty. As well as the lyrics, the instrumentals are significant to conveying the group’s goal. The instrumental/sound part creates the mood, sets the beat, and prompts the engagementengages of the people. In the late 1980’s, Public Enemy introduced an intense, hard, hip-hop sound, which changed the sound of hip-hop. According to Rolling Stone magazine, “Public Enemy’s inventive production team, the Bomb Squad, tailored a unique, noisy, layered avant-garde-inspired sound that incorporated sirens, skittering turntable scratches, and cleverly juxtaposed musical and spoken samples ” (Simon & Schuster, 2001). All these brand new sounds of their songs were musically revolutionary during the late 1980’s. Public Enemy’s music consists of inspirational lyrics as well as strong and innovative sound. The lyrics and the sound work together, in addition to visual media to make it possible to reach millions of people as political commentary.
In the 1992 drama Boyz N the Hood Furious Styles, the father of main character Trey Styles, is in Compton, California giving a speech on a hill to the local residents of the neighborhood, which include the elderly, middle class workers, and youth. During his speech Furious asks the small crowd, “Why is there a liquor store on every corner in this community?” He then answers his own question: “I’ll tell you why, for the same reason that there is a gun store on almost every corner in the black community. Why? They want us to kill ourselves. The best way you destroy a people is if you take away their ability to reproduce themselves.” That is a bold statement to make, and it is also a statement that provides an example of the Marxist theory of
Before beginning to analyze both Motown and Stax Record’s influence on black consciousness it must first be understood why black consciousness itself can be seen as a step in the right direction in the fight against black struggle. Brian Ward does a great job of capturing the true success of soul music’s influence on black consciousness. Ward says, “[Black radio’s] real strength… was its ability to dramatize and celebrate shared aspects of the black experience… to promote a revived sense of black identity, pride, solidarity and common consciousness” (Ward 449). In his book, Ward also points out that despite this successful development of black consciousness, there was limited success both economically and structurally on behalf of the black music industry. This shows that even though ther...
How does one pay homage to such a great and revolutionary legacy? The most common way that this Facebook page seems to achieve this goal is to post portion of lyrics from various albums, sometimes they state where that verse is from and sometimes they don’t. One can tell the true fans of the group, because not only do they comment the title of the song, they list which album it is from and continue on with the next verse. What makes this type of homage so special is when viewers look through the comments and view the profiles of the people who comment on the posts. Members are able to notice how different each person is from the next. On March 31, 2010 someone posted, “Fuck the police comin’ straight from the underground young nigga got it bad cause I’m brown, and not the other color so police think they have authority to kill a minority…”(Post 1) One comment that exemplifies the diversity of fans is one made from a Caucasian woman in her mid-forties. She commented saying, “This is something to make me see the world in a new way...
Racism is a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups which determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others. Artist like Kanye West, feel it is socially acceptable to use derogatory terms towards different demographics while others view this disrespectful. One example of racism can be found in Kanye West’s music video “Monster” which thoroughly expresses racial views in todays society that reserves and displays the differences between inferior and superior groups. Throughout West’s music video, he uses offensive lyrics, and disturbing scenes to show
As Kendrick entered the stage shackled to his black comrades with a soulful saxophone playing in the background, it is obvious that the imagery of imprisonment was a commentary on incarceration in America and its similarities with slavery. By amplifying this modern twist on slavery, Kendrick provokes American viewers to reflect on the struggles that black Americans still go through today. At the start of his performance he goes on to rap “I’m African-American — I’m African” as if he was correcting himself. This isn’t surprising as black identity is hard to establish in a country that implicitly detests you, but explicitly fetishizes your culture. Stuart Hall discusses this in his text when he states, “’the primitive is a modern problem, a crisis in cultural identity’…the modernist construction of primitivism, the fetishistic recognition and disavowal of the primitive difference” (Hall 125). There is no wonder why Kendrick, like many African-Americans, finds comfort in placing his identity with the mother land rather than his true country of origin. How can the black multitude stand in solidarity with a country who will continuously praise black culture but refuse to recognize the black struggle? Kendrick Lamar then conjures imagery of Africa, where he danced and rapped in front of a raging bonfire, one of the most powerful imagery included in his entire performance. One can interpret
Black anthems have a long standing history that can be traced through their African roots to modern day songs. Political groups have used these anthems to both lead and thrown into crisis their aims and objectives of their political messages. Not only have anthems been used in political areas they have also been used to showcase the culture at the time of their prominence. These anthems have many benefits such as uniting people together for certain causes, however, some of the anthems drawbacks are that they have been nearly forgotten as their respective political groups have faded away into history. The book Anthem: Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora by Shana L. Redmond proves that anthems have been used
The words “civil rights” trigger a sense in the human mind. One of remorse, passion, and hope in a cause worth fighting for. Those weathered by its raging storms refer to it as a turning point in American life after over a century under segregation that can only be described as a necessary silence that African Americans were forced to take on the matter. However, the human mind found itself a way to express those feelings that flowed from its veins. That expression of power and revolt was music. Music acted as the horses that pulled pearlescent chariots of liberty and freedom to the front doors of the White House through public protests, involvement of musical artists, and its impact on the lives and culture of those who were oppressed. As a person against “civil rights”, it was viewed as a very simple matter, the music of the era was the devil’s work and needed to be stopped. Those approving of “civil rights” just pushed the activists further and further to the freedoms they believed that African Americans deserved.
