The Audacity Of Hip-Hop

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  • Posted By: Mattyj2733 @ 09/25/2008 4:35:01 PM

    After living in the projects as a 25 year old white male from the suburbs, for the first time I could identify the lyrics of 2Pac and N.W.A. with the community in which I lived. Poverty, lack of employment, and poor education breed the environment in which violence and survival go hand in hand. Todays rap may be all about material possessions, but early rap was a cry from the deperate for help. People want to take there communities back from gang related activites and poverty, the problem is that they haven't had a candidate to offer them a hand up from the bottom.

    • Posted By: jh35180 @ 09/25/2008 5:06:54 PM

      Matty. You make sense. But what has to be done not only in the inner city but in white trailer parks where crystal meth is rampant is 1. Start really punishing drug dealers. Drugs are without a doubt the plague of all of society. We have to be really tough on drug pushers whether they be in the inner city or in the trailer park. 2. We are shipping too many jobs overseas. I am not for Obama because I feel he will continue the same messed up free trade policies that have plagued us for years. Of course, McCain hasn't exactly been great in this area either. I wish that we had some politicians who would demand "fair trade" rather than go with the one sided "free trade" that we have practiced for years. 3. Teen pregancy rates are going through the roof in the inner city as well as the trailer parks. Until this is addressed, we will continue to have poverty and suffering. 4. For kids who are habitually truant and have been retained we need more credit recovery programs to get more kids back on track and ready for graduation. 5. I am afraid that neither candidate is really addressing this. Neither candidate is giving anything specific. I will say that you make more sense than many who post on here.

      • Posted By: quazar8 @ 09/25/2008 5:54:08 PM

        First, we need to identify what is that problem with drugs. The problem is addiction and children obtaining drugs. What we need is a social program dedicated to fighting addiction and and nationwide education program about the effects/risks/origins of drugs and drug use. Punishing drug dealers will only put people in jail who were so poor that the only way they could think of making money is selling drugs. Instead, educate the populous, solve the underlying problems, and get these drug dealers some real jobs so they can contribute to society.

        • Posted By: jh35180 @ 09/26/2008 3:46:28 PM

          We have been trying many educational programs ad nauseaum. I am not saying we should give up on them, but these drug pushers are parasites who are living off many poor people. BTW, not all drug pushers are poor victims. Unfortunately, most of the people on which they prey are.

  • Posted By: ltko51 @ 09/26/2008 12:51:44 PM

    not quite sure what this article and its contents hopes to prove or disprove at this juncture.
    pls someone explain it to me. no... really. seriously! (it never hurts to ask)

  • Posted By: Payne23 @ 09/25/2008 11:34:51 PM

    These comments are great. For Newsweek to try to instill more fear into an allready volatile and crucial election is just this magazine showing its true colors. I am white , don't like hip-hop or rap but both genres have a few good songs. Lets expand this McCain must be a listener of jefferson starship, Jim Croce, and James Taylor: does it matter. I hate guns but if my government tried to ban them I would buy a few, they are the last line of defense against totalitarianism. Let us please make this election about fact, not hyperbole and fear-mongering.

    • Posted By: sjpersonal @ 09/26/2008 12:20:33 PM

      This is a very insightful and intelligent comment. Thank you.

  • Posted By: alpenglow @ 09/25/2008 11:58:42 PM

    Are you trying to scare middle America? Why would the hip hoppers be occupying the White House?

    • Posted By: sjpersonal @ 09/26/2008 12:19:39 PM

      Thank you! This article makes absolutely no sense and just provides the ignorant racists another reason to rant and rave.

      This article contributes absolutely nothing.

  • Posted By: didimau @ 09/26/2008 11:42:44 AM

    Semper Fi Joh McCain !

  • Posted By: didimau @ 09/26/2008 11:39:24 AM

    I served in Vietnam with the 1st Marines, wounded multiple times and was in the part northern part of SouthVietnam on combat missions while John McCain was only a few miles north of me in a prison at the same time. Believe me, John McCain put country first. Something of interest here though. Ms. Jane Fonda visited Hanoi at the same time John was a prisoner a few hundred yards away. She got up on an anti aircraft gun implacement and acted like she was shooting down an American aircraft for "her photo shoot. Later, prisoners were paraded in front of her for another "photo op". One prisoner handed her a piece of paper with all the prisoners social security numbers on them........she gave this paper to the North Vietnamese. She was never charged with treason but there is still one thing she is...............a........ DEMOCRAT !

  • Posted By: didimau @ 09/26/2008 11:31:52 AM

    Raven.........you really need to get educated. The country of Georgia just got whopped by Russia and it took only a few hours. They are rebuilding their military with our money via oil revenues. Oil we have off-shore and in ANWR which would "curtail" this increase weaponery expansion because we would be "paying oursleves" for this oil and keeping the money here. Next" Venezuela, Cuba, Argentina, some Baltics countries....all because of oil revenues.

  • Posted By: John43218 @ 09/26/2008 11:20:24 AM

    McCain is a leader, an independant and a maverick. Those popel who think they are liberals should be ashamed to criticize a man who puts his country first. If you have any doubts about anyone it is should be Obama, the man who has to prepare to give a "speech" that promises you things he cannot deliver. He spent his summer in Europe and Hawaii and did not want to debate McCain when asked 10 times. Obama is a fraud, and if you liberal losers don't get that, so are you

    • Posted By: didimau @ 09/26/2008 11:27:12 AM

      I agree with you 100% on this one. Obama is a fraud. I used to vote Democrat, from Michigan, Union, veteran, disabled from Vietnam, retired millwright and this guy just says whatever is best at the time. He has virtually no experience in economics and all of a sudden he knows it all. What a joke his charade is to the public. His illegal immigration policy did me in with him. He is going to give all illegal immigrants national healthcare at the governments expense. This will raise taxes and coming out of my pocket. All this with open borders. Give me a break. We would be virtually covering the whole country of Mexico then.

  • Posted By: didimau @ 09/26/2008 11:21:01 AM

    www.ATLAH.org/broadcast/ndnr09-19-08.html
    Obama is a slimmy, lying hypocritical politician so says Rev. Manning, Harlem, NY. We agree with him!

  • Posted By: Lokas_rsod @ 09/26/2008 10:54:10