The AP reports, "The government has spent more than $22 million to help medical and nursing schools start teaching about alternative medicine." According to the government, "doctors need to know about popular remedies so they can discuss them nonjudgmentally and give competent advice...and many universities and medical groups agree." But, critics contend that "students are being asked to close their eyes to science principles that guide the rest of their training in order to keep an open mind about pseudoscience." Dr. Joseph Jacobs, former head of the federal Office of Alternative Medicine, noted, however, that "the real issue is not whether alternative medicine should be taught, but how." The creation of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine 10 years ago is seen as having boosted the field by making "merging alternative and mainstream medicine 'a central and overarching goal.'"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/01/AR2009110100980_2.html
The article opens with a note that no cures have been found from alternative medicine despite more than $2.5 Billion in research funding. I personally believe this conclusion is misleading, because the editors do not state what their definition of alternative medicine is. If the definition is acupuncture, distant energy healing, etc., then I believe they are correct. However, when I first read the article immediately I thought natural cures, like apple cider vinegar for blood pressure control. Then I would say this conclusion is not correct. This type of medicine is taboo in the United States and other Western countries, where the pharaceutical industry has maintained control of a messsage that defines medical cures as pharmacological agents only. However, I think that the medical profession has often underestimated how alternative therapies may be employed with benefit for certain demographics, and thus increase these patients' chance of proper medical follow up and consultation. This is especially true in this country with minorities who already harbor arguably justifiable distrust and skepticism for American medicine (think Tuskegee, Merek drug trials in Sub Saharan Africa). If more doctors take seriously how the confluence of culture/history/society affect different patients, we could increase the physician trust minority populations are reluctant to give, my Dad included.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/01/AR2009110100980_2.html
Monday, November 2, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Unnatural Causes Louisville
Here is a clip of a video I recently saw from the PBS series Unnatural Causes entitled There's No Such Thing as Small Stuff: Being Poor in Louisville. It chronicles the life of a poor person in the West End of Louisville (notoriously poor), the choices she has to make to feed her family, and how these choices can affect her family's health. A very provacative video that gleams insight into the struggle those who do not have go through and those who have take for granted.
And these Republicans say there's no need for reform????
And these Republicans say there's no need for reform????
Monday, August 17, 2009
Macho men don't get preventative care
In the August 14, 2009 edition of Vital Signs, Roni Caryn Rabin describes a Rutgers study in which researchers found that men who endorsed the old school notions of masculinity are not as likely to seek preventative healthcare, such as a physical.
I have been thinking about this topic a lot lately, in listening to CNNs Black In America 2 and observing my own father. If we are supposed to be Godly men, one who takes care of our families and do not shy from our responsibilities, we need to do a better job in utlizing the care in which we have been blessed to access.
We live in a different time, society, and environment. We can still be men and take ownership of our insecurities. We can still be men and accept our vulnerabilties. It isn't soft if men have these things--we all do--its soft when we don't take ownership of them and work to improve. This is the mindset that men have to have in a society in constant flux and change.
50 million people in this country do not have health insurace. I'm sure they would trade places with these men any time to access the healthcare coverage they take for granted. We have to train our men and boys that a man is more than a phyically strong, my way or the highway person. Men are secure with themselves enough to know their faults and work hard to make them assets. Men take pride and are responsible for themselves and their families--in this regard, being "macho" isn't being a man at all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/health/research/18patt.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=%2b%22health+insurance%22&st=nyt
Patterns: Do Real Men Go to the Doctor?
By RONI CARYN RABIN
Published: August 14, 2009
Real men don’t ask for directions, and now researchers say the reluctance to ask for help may not just mean they get lost. It may also take a toll on their health.
Men who strongly endorsed old-school notions of masculinity — believing the ideal man is the strong, silent type who does not complain about pain — were only half as likely as other men to seek preventive health care, like an annual physical, the study found.
Even men with a high level of education, a factor that is strongly associated with better health and usually a predictor of longer life, were less likely to seek preventive health care if they strongly adhered to the ideal of the macho man, said Kristen W. Springer, the study’s primary investigator and an assistant professor of sociology at Rutgers.
“It’s ironic that the belief in the John Wayne, Sylvester Stallone archetype of masculinity — and the idea that real men don’t get sick and don’t need to see the doctor, and that real men aren’t vulnerable — is actually causing men to get sick,” Dr. Springer said. “These stereotypes and ideas are actually a reason why men do get sick.”
The study may help explain the gender longevity gap, with women outliving men by about five years, Dr. Springer said.
The findings, from a large longitudinal study of about 1,000 middle-age men who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957, were presented at a meeting of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco.
I have been thinking about this topic a lot lately, in listening to CNNs Black In America 2 and observing my own father. If we are supposed to be Godly men, one who takes care of our families and do not shy from our responsibilities, we need to do a better job in utlizing the care in which we have been blessed to access.
We live in a different time, society, and environment. We can still be men and take ownership of our insecurities. We can still be men and accept our vulnerabilties. It isn't soft if men have these things--we all do--its soft when we don't take ownership of them and work to improve. This is the mindset that men have to have in a society in constant flux and change.
50 million people in this country do not have health insurace. I'm sure they would trade places with these men any time to access the healthcare coverage they take for granted. We have to train our men and boys that a man is more than a phyically strong, my way or the highway person. Men are secure with themselves enough to know their faults and work hard to make them assets. Men take pride and are responsible for themselves and their families--in this regard, being "macho" isn't being a man at all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/health/research/18patt.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=%2b%22health+insurance%22&st=nyt
Patterns: Do Real Men Go to the Doctor?
By RONI CARYN RABIN
Published: August 14, 2009
Real men don’t ask for directions, and now researchers say the reluctance to ask for help may not just mean they get lost. It may also take a toll on their health.