Before the war started, a wealthy white man by the name of John Hammond worked to integrate black and white music.1 Since his childhood, he enjoyed the music of numerous black artists, and he wanted to share his love with the rest of America. He used much of his inherited fortune to make this possible. He went against the general opinion of society and his parents, who despised black people. Hammond refused to ignore black artists’ musical abilities because of their color, “I did not revolt against the system, I simply refused to be a part of it.”2 He used his money to organize the most eclectic group of musicians ever assembled, for an integrated audience of his time. Hammond’s efforts made an indelible impact on the music industry. The musicians Hammond introduced in...
In this paper I’m going to show how African Americans have used hip hop and black hair are two ways in which African Americans embrace their culture and fight oppression. However, as we have reviewed in many classes, oppression is not easily escaped. So in this paper, I’m going to show how cultural appropriation is used as a way of oppressing black culture. So this paper is an expansion of what we have learned in the class.
Music has been around for thousands of years. Music has progressed since that time and has slowly become what it is today. Though music has been around for such a long time, protest music just started to develop in the Vietnam Era, the year 1954. The war started the era of protest which, in turn, created a new form of music which incorporated a specific type of lyric that was a way of expressing protest through the song. Since music in this era was already a big thing, artists thought it would be a good idea to get their political viewpoints out there. They did it through something that affected everybody in that time and space. The artists view spread quickly through the country because of the catchy tune and the viewpoints that are listed. In the United States of America, it is a very common thing to conform to others in a group (Conformity…). Since conformity is such a common occurrence in a large group, all the artist has to do is find a couple of people in the group, group being an audience, who agree with the artist and the rest will unfold on its own. The artist will keep on performing while the word of him and his music will spread from person to person. Conformity will ultimately bring people together on the same viewpoint until eventually, there are thousands of people there with the artist to protest. These artists have grown over time along with the style of music that they bring along with them. Protest music still exists today and is one of the most effective forms of protest that we have.
Jackson often released songs that had powerful messages behind them e.g. 'We Are the World' and “Black and White”. Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Care About Us” released as part of the “HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I” album in 1996, was addressed to “the people” in an effort to promote equality, justice, and peace. However, it led to unexpected controversy
Black culture in our society has come to the point where it is allied with pop culture. The most popular music genres, slang terms, to dance forms it all comes from black culture. Hip hop emerged from black culture, becoming the soul of it that is seen in the media. Hip hop helped the black community by creating new ways of expressing themselves, from breakdance, graffiti, rap and other music, to slang. This culture was rooted in their tradition and created from something new. Hip hop created a new form of music that required the use of turn tables, ‘cuts’, loops, rhythm, rhyme, stories, and deep-rooted emotions, but also incorporated black oral forms of storytelling using communal authors.
The song that I choose to do this assignment on is Fight the Power by Public Enemy. Fight the Power was written in 1989 and quickly became a street anthem for millions of youths. It reflects with issues dealing with both the Civil Rights Movement and to remind everyone that they too have Constitutional Rights. This particular song is about empowerment but also fighting the abuse of power that is given to the law enforcement agencies. It gave citizens of the U.S a more modern outlook on the many struggles that not only the African American community is up against but the other minority groups as well. The song’s message was eventually supposed to bring people together and make the world a better place, even though some teens saw it as a way