Hip Hop Activism

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Hip hop activism is a term coined by the hip hop intellectual and journalist Harry Allen. It is meant to describe an activist movement of the post- baby boomer generation. The hip hop generation was defined in The Hip- Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture as African Americans born between 1965 and 1984. This group is situated between the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the assassination of Malcolm X on one end and hip hop’s explosion during the Reagan administration. But the hip-hop generation can be more loosely defined to include minorities born between 1965 and 1984 who have grown up within a culture of hip hop music, dance, fashion and art. [1]

Some of the issues of social justice the movement addresses are minority and immigration rights, educational access, prison reform and transportation policy. In recent years California Proposition 187 and Proposition 21 have also been a focus of hip hop activism. The movement also addresses a broad range of social change practices like youth organizing and development, cultural work, and intercultural exchanges.

[edit] Evolution and Context

The mid-nineties were a particularly active period for the hip-hop agenda. In 1994, C. Delores Tucker told a Senate panel that the hip-hop generation, "coaxed by gangster rap,' would "trigger a crime wave of epidemic proportions that we have never seen the likes of." And then added, "Regardless of the number of jails built, it will not be enough." With this statement she summed up the views of many Americans, namely, that the hip hop generation was a degenerative epidemic attacking American society. In his book Can't Stop Won't Stop[2] author Jeff Chang traces the evolution of the hip hop activist movement noting that it was initially mostly grass roots and locally focused. But as movements against the prison-industrial complex and police brutality emerged simultaneous to movements against corporate globalization, many young hip hop activists begin to see the need for national organizing.

[edit] California Propositions 187 and 21

A significant factor in the national organizing of hip-hop activist in recent years can be attributed to legislation passed in response to waves of migration and immigration from Central and South America. This legislation included Proposition 187, which ended affirmative action and bi-lingual education in California, and Proposition 21, which demanded tougher sentencing and longer incarceration for juvenile offenders. Although the intended consequence of Proposition 187 was to stem the flow of illegal immigrants it has mostly been ineffective according to opponents. Opponents like Paul Johnston claim the legislation has only served to increase political, cultural and class factions while marginalizing specific minority populations. In his essay The Emergence of Transnational Citizenship Among Mexican Immigrants in California Johnston notes the cultural tensions created by the new legislation. He explains,

"These measures failed to halt the flow of undocumented workers to the United States, from Mexico as well as the traumatized Central American communities to the south. Instead, they quickly consolidated a deep divide in the social structure of the state, based on differences in citizenship status. The growth of this population, its increasingly criminalized and vulnerable status, and its impoverished, furtive, marginalized way of life under the new anti-immigrant policy regime has created circumstances that might fairly be described as a new apartheid in California."

Despite criticism the measures were passed and are supported by many Californians and their politicians. The discontent the legislation spurred, however, continues to be a focus of hip hop activists throughout the United States.

[edit] External links

• Hip Hop Summit Action Network - Non-partisan organization founded in 2001 by Russel Simmons

• National Hip Hop Convention - Established in Newark, New Jersey in 2004.

• World Up - The global hip hop project based in New York, NY. Organized the first international hip hop festival [3]

• The NY Hip-Hop Dance Convention - an annual 5 day event held in November to coincide with the birth of hip-hop. Discussions, workshops and performances presented by The Hip-Hop Dance Conservatory [4], GuamChic Promotions, and BBoy NYC [5]

• BLADE Dance Academy - hip-hop "dance" activists according to their mission [6] looking to make improvements to hip-hop dance within the entertainment industry.