Urban Resources

Jones, V. (25 April, 2007). “The Ghetto Culture Machine,” The Boston

Globe

Rodman, S. (25 April, 2007). “Policing Rap Lyrics is Near-Impossible Task,” The Boston Globe

Overview

By “ghetto culture,” Jones has in mind rising incidents of deliberate imitation, sometimes parody, of urban hip-hop culture. College and high school students throw “ghetto parties,” for example, and MTV shows such as “Pimp My Ride” put an urban attitude toward car-culture front and center in suburban living rooms.

Writer Cora Daniels calls the phenomenon “Ghettonation” – a “mindset that embraces and celebrates the worst” through the expanding currency of hip-hop music and lifestyle. By ‘worst’ one could point to violent and degrading rap lyrics, or the glorification of drug use. Snoop Dogg and rapper 50 Cent play these notes with great success. But the choice of terms is controversial. “Ghetto,” says William Cobb of SpelmanCollege, is “a loaded term, which doesn’t serve to denote anything except a stereotypical view of a certain people.” Worse, the use of such a term may carry racist baggage. When Paris Hilton, for example, describes a beat-up old truck as “so ghetto,” her phrase implicitly borrows on stereotypes to convey a point.

The concern of Jones’ article, then, is two-fold: First, the point is not that hip-hop culture has a far-reaching and complicated relationship to white consumer culture, but that the way we talk about, celebrate, or criticize this phenomenon may very well be racist. Second, the co-opting and repackaging of hip-hop art for mainstream consumers tends to isolate a ‘gangsta’ lifestyle that not only plays with race/class stereotypes, but inadvertently sustains them.

In some hip-hop circles the tag “ghetto” is a declaration of authenticity – you’re certifiably ghetto if you’ve been shot three times and landed a record contract. But in predominantly white suburbs “ghetto” can be a way of subtly mocking or ‘exoticizing’ black urban culture. If a rap video flashes rows of gold-toothed “grills” in a rather over-the-top way, the fashion statement becomes fair “ghetto” game for suburban party-goers.

When white radio host Don Imus uses the term “hos” on the air to refer to black female basketball players a storm of controversy erupts. The term may have been normalized by rap artists, but this doesn’t mean a white man has free access to it.

Professor Emmett Price at NortheasternUniversity tells Jones that when he tried to discuss “ghetto parties” in his classroom the white students took a “So what?” position – why shouldn’t they toy with an image that is already profiting in the public commercial domain. According to Daren Graves of SimmonsCollege, the marketing of a racial stereotype makes it all the more difficult for young people to recognize genuine racial problems in our social structures.

The question of appropriate rap lyrics and commercial moral influence are also the topic of Rodman’s editorial. In the wake of the Don Imus incident, notes Rodman, record company executives and leaders from the African-American community have met to discuss this difficult issue. Russell Simmons, cofounder of the Def Jam record label, has suggested a voluntary lyric ban on three offensive words.

However, counters Rodman, for a man who made his fortune marketing offensive rhymes, this offer is a bit disingenuous. And though Rodman wants something more substantial to be done, she also wonders how we might keep this from getting too arbitrary. “I personally find the constant references to alcoholic beverages like Cristal, Courvoisier and Bacardi incredibly irritating. Can we get rid of these too? How about crunkmeister Lil Jon’s relentless barking of “OK!”?

Rodman is very untrusting of boardroom ‘morality’, and concludes on a pragmatic note about the state of the problem. The desire to “have more civil discourse and imaginative entertainment is laudable” but ultimately the fate of rap lyrics is up to the market. The good news is that “the raw and violent strain” of hip-hop appears to be ebbing in sales.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion:

1.      How does ‘racism’ appear in the situations described by this article?

2.      What is the relationship between urban culture and hip-hop marketing?

3.      Does the use of hip-hop slang by white celebrities qualify as racist? Why or why not?

4.      Do you or teenagers you know pay attention to the lyrics of popular rap songs?

5.      Should certain words be banned from such songs?

Implications:

The article paints a disheartening picture of the relationship between music culture, race, and language. That the author herself holds a somewhat mixed view implies that there is no clear way to resolve the tensions. It is fair to expect that African-Americans do not want hip-hop culture to speak for them, or urban slang to enter the popular lexicon of  today. It is also fair to assume that Paris Hilton and Don Imus are not seething racists when they borrow on unbecoming terms popularized by hip-hop icons. The article implies, sadly, that because the situation is so loaded with justifiable concerns about race, no honest dialogue on the matter is possible.

