Hip-hop culture hurting NFL

[Fillmoe]

How many of you actually listen to hip hop? Or do you just watch that bull that is on TV and feel you know enough to comment?

[Spawn]

How many of you actually listen to hip hop? Or do you just watch that bull that is on TV and feel you know enough to comment?

I do not listen to as much hip hop as I used to, or much of today's music for that matter, but a common mistake people make with hip hop is to believe that what they see on television with these Black sambo minstrels with the gold in their teeth feeding Our people ignorance and glorifying all that is wrong is what hip hop is all about. Their are many people within the hip hop community who promote a positive message, it is just that they are not as popular because lets face it, A-merry-ca loves its Black sambo minstrels, and they love them dumb and ignorant.

[samikeyp]

I know enough about it not to blame it for the problems caused by today's athletes.

[resistanze]

George W. Bush listens to too much Hip-Hop.

[stretch]

[dirk4mvp]

Like it usually is, Hip Hop is the scapegoat.

[TheSanityAnnex]

When did they start playing hip-hop on the radio?

[StylisticS]

This article is pure bull , and the fact that it is coming from a Black man makes me all the more furious about this. It is articles such as these that feed the already existing bigotry and negative stereotypes towards Black people, especially Black men. The way Whitlock makes it sound it is as if this "culture" is an epidimic in the NFL. The players that he list as having these problems make up what, 0.5% of the Black athletes in the NFL? I swear Blacks have to be the only race that the actions of a few reflect badly on the race as a whole and it is a damn shame.

Same here regarding the part in bold. He, as well as the person (I forgot his name, I think someone else knows) that CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC gets to always say something negative about blacks are in the same boat. I was going to have a long rant but it looks like others already stated it.

[Spawn]

Same here regarding the part in bold. He, as well as the person (I forgot his name, I think someone else knows) that CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC gets to always say something negative about blacks are in the same boat. I was going to have a long rant but it looks like others already stated it.

Jesse Lee Peterson or Armstrong Williams are the usual suspects.

[Extra Stout]

No, hip-hop culture is not itself the problem, nor is it limited to the black community.

We have a national culture that glorifies self and promotes individual expression at the expense of the group. We believe in short-term self-gratification. We believe in no authority higher than our own whims. We are groomed this way in order to become mindless consumers.

The only reason this degenerative dynamic shows up more quickly in the black community is because of its dearth of cultural capital in the wake of an incomplete labor-based integration policy in the 1960's that destroyed the majority of the black economy in America.

Furthermore, I wonder... did Duane Thomas listen to hip-hop? How about Hollywood Henderson?

[Spawn]

No, hip-hop culture is not itself the problem, nor is it limited to the black community.

We have a national culture that glorifies self and promotes individual expression at the expense of the group. We believe in short-term self-gratification. We believe in no authority higher than our own whims. We are groomed this way in order to become mindless consumers.

The only reason this degenerative dynamic shows up more quickly in the black community is because of its dearth of cultural capital in the wake of an incomplete labor-based integration policy in the 1960's that destroyed the majority of the black economy in America.

Furthermore, I wonder... did Duane Thomas listen to hip-hop? How about Hollywood Henderson?

What do you mean by the dearth of cultural capital? I absolutely agree with you on integration, just look at my sig. Integration happened way too soon. It has developed a culture of dependance in the Black community waiting for daddy government to all of a sudden start caring for us and wishing to assimilate into the dominant American culture and that absolutely makes me sick because it will never happen. Why do we expect a government to help and care for us when they have historically shunned us. Integration has stagnated the Black cause and absolutely killed the Black economy. In my opinion for the Black community to once again rise up their must be increases in Black owned and Black ran businesses for starters and we must accept the fact that the government will never care for us and look to support each other to get by just as they did in the segregation years. Then we can talk about integration but without being at the mercy of others because we will be standing on our own two feet.

One of my favorite quotes "To be successful, all mass movements had to rely on themselves."

[Reggie Miller]

To put it even more bluntly, black Americans do not control the means of production, even in the industries that black Americans dominate. As a result, even black art is indirectly controlled by other ethnic and racial groups.

I am somewhat sympathetic to the notion that a lot of hip hop and rap music is a form of "selling out." Who is a safe target for the black man? Certainly not whites. Is it any wonder that the music often degrades black women, the one safe target? The net result is an industry largely controlled by white or Asian people (Sony/Columbia) that often presents negative images of black people. Obviously, this is a problem.