Men who strongly endorsed old-school notions of masculinity — believing the ideal man is the strong, silent type who does not complain about pain — were only half as likely as other men to seek preventive health care, like an annual physical, the study found.
Even men with a high level of education, a factor that is strongly associated with better health and usually a predictor of longer life, were less likely to seek preventive health care if they strongly adhered to the ideal of the macho man, said Kristen W. Springer, the study’s primary investigator and an assistant professor of sociology at Rutgers.
“It’s ironic that the belief in the John Wayne, Sylvester Stallone archetype of masculinity — and the idea that real men don’t get sick and don’t need to see the doctor, and that real men aren’t vulnerable — is actually causing men to get sick,” Dr. Springer said. “These stereotypes and ideas are actually a reason why men do get sick.”
The study may help explain the gender longevity gap, with women outliving men by about five years, Dr. Springer said.
The findings, from a large longitudinal study of about 1,000 middle-age men who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957, were presented at a meeting of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Louisville's racial poverty similar to New Orleans
A somewhat dated, but poignant article by the Brookings Institute describes keen similarities to Louisville poor, minority, and elderly populations and that of similar pre-post Katrina populations in New Orleans. Prehaps this can explain the surprise on the white guy's face when I told him I was a medical student at UL....
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2005/1023metropolitanpolicy_katz.aspx
"October 23, 2005 —
Pictures of Hurricane Katrina's devastating aftermath for New Orleans' most vulnerable residents shocked and dismayed most Americans.
As well they should have. Poor blacks, including many children and elderly individuals from the city's most distressed neighborhoods, were left behind amid the fast-rising waters with little information or means to escape.
For Louisville, these images should resonate close to home.
That's because the conditions that exacerbated the New Orleans disaster—deep, segregated urban poverty—still exist in Louisville, and in most major American cities today.
Findings from a new Brookings analysis underscore the problem. As of 2000, the old city of Louisville ranked third among the nation's 50 largest cities in the degree to which its poor residents were confined to the city's very poorest neighborhoods. That placed it right behind-you guessed it-New Orleans.
The picture looks somewhat less bleak after the merger. More of Louisville Metro's low-income families now live outside the city's very poorest neighborhoods, ranking the consolidated city 14th instead of third. Even so, the new regional city ranks fifth in the degree to which its poor African Americans reside in the most distressed neighborhoods.
Why should Louisville be concerned? The dams and levees along the Ohio River constructed after the devastating flood of 1937 provide some assurance that the River City is unlikely to suffer a Katrina-sized natural disaster.
But extremely poor neighborhoods like some of those in West Louisville embody a slower-moving humanitarian disaster. Research shows how these communities limit job prospects and aspirations. Homeowners live in properties with low and declining values. High crime rates and poor housing conditions debilitate residents mentally and physically. In the end, the economic and civic health of the surrounding city suffers.
Fortunately, Louisville Metro government has acted boldly to break up the city's worst concentrations of poverty, and to give low-income families access to better living environments. Under Metro Mayor Abramson, Louisville has used the federal HOPE VI program to transform the once highly impoverished Park DuValle neighborhood into a healthy, mixed-income community. Similar revitalization is underway in the former Clarksdale development just east of downtown. And successive administrations have used market-oriented community development finance to stimulate business investment in the city's distressed corridors.
The city also boasts one of the most successful municipal campaigns to connect low-income workers to benefits like the federal Earned Income Tax Credit, coordinated by the Louisville Asset Building Coalition. By boosting wages, the credit helps enable these families to afford better housing in lower-poverty neighborhoods.
What's more, the merger itself signals Louisville's commitment to address economic and social issues on a region-wide basis. Three years ago, we prepared a report entitled "Beyond Merger" that laid out a series of challenges for the new regional city. Today, the work of the Greater Louisville Project continues to guide the city's long-term strategies to create more inclusive neighborhoods.
Clearly, then, Louisville Metro is no New Orleans. Still, the city's leaders must not let merger mask the remaining challenges. Just as before the merger, more than 30,000 of the city's residents, including 8,400 poor children, live in extremely poor neighborhoods. To give those children and their parents better chances in life, Louisville must sustain focus on alleviating concentrated poverty.
Louisville is on the right course already. But achieving progress will be all the more difficult in an era of shrinking federal assistance.
Programs like HOPE VI, housing vouchers, and the Earned Income Tax Credit helped reduce concentrated poverty in the 1990s, but all face budget cuts or wholesale elimination in Washington today. Breaking the cycle of poverty will take more local effort than ever before.
In that respect, Louisville must first ensure that its own housing strategies do not reinforce concentrated poverty. For instance, since 2000 nearly 250 affordable units funded by the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit were placed in Louisville Metro's poorest neighborhoods.
To help lower-income families access better local environments, Louisville must ensure that housing investments like these are distributed more equitably. Confronting local interests who seek to keep affordable housing out of their neighborhoods has been, and will continue to be, difficult. But the city cannot afford to tolerate the sort of discrimination that has held back its lower-income residents and communities for so long.
None of this will be quick or easy. Smart policies rarely are. But in its quest to be a truly great city, Louisville owes its neediest citizens a shot at real economic mobility. Eradicating concentrated poverty represents the critical first step."
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2005/1023metropolitanpolicy_katz.aspx
"October 23, 2005 —
Pictures of Hurricane Katrina's devastating aftermath for New Orleans' most vulnerable residents shocked and dismayed most Americans.
As well they should have. Poor blacks, including many children and elderly individuals from the city's most distressed neighborhoods, were left behind amid the fast-rising waters with little information or means to escape.
For Louisville, these images should resonate close to home.