Christopher S. Yates cCYS

Bridgeland, John, John J. DiIulio, Jr. and Karen Burke Morison. (March 2006) "The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts," A Report by Civic Enterprises in association with Peter D. Hart Associates and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

OVERVIEW

Approximately one third of all high school students do not graduate in the United States today. These students are disproportionately minorities. "In 2003, 3.5 million youth ages 16-25 did not have a high school diploma and were not enrolled in school." (1) Moreover, the public and even teachers themselves are quite oblivious to this epidemic which has only gotten worse since heightened reforms appeared over the past few decades. Former Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education has observed that:

Many schools in America can't tell us on any given day who's in school and who's not, nor in any given year how many students have successfully made it through their four years of schooling to graduate and how many have dropped out. (1)

Because there has been little research done from the perspective of the dropouts themselves, this report attempts to fill in the gap by interviewing the dropouts themselves and create a broader public awareness of this tragic problem.

DESIGN

The researchers behind this report conducted a series of focus groups and a survey of young people aged 16-25 who claimed to be high school dropouts from 25 various locations (urban, suburban and rural all with high drop-out rates) across the United States.

FINDINGS

The data of this report are  broken down into two sections with key findings listed below each:

I. Why Students Drop Out

1. Nearly half said a major reason for dropping out was that classes were not interesting.
2. Nearly 7 in 10 said they were not motivated or inspired to work hard, 80 percent did one hour or less of homework each day, two-thirds would have worked harded if more was demanded of them and 70 percent were confident they could have graduated if they had tried.
3. Many students gave personal reasons for leaving school. A third said they had to get a job and make money; 26 percent said they became a parent; and 22 percent said they had to care for a family member.
4. Some leave because of academic challenges: 35 percent said that "failing in schoo" was a major factor in dropping out; 45 percent said they started high school poorly prepared by their earlier schooling; 32 percent were required to repeat a grade before dropping out and 29 percent had significant doubts whether they could have met their high school's graduation requirements even if they tried hard.
5. For most students, dropping out is not a sudden act but a gradual process: 59 to 65 percent missed class often the last year before dropping out; 38 percent believed they had "too much freedom" and not enough rules.
6. For students who dropped out, proactive parental involvement in their education was low: 59 percent of parents/guardians were involved in their child's schooling with only 21 percent very involved; 68 percent said their parents became more involved only when they realized their child was at risk of dropping out.
7. In hindsight, most young people who dropped out of school felt great remorse and showed a strong desire to re-enter with students their own age: 81 percent of adult drop-outs said that graduating from high school was important to success in life; 74 percent said that if they were able to relive the experience, they would have stayed in school; 47 percent said that not having a diploma makes it hard to get a good job.

II. What Might Help Students Stay in School

While most students blame themselves for dropping out of school, there are things they say that schools can do to help them finish:

1. Improve teaching and curricula to make school more relevant and engaging and enhance the connection between school and work (i.e. technical/vocational experiential-learning)
2. Improve instruction, and access to supports, for struggling students.
3. Build a school climate that fosters academics.
4. Ensure that students have a strong relationship with at least one adult in the school.
5. Improve the communication between parents and school.

CONCLUSIONS

In response to the above data, the report authors compiled a list of suggestions for addressing the dropout problems in our schools.

For Schools and Communities:

1. Develop different school options to fit unique student needs.
2. Create parent engagement strategies and individualized graduation plans.
3. Generate early warning systems to identify students at risk of dropping out.
4. Establish addition supports and adult adovcates.

For States:

1. Perform a re-examination of the compulsory school age requirements and consider going from 16 or 17 to 18.
2. Collect more accurate data from states and school districts.

For the Nation:

1. Collect more accurate national data from federal departments and agencies.
2. Offer better incentives under the No Child Left Behind act to keep children in schools.
3. Perform more research on what works and disseminate best practices.

Next steps: Create a national conversation on this topic through congressional hearings, White House conferences, state and local officials summits and public forums in schools and communities where the data is dicussed alongside possible soluations and, most importantly, the voices of the students are heard.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION & DISCUSSION

1. Were you aware of the direness of the school dropout problem in the US?
2. What do you think this report left out, if anything? How would you have done it differently?
3. What has your experience with school dropouts been like, if any?
4. Do you agree with the recommendations of the report? What would you add or take out?

IMPLICATIONS

1. This is clearly a national emergency as the education of our youth is essential to create healthy and stable citizens and future leaders.
2. Comprehensive approaches to addressing this problem need to be considered.

cCYS

Farley, C.J. (1997, November 24).

Gilbreath, E. (1998, March 2). Catching up with a Dream: Evangelicals and Race 30 Years after the Death of Martin Luther King, Jr.