Is it a massive conspiracy? I highly doubt it. However, the cultural and psychological assumptions of America (and humanity generallY) make it so easy and "natural" that no one wants to address the problem. ("I'm making money, and if blacks want to run down their own people, who am I to stop them?")

A lot of people (in this thread and elsewhere) have and will address this in a more articulate way, but there is some grain of truth in Whitlock's self-hating diatribes. That is, "hip hop culture" is not to blame, but it is a reflection of a larger cultural problem. What concerns me is that this cycle cannot be broken without economic power and control, which is about the last thing that anyone ever concedes...

[703 Spurz]

How many of you actually listen to hip hop? Or do you just watch that bull that is on TV and feel you know enough to comment?

I grew up with rap but I hate it now. I was a huge Snoop, Dre, 2Pac, Biggie, Busta and Jay-Z fan. Some old school mixed in too, DMC, Sugarhill Gang...

Not so much anymore

[BeerIsGood!]

I grew up with rap but I hate it now. I was a huge Snoop, Dre, 2Pac, Biggie, Busta and Jay-Z fan. Some old school mixed in too, DMC, Sugarhill Gang...

Not so much anymore

Same here. I outgrew it.

[Lebowski Brickowski]

One thing the author gets wrong is using "Hip Hop Culture" as a term to describe something that ty hip-hop is merely a symptom of. Songs about money, hoes, and guns = selfishness, hatred, and immediate gratification. The ty hip-hop that trumpets those values can be seen as advertising for a way of living that values those things.

There's really no reason to have to defend "Hip-Hop" by pointing out that there are positve messages of brotherhood, friendship, respect, introspection, faith, etc.... in the best rap out there. That's not what the author means when he says "Hip Hop Culture."

The -ass hip-hop music like (forgive me for the lame example -- I'm 30 and stopped caring about that MTV crap years ago) Cash Money Millionaires doesn't MAKE anybody do anything. But it exists , and is crap; and it promotes a culture that exists and espouses those values of me-first, you, es aint nothin but hos, my Pit Bull is the baddest, guns to protect me from the playa-hata who wants a slice of mine. It's ing LUDICROUS and anybody who can't see it in the at ude of many professional athletes is kidding himself.

It doesn't matter if the athlete is white or black. It's the ing choice he makes that matters. Black people are a targeted market by that -ass-trash culture therefore young black people are susceptible. I would argue that athletes are more susceptible than the general population because athletes are already living a life that allows them to act however immaturely they want to with impunity.

There you have the recipe for the "at ude" that the author descries in this article.

In his own limited way, the author is spot-on.

btw-- this problem in Pro Football is only the very tip of the iceberg in this conflict of culture and life.

[SRJ]

TO can be a horse's ass, but Whitlock identifies him in the article as hip-hop. To me, there's nothing particularly hip-hop about TO, bad as he's been. Same for Chad Johnson, who is much less destructive than TO can be.

Frankly I don't know enough about the subject of hip-hop to know if problematic players are immersed in that culture and if said culture is having an adverse effect, but on the basis of what I do know it seems that Whitlock is putting too much emphasis on the hip-hop culture and not enough on the fact that certain players lack character. Take the hip-hop away from Pac-Man, and he's still an asshole. Ditto Ricky Manning Jr.

[Extra Stout]

What do you mean by the dearth of cultural capital? I absolutely agree with you on integration, just look at my sig. Integration happened way too soon. It has developed a culture of dependance in the Black community waiting for daddy government to all of a sudden start caring for us and wishing to assimilate into the dominant American culture and that absolutely makes me sick because it will never happen. Why do we expect a government to help and care for us when they have historically shunned us. Integration has stagnated the Black cause and absolutely killed the Black economy. In my opinion for the Black community to once again rise up their must be increases in Black owned and Black ran businesses for starters and we must accept the fact that the government will never care for us and look to support each other to get by just as they did in the segregation years. Then we can talk about integration but without being at the mercy of others because we will be standing on our own two feet.

One of my favorite quotes "To be successful, all mass movements had to rely on themselves."

By dearth of cultural capital I refer to Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of cultural capital.

When America integrated, it did so only in consumer and labor markets. There was no equal access to capital. Therefore, black businesses, which, though discriminated against on the basis of access to resources, were nevertheless protected against compe ion from white businesses because of ins utionalized segregation, had that protection removed before they had the opportunity to become compe ive.

So I think you have the right idea. You also are correct in the articulation that mass movements have to rely on themselves.