That's because the conditions that exacerbated the New Orleans disaster—deep, segregated urban poverty—still exist in Louisville, and in most major American cities today.
Findings from a new Brookings analysis underscore the problem. As of 2000, the old city of Louisville ranked third among the nation's 50 largest cities in the degree to which its poor residents were confined to the city's very poorest neighborhoods. That placed it right behind-you guessed it-New Orleans.
The picture looks somewhat less bleak after the merger. More of Louisville Metro's low-income families now live outside the city's very poorest neighborhoods, ranking the consolidated city 14th instead of third. Even so, the new regional city ranks fifth in the degree to which its poor African Americans reside in the most distressed neighborhoods.
Why should Louisville be concerned? The dams and levees along the Ohio River constructed after the devastating flood of 1937 provide some assurance that the River City is unlikely to suffer a Katrina-sized natural disaster.
But extremely poor neighborhoods like some of those in West Louisville embody a slower-moving humanitarian disaster. Research shows how these communities limit job prospects and aspirations. Homeowners live in properties with low and declining values. High crime rates and poor housing conditions debilitate residents mentally and physically. In the end, the economic and civic health of the surrounding city suffers.
Fortunately, Louisville Metro government has acted boldly to break up the city's worst concentrations of poverty, and to give low-income families access to better living environments. Under Metro Mayor Abramson, Louisville has used the federal HOPE VI program to transform the once highly impoverished Park DuValle neighborhood into a healthy, mixed-income community. Similar revitalization is underway in the former Clarksdale development just east of downtown. And successive administrations have used market-oriented community development finance to stimulate business investment in the city's distressed corridors.
The city also boasts one of the most successful municipal campaigns to connect low-income workers to benefits like the federal Earned Income Tax Credit, coordinated by the Louisville Asset Building Coalition. By boosting wages, the credit helps enable these families to afford better housing in lower-poverty neighborhoods.
What's more, the merger itself signals Louisville's commitment to address economic and social issues on a region-wide basis. Three years ago, we prepared a report entitled "Beyond Merger" that laid out a series of challenges for the new regional city. Today, the work of the Greater Louisville Project continues to guide the city's long-term strategies to create more inclusive neighborhoods.
Clearly, then, Louisville Metro is no New Orleans. Still, the city's leaders must not let merger mask the remaining challenges. Just as before the merger, more than 30,000 of the city's residents, including 8,400 poor children, live in extremely poor neighborhoods. To give those children and their parents better chances in life, Louisville must sustain focus on alleviating concentrated poverty.
Louisville is on the right course already. But achieving progress will be all the more difficult in an era of shrinking federal assistance.
Programs like HOPE VI, housing vouchers, and the Earned Income Tax Credit helped reduce concentrated poverty in the 1990s, but all face budget cuts or wholesale elimination in Washington today. Breaking the cycle of poverty will take more local effort than ever before.
In that respect, Louisville must first ensure that its own housing strategies do not reinforce concentrated poverty. For instance, since 2000 nearly 250 affordable units funded by the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit were placed in Louisville Metro's poorest neighborhoods.
To help lower-income families access better local environments, Louisville must ensure that housing investments like these are distributed more equitably. Confronting local interests who seek to keep affordable housing out of their neighborhoods has been, and will continue to be, difficult. But the city cannot afford to tolerate the sort of discrimination that has held back its lower-income residents and communities for so long.
None of this will be quick or easy. Smart policies rarely are. But in its quest to be a truly great city, Louisville owes its neediest citizens a shot at real economic mobility. Eradicating concentrated poverty represents the critical first step."
First thoughts about Louisville
My dad and I went to Joe’s Crab Shack August July 3rd to eat. It is a nice restaurant on the Ohio River. All around the restaurant there were interracial couples openly out. I’ve noticed during my few days in Louisville the openness in which interracial couples are together in public places. Across the river in Indiana, much is the same. And what’s interesting is that the composition of the couples are black men and white women. That is significant because the history of this country has been to prevent black men and white women from getting together because it would disrespect the white male dominant social structure. It reminds me of the movie “Rosewood” where a white woman committed adultery with another white male and blamed it on a “nigger” to avoid being accountable (something that weak white people do all the time—blame their own character flaws on a socially stigmatized population to take advantage of the prejudices and biases against that population). The whole town rose up against the black section of the community with a slogan to protect women sanctity. However we have seen from Ida B. Wells in her writings referring to the constant lynching of black men for supposedly raping white women. She gave facts using white news papers refuting the justifications for the lynchings and made the conclusion that the white women were loose and actively pursued the black men. It is interesting that Louisville seems more open to this phenomena than Richmond, VA, and everyone from Richmond thinks of Kentucky in general as a country, backward state.
So we were waiting to sit down at our table outside where a white family with three children were sitting across from us. The father looked at us for a while and asked “Are you all from around here.” We said that we were from VA and he asked what we were doing here. I told him that ill be a first year medical student over at UL. He was like wow… I thought it was interesting how he was curious as to our origin, as if we acted differently from other blacks he has seen. I was wearing a UVA BME shirt, but the symbol on the front was quite small. I’m trying to learn if there are differences in the behaviors of blacks around here.
So we were waiting to sit down at our table outside where a white family with three children were sitting across from us. The father looked at us for a while and asked “Are you all from around here.” We said that we were from VA and he asked what we were doing here. I told him that ill be a first year medical student over at UL. He was like wow… I thought it was interesting how he was curious as to our origin, as if we acted differently from other blacks he has seen. I was wearing a UVA BME shirt, but the symbol on the front was quite small. I’m trying to learn if there are differences in the behaviors of blacks around here.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Interesting Conversation With An Old Friend
In my Social Work and Social Justice class today we watched a video about Ida B. Wells (the legendary social activist and journalist) and it reminded me about a conversation I had about a white friend. He was concerned about the quotes on my facebook profile.
"I wouldn't classify 'white people' as all the same. the quote about white people classifying black people into a group of 'lazy people' also gives a racist message that all white people are stupid, and tend to classify black people altogether. just wanted to make sure you don't isolate away the white population from your life. in high school, we were all friends, no one joined ' [the UVa Choir] Black Voices' or 'Black Entrepreneurs' or 'White Greek Group' I feel like it's good to respect where you came from, but grouping together for the sake of becoming 'stronger as a people' has become somewhat of an isolation move, and in that respect becomes an oxy moron."
My response is below:
"Didn't mean to offend you or anyone else by the quotes.. But let me clarify some points as to why I have those quotes on my facebook wall. As you know I went to Tanzania this past J-Term. I was the only black person there from UVA, out of 14. We spent 2 weeks there, and on the last couple of days all I would hear was that the rest of the class wanted to go home--tired of feeling different or labeled as 'the white people.' You see, they (the rest of the class) were in an environment where the majority was black, and they were the minoirty. They were the ones who had different customs, expectations, etc. And after two weeks, they were tired and wanted to go back to America where they could 'fit in.'
But black people live this every day. We don't get the opportunity to fly back to a place were we are the majority. I think this is something that most white people take for granted. And so whenever a black person says something regarding race it has to be an isolationist attempt. But on the contrary--as mentioned above, people like to associate with people like themselves. You do, I do, everyone does. But the only difference is, because we are the minority, our attempts to associate with similar people seems as disliking or turning our backs on white people, while when you and others associate with each other, it is the norm.
But the real reason why I have those quotes on my facebook account is to expose history that is rarely told. You see, the Jewish community has never forgotten the Holocaust, chinese americans have never forgotten being forced into concentration camps in world war 2. Even native Rhode Islanders haven't forgot about how the Puritans of Massachusetts exiled them out for their religious views. Why is it, then, are we (blacks) socialized to forget about our past and our struggles? To say that everything is equal so there is no need to keep referring to the past is ignorant. The overwhelming percentage of black prisoners, or the culture of poverty seen in urban areas can be directly correlated to a lack of information about oneself that leads to self determinination, pride, and efficacy. That was what I attempted to do in the quote(s). I mean we all go to UVA, so we have some book knowledge, but the knowledge that allows great people to succeed is knowledge about themselves and their achievements. This knowledge is not in mainstream history lessons in primary and secondary school systems (at least for blacks). "
I would like to read your thoughts about this issue!
"I wouldn't classify 'white people' as all the same. the quote about white people classifying black people into a group of 'lazy people' also gives a racist message that all white people are stupid, and tend to classify black people altogether. just wanted to make sure you don't isolate away the white population from your life. in high school, we were all friends, no one joined ' [the UVa Choir] Black Voices' or 'Black Entrepreneurs' or 'White Greek Group' I feel like it's good to respect where you came from, but grouping together for the sake of becoming 'stronger as a people' has become somewhat of an isolation move, and in that respect becomes an oxy moron."
My response is below:
"Didn't mean to offend you or anyone else by the quotes.. But let me clarify some points as to why I have those quotes on my facebook wall. As you know I went to Tanzania this past J-Term. I was the only black person there from UVA, out of 14. We spent 2 weeks there, and on the last couple of days all I would hear was that the rest of the class wanted to go home--tired of feeling different or labeled as 'the white people.' You see, they (the rest of the class) were in an environment where the majority was black, and they were the minoirty. They were the ones who had different customs, expectations, etc. And after two weeks, they were tired and wanted to go back to America where they could 'fit in.'
But black people live this every day. We don't get the opportunity to fly back to a place were we are the majority. I think this is something that most white people take for granted. And so whenever a black person says something regarding race it has to be an isolationist attempt. But on the contrary--as mentioned above, people like to associate with people like themselves. You do, I do, everyone does. But the only difference is, because we are the minority, our attempts to associate with similar people seems as disliking or turning our backs on white people, while when you and others associate with each other, it is the norm.
But the real reason why I have those quotes on my facebook account is to expose history that is rarely told. You see, the Jewish community has never forgotten the Holocaust, chinese americans have never forgotten being forced into concentration camps in world war 2. Even native Rhode Islanders haven't forgot about how the Puritans of Massachusetts exiled them out for their religious views. Why is it, then, are we (blacks) socialized to forget about our past and our struggles? To say that everything is equal so there is no need to keep referring to the past is ignorant. The overwhelming percentage of black prisoners, or the culture of poverty seen in urban areas can be directly correlated to a lack of information about oneself that leads to self determinination, pride, and efficacy. That was what I attempted to do in the quote(s). I mean we all go to UVA, so we have some book knowledge, but the knowledge that allows great people to succeed is knowledge about themselves and their achievements. This knowledge is not in mainstream history lessons in primary and secondary school systems (at least for blacks). "
I would like to read your thoughts about this issue!
Monday, April 13, 2009
What Happened To The Real Hip Hop
So if you all are familiar with Joe Budden (the most underrated rapper EVER), you would understand the title of my blog Why Try to Fit in When You’re a Standout? comes from a Halfway House song “Just To Be Different.” This sets the perfect stage for my inaugural post—a topic I have been thinking about since high school, and had many conversations with people about. What happened to the real hip hop?
This is the first attempt to my knowledge to describe hip hop as a dichotomous variable. That is, not to talk about the overall effects of hip hop, as most analyses attempt, but to describe hip hop as a force modified by two competing sectors—real hip hop and what I call Sambo hip hop.
Let me tell you what real hip hop is to me. I’m talking about the hip hop that delineates the struggle working families have in inner city and lower income communities, and how the current social/political system contributes to both the negative stigma around these populations and the prison revolving door. This can be explained by two songs.
Geto Boyz “My Mind Playin Tricks On Me” where Bushwick Bill (the short dude) raps about how he was hallucinating about Halloween and beating up this big dude, and turned out to me punching the pavement:
This year Halloween fell on a weekend
Me and Geto Boys are trick-or-treatin
Robbin little kids for bags
Till an old man got behind our ass
So we speeded up the pace
Took a look back, and he was right before our face
He'd be in for a squabble no doubt
So I swung and hit the nigga in his mouth
He was goin down, we figured
But this was no ordinary nigga
He stood about six or seven feet
Now, that's the nigga I'd be seein in my sleep
So we triple-teamed on him
Droppin them motherfuckin B's on him
The more I swung the more blood flew
Then he disappeared and my boys disappeared, too
Then I felt just like a fiend
It wasn't even close to Halloween
It was dark as fuck on the streets
My hands were all bloody, from punchin on the concrete
God damn, homie
My mind is playin tricks on me
Bushwick Bill explained this verse as analogous to being so hungry at night in the ghetto that you start to hallucinate there is food on the table and you finally realize there’s nothing to eat in the house. It is an example of the social conditions that inhibit people from escaping the culture of poverty prevalent in many urban communities.
Notorious BIG “Juicy,” where he justifies selling drugs to feed his daughter cause there isn’t other employment that he is either qualified for or employers won’t hire.
Yeah, this album is dedicated to all the teachers that told me I'd never amount to nothin
To all the people that lived above the buildings that I was hustlin' in front of that called the police On me when I was just tryin' to make some money to feed my daughters
And all the niggaz in the struggle, you know what I'm sayin'?
This is showing the constant battle of morality vs. pragmatism ever present in the inner city. The political system in New York (Rockefeller Laws) made it almost a given that BIG would end up in prison seeking a way to feed his family. Upper class people (and those fake people going broke thinking they are) think in terms of morals and idealism. A majority of them can do this because their fundamental needs are met. Refer to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs for more information, but to be brief, these higher order needs can be addressed and thought about because their most fundamental needs—food, clothing, shelter--are all secure. These type of laws assume everyone in the applicable society are on the same needs hierarchy—which we know is not true at all. But tell a family with no income and staggering bills about that he can’t eat when there is a market for a product he has access to all because of some idealism. He’d slap you in the mouth for being so dumb. So when people like Bill O’Reilly bash rap artists because of their lyrics , please be more intelligent and analyze them in the proper context.
Next, real hip hop is a form of expression, like poetry or prose writing, not a well crafted but super marketed compilation of lines designed only to make money. Consider Nas in “The Genesis” off of his much acclaimed Illmatic:
When its real…you doing this without a record contract
This statement implies the humility of real hip hop, its therapeutic nature, its ability to touch souls through lyrics. This can be seen in Joe Budden’s “10 Minutes:”
Some days I don't wanna be bothered
Some days I just miss my father (damn)
Some days I just miss my father
Some days I wanna relapse on redline
Cuz he'll be gone for 26 months fed time
I try to maintain through all this
And pray to God pop keep the same clean date and 4 dicks
My pockets flat kid
You do the math on $5.15 an hour full time after taxes
That wasn't good enough to keep my MO
Shit that wasn't good enough to complete my demo, for real
Some days I don't wanna be seen
And some days I don't shower, I don't wanna be clean
Look, sometimes the truth could hurt you
So I blow my cig smoke right at the Truth commercial
Some days I don't wanna be bothered
Some days I just miss my father
And even if by a miracle he makes it half way out
It wont be parole y'all, it be the half way house but NAH
That's not the right path for a Budden
Cuz we're addicts, addicts can't do half of nothin'
Even though Joe Budden is an admitted manic depressant, we can see the humility in a person admitting he misses his father, its therapeutic nature to him, and its ability to touch people with similar circumstances.
And lastly, real hip hop applied to your own life can teach you how to grind to the fullest. For instance, “Free” off of Freeway’s 2003 classic Philadelphia Freeway:
This is for my niggas that grind from 10 to 10
Another words all day duck the cops ‘cause they wanna be…
FREE
Now taken literally, it is apparent that he is talking about grinding on the street each day. But I have found that applied to my situation it means I got to work/study extra hard each day ducking the underminers and people who want to see you fall in order to create a better life for myself and my future family by using my intelligence and credentials. In fact, I have a screensaver on my parents computer that says “I Hustle Day In Day Out.” My friends have seen this wonder what am I talking about? And I would say it’s a mindset, that works best if you take the transferable lessons and apply them to your own life. A thoughtful analysis of rap music works to the listeners advantage. These lyrics and ones similar can also be a source of motivation when you are tired and want to slack off on your hustle.
But then hip hop got distorted. An overabundance of Sambo rappers came in tryin’ to claim fame to their name rappin’ not to enlighten the urban/suburban masses but to make a dollar quick. It was like the rap game turned into a get rich quick scheme. A verse from Kanye West’s “All Falls Down” off of Late Registration explains the phenomenon well:
Cause they made us hate our selves and love their wealth that’s why
Shorty’s yellin’ ‘Where the Ballas At?’
Drug Dealer buy Jordan Black Man buy Crack
And the White man get paid off of all of that
We see how this manifests itself in the Sambo hip hop culture. Take “Hand Clap” by Hurricane Chris:
One for tha money,two for tha show
Clap yo hands if you gotta bankroll
One for tha money, two for tha show
Clap yo hand if yo money don't fold
Now if you have seen this video it is apparent that Hurricane Chris does not have anywhere near a bank roll. But it gets worse:
yeah im shinin like a light
I got them diamonds on mah wrist
Let me get a hand clap, hand clap
This dude is surely lying, cause if you look at the video, he is wearing a thin 14 karat yellow gold chain with no diamonds. He even holds up his wrist when rappin’ these lines…but there are NO DIAMONDS anywhere near his arm! This guy is delusional.
And last but certainly not least:
I spent 75 dollas on this shirt jus fo tha club
Come on now! The average broke high school student cutting grass in the summer probably could afford a 75 dollar shirt if need be. If you had a bank roll, why are you not indulging in the “delicates of fabrics” as Rick Ross would say—Gucci, Louis Vitton, Prada, etc. This dude must believe he is fooling somebody.
Now Russell Simmons says that the Sambo hip hop culture is a way for poor urban kids to get money and fame. OK I got you, but don’t piss on us and tell us it’s raining. Russell Simmons can say that because he and other record executives are getting a majority of all the money off their artists’ sales. I’m not just talking about dumb stuff like G-Dep signing a 10 year $300,000 contract with Bad Boy, I’m talking about the industry pimping that aims to perpetuate negative black stigma, with executives getting the bulk of the money and with inner city frontman rappers consent.
Chuck D, legendary rapper from Public Enemy details it well:
“[Institutions that glorify hip hop] are the cancers of black manhood in the world, because they have one-dimensionalized and commoditized us into being a one-trick image. We're [shown] throwing money at the camera and flashing jewelry at the camera that could give a town in Africa water for a year."
He also details the link between the sales of hip-hop music to young white Americans, and the amount of pressure on black artists to create more of that content: sex and violence. So these Sambo rappers without any context for rappers such as Gangstar, Nas, KRS-One, Afrika Bambaataa, and others have sustained the white demand and supply of buffoonery. For the continued mental enslavement of Black minds and sustained profitability from white record sales, this new hip hop needs to be racially degrading, intellectually insulting, and creatively stagnant. Sort of like Lupe Fiasco’s “Dumb It Down,” where Lupe describes a record executive’s desire for his artists to dumb down rap music because black kids are starting to believe being smart is cool. These Sambo rappers have done their part to perpetuate a long standing stigma projected on black males as adulterers, criminals, uncouth, uneducated individuals—all for a damn chain and advance.
It’s sort of like the movie Paid in Full, where Rico (the personification of the Sambo hip hop) is always tryin’ to be seen at a club throwing money around, and ultimately hurting everyone around him including himself, and Ace ( the personification of real hip hop) staying low key making sure everyone is eating… “Live and Maintain.”
I say this because with real hip hop, you had people out there trying to educate the masses about the plight of urban America, about the injustices that prevail in the communities, and building self esteem in young black minds. With this Sambo hip hop, with its quasi slave grammar and un-provocative lyrics, the frontman rapper may have a house, but the community suffers as amendable black children learn and are influenced by this music.
This Sambo hip hop can be compared to The Hunger Strike episode of the Boondocks, in which Huey teams up with Rollo Goodlove to bring down BET for its destructive programming. Huey feels betrayed when Goodlove ends the strike to accept a show on BET. Goodlove says:
“Niggas just gonna be niggas. You might as well get this money while you bullshitting.”
Because of the effective acculturation and brainwash years of slavery and oppression have done to us, we think of ourselves as bottom of the totem pole--as people who inherently cannot change their situation. Record executives and others prey off this attitude and make money at our expense.
And lastly, "Half a Brick" by OJ the Juice Man to drive the point home and bring it full circle:
Quarter brick Half a brick Whole brick (AYYY)
Quarter pound Half a pound Whole pound (OKAYY)
Hundred pillz Thousand pillz Servin major weight
Juice mane and gucci maneMake the trap (AYYY)
Whereas in Notorious BIG’s "Juicy," drug dealing was used as a vehicle to provide for his family, OJ the Juice Man is glorifying drug dealing like it’s something for our young men and women to aspire.
To be sure, I am a forever proponent of hip hop and its benefits, but I cannot see the value in (sometimes) personal profit and collective destruction. If not from me, take it from Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He talks about The Win Win as a proposal not worth pursing if both parties do not benefit. With the real hip hop, as I have laid out, the Win Win applies, because both community individuals gain. However, with this Sambo hip hop, the only party that wins are the record executives. The community loses by being bamboozled into believing that ho’s and bust-downs are appropriate references to our black women and by instilling a disinterest in education as the most direct way to upward social mobility. The individual rapper ultimately loses because he most likely will blow his advance check on some bull and then be dropped by the label once his only single stops selling and be like Muddy Waters in Cadillac Records begging Leonard Chess for a loan.
The state of Black America is no longer what it was 50 years ago. No longer are there overwhelming overt political systems designed to hinder black success. No longer can we say the only reason we didn’t get the job is our skin color. No longer will being apathetic about our current situation because we don’t believe we can do anything will suffice. No longer will only praying to God and hoping that “this too shall pass” will do. The biggest threat to our success in this world is our own ignorance, our own lack of political will, our own lack of confidence, esteem, and efficacy, our own willingness to be marginalized, our own desire to be mediocre.
This Sambo hip hop contributes to our demise more so than most other influences. If the teacher at school says you won’t amount to anything, but you have strong support systems at home and strong media outlets that reinforce appropriate behavior, you can attenuate that threat. But if every cultural/social outlet degrades you and your intellect, your people and your history, and all due to a central Sambo hip hop influence, then the old adage
“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”
is inherently flawed. In this case, words do more than hurt—they kill.
This is the first attempt to my knowledge to describe hip hop as a dichotomous variable. That is, not to talk about the overall effects of hip hop, as most analyses attempt, but to describe hip hop as a force modified by two competing sectors—real hip hop and what I call Sambo hip hop.
Let me tell you what real hip hop is to me. I’m talking about the hip hop that delineates the struggle working families have in inner city and lower income communities, and how the current social/political system contributes to both the negative stigma around these populations and the prison revolving door. This can be explained by two songs.
Geto Boyz “My Mind Playin Tricks On Me” where Bushwick Bill (the short dude) raps about how he was hallucinating about Halloween and beating up this big dude, and turned out to me punching the pavement:
This year Halloween fell on a weekend
Me and Geto Boys are trick-or-treatin
Robbin little kids for bags
Till an old man got behind our ass
So we speeded up the pace
Took a look back, and he was right before our face
He'd be in for a squabble no doubt
So I swung and hit the nigga in his mouth
He was goin down, we figured
But this was no ordinary nigga
He stood about six or seven feet
Now, that's the nigga I'd be seein in my sleep
So we triple-teamed on him
Droppin them motherfuckin B's on him
The more I swung the more blood flew
Then he disappeared and my boys disappeared, too
Then I felt just like a fiend
It wasn't even close to Halloween
It was dark as fuck on the streets
My hands were all bloody, from punchin on the concrete
God damn, homie
My mind is playin tricks on me
Bushwick Bill explained this verse as analogous to being so hungry at night in the ghetto that you start to hallucinate there is food on the table and you finally realize there’s nothing to eat in the house. It is an example of the social conditions that inhibit people from escaping the culture of poverty prevalent in many urban communities.
Notorious BIG “Juicy,” where he justifies selling drugs to feed his daughter cause there isn’t other employment that he is either qualified for or employers won’t hire.
Yeah, this album is dedicated to all the teachers that told me I'd never amount to nothin
To all the people that lived above the buildings that I was hustlin' in front of that called the police On me when I was just tryin' to make some money to feed my daughters
And all the niggaz in the struggle, you know what I'm sayin'?
This is showing the constant battle of morality vs. pragmatism ever present in the inner city. The political system in New York (Rockefeller Laws) made it almost a given that BIG would end up in prison seeking a way to feed his family. Upper class people (and those fake people going broke thinking they are) think in terms of morals and idealism. A majority of them can do this because their fundamental needs are met. Refer to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs for more information, but to be brief, these higher order needs can be addressed and thought about because their most fundamental needs—food, clothing, shelter--are all secure. These type of laws assume everyone in the applicable society are on the same needs hierarchy—which we know is not true at all. But tell a family with no income and staggering bills about that he can’t eat when there is a market for a product he has access to all because of some idealism. He’d slap you in the mouth for being so dumb. So when people like Bill O’Reilly bash rap artists because of their lyrics , please be more intelligent and analyze them in the proper context.
Next, real hip hop is a form of expression, like poetry or prose writing, not a well crafted but super marketed compilation of lines designed only to make money. Consider Nas in “The Genesis” off of his much acclaimed Illmatic:
When its real…you doing this without a record contract
This statement implies the humility of real hip hop, its therapeutic nature, its ability to touch souls through lyrics. This can be seen in Joe Budden’s “10 Minutes:”
Some days I don't wanna be bothered
Some days I just miss my father (damn)
Some days I just miss my father
Some days I wanna relapse on redline
Cuz he'll be gone for 26 months fed time
I try to maintain through all this
And pray to God pop keep the same clean date and 4 dicks
My pockets flat kid
You do the math on $5.15 an hour full time after taxes
That wasn't good enough to keep my MO
Shit that wasn't good enough to complete my demo, for real
Some days I don't wanna be seen
And some days I don't shower, I don't wanna be clean
Look, sometimes the truth could hurt you
So I blow my cig smoke right at the Truth commercial
Some days I don't wanna be bothered
Some days I just miss my father
And even if by a miracle he makes it half way out
It wont be parole y'all, it be the half way house but NAH
That's not the right path for a Budden
Cuz we're addicts, addicts can't do half of nothin'
Even though Joe Budden is an admitted manic depressant, we can see the humility in a person admitting he misses his father, its therapeutic nature to him, and its ability to touch people with similar circumstances.
And lastly, real hip hop applied to your own life can teach you how to grind to the fullest. For instance, “Free” off of Freeway’s 2003 classic Philadelphia Freeway:
This is for my niggas that grind from 10 to 10
Another words all day duck the cops ‘cause they wanna be…
FREE
Now taken literally, it is apparent that he is talking about grinding on the street each day. But I have found that applied to my situation it means I got to work/study extra hard each day ducking the underminers and people who want to see you fall in order to create a better life for myself and my future family by using my intelligence and credentials. In fact, I have a screensaver on my parents computer that says “I Hustle Day In Day Out.” My friends have seen this wonder what am I talking about? And I would say it’s a mindset, that works best if you take the transferable lessons and apply them to your own life. A thoughtful analysis of rap music works to the listeners advantage. These lyrics and ones similar can also be a source of motivation when you are tired and want to slack off on your hustle.
But then hip hop got distorted. An overabundance of Sambo rappers came in tryin’ to claim fame to their name rappin’ not to enlighten the urban/suburban masses but to make a dollar quick. It was like the rap game turned into a get rich quick scheme. A verse from Kanye West’s “All Falls Down” off of Late Registration explains the phenomenon well:
Cause they made us hate our selves and love their wealth that’s why
Shorty’s yellin’ ‘Where the Ballas At?’
Drug Dealer buy Jordan Black Man buy Crack
And the White man get paid off of all of that
We see how this manifests itself in the Sambo hip hop culture. Take “Hand Clap” by Hurricane Chris:
One for tha money,two for tha show
Clap yo hands if you gotta bankroll
One for tha money, two for tha show
Clap yo hand if yo money don't fold
Now if you have seen this video it is apparent that Hurricane Chris does not have anywhere near a bank roll. But it gets worse:
yeah im shinin like a light
I got them diamonds on mah wrist
Let me get a hand clap, hand clap
This dude is surely lying, cause if you look at the video, he is wearing a thin 14 karat yellow gold chain with no diamonds. He even holds up his wrist when rappin’ these lines…but there are NO DIAMONDS anywhere near his arm! This guy is delusional.
And last but certainly not least:
I spent 75 dollas on this shirt jus fo tha club
Come on now! The average broke high school student cutting grass in the summer probably could afford a 75 dollar shirt if need be. If you had a bank roll, why are you not indulging in the “delicates of fabrics” as Rick Ross would say—Gucci, Louis Vitton, Prada, etc. This dude must believe he is fooling somebody.
Now Russell Simmons says that the Sambo hip hop culture is a way for poor urban kids to get money and fame. OK I got you, but don’t piss on us and tell us it’s raining. Russell Simmons can say that because he and other record executives are getting a majority of all the money off their artists’ sales. I’m not just talking about dumb stuff like G-Dep signing a 10 year $300,000 contract with Bad Boy, I’m talking about the industry pimping that aims to perpetuate negative black stigma, with executives getting the bulk of the money and with inner city frontman rappers consent.
Chuck D, legendary rapper from Public Enemy details it well:
“[Institutions that glorify hip hop] are the cancers of black manhood in the world, because they have one-dimensionalized and commoditized us into being a one-trick image. We're [shown] throwing money at the camera and flashing jewelry at the camera that could give a town in Africa water for a year."
He also details the link between the sales of hip-hop music to young white Americans, and the amount of pressure on black artists to create more of that content: sex and violence. So these Sambo rappers without any context for rappers such as Gangstar, Nas, KRS-One, Afrika Bambaataa, and others have sustained the white demand and supply of buffoonery. For the continued mental enslavement of Black minds and sustained profitability from white record sales, this new hip hop needs to be racially degrading, intellectually insulting, and creatively stagnant. Sort of like Lupe Fiasco’s “Dumb It Down,” where Lupe describes a record executive’s desire for his artists to dumb down rap music because black kids are starting to believe being smart is cool. These Sambo rappers have done their part to perpetuate a long standing stigma projected on black males as adulterers, criminals, uncouth, uneducated individuals—all for a damn chain and advance.
It’s sort of like the movie Paid in Full, where Rico (the personification of the Sambo hip hop) is always tryin’ to be seen at a club throwing money around, and ultimately hurting everyone around him including himself, and Ace ( the personification of real hip hop) staying low key making sure everyone is eating… “Live and Maintain.”
I say this because with real hip hop, you had people out there trying to educate the masses about the plight of urban America, about the injustices that prevail in the communities, and building self esteem in young black minds. With this Sambo hip hop, with its quasi slave grammar and un-provocative lyrics, the frontman rapper may have a house, but the community suffers as amendable black children learn and are influenced by this music.
This Sambo hip hop can be compared to The Hunger Strike episode of the Boondocks, in which Huey teams up with Rollo Goodlove to bring down BET for its destructive programming. Huey feels betrayed when Goodlove ends the strike to accept a show on BET. Goodlove says:
“Niggas just gonna be niggas. You might as well get this money while you bullshitting.”
Because of the effective acculturation and brainwash years of slavery and oppression have done to us, we think of ourselves as bottom of the totem pole--as people who inherently cannot change their situation. Record executives and others prey off this attitude and make money at our expense.
And lastly, "Half a Brick" by OJ the Juice Man to drive the point home and bring it full circle:
Quarter brick Half a brick Whole brick (AYYY)
Quarter pound Half a pound Whole pound (OKAYY)
Hundred pillz Thousand pillz Servin major weight
Juice mane and gucci maneMake the trap (AYYY)
Whereas in Notorious BIG’s "Juicy," drug dealing was used as a vehicle to provide for his family, OJ the Juice Man is glorifying drug dealing like it’s something for our young men and women to aspire.
To be sure, I am a forever proponent of hip hop and its benefits, but I cannot see the value in (sometimes) personal profit and collective destruction. If not from me, take it from Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He talks about The Win Win as a proposal not worth pursing if both parties do not benefit. With the real hip hop, as I have laid out, the Win Win applies, because both community individuals gain. However, with this Sambo hip hop, the only party that wins are the record executives. The community loses by being bamboozled into believing that ho’s and bust-downs are appropriate references to our black women and by instilling a disinterest in education as the most direct way to upward social mobility. The individual rapper ultimately loses because he most likely will blow his advance check on some bull and then be dropped by the label once his only single stops selling and be like Muddy Waters in Cadillac Records begging Leonard Chess for a loan.
The state of Black America is no longer what it was 50 years ago. No longer are there overwhelming overt political systems designed to hinder black success. No longer can we say the only reason we didn’t get the job is our skin color. No longer will being apathetic about our current situation because we don’t believe we can do anything will suffice. No longer will only praying to God and hoping that “this too shall pass” will do. The biggest threat to our success in this world is our own ignorance, our own lack of political will, our own lack of confidence, esteem, and efficacy, our own willingness to be marginalized, our own desire to be mediocre.
This Sambo hip hop contributes to our demise more so than most other influences. If the teacher at school says you won’t amount to anything, but you have strong support systems at home and strong media outlets that reinforce appropriate behavior, you can attenuate that threat. But if every cultural/social outlet degrades you and your intellect, your people and your history, and all due to a central Sambo hip hop influence, then the old adage
“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”
is inherently flawed. In this case, words do more than hurt—they kill.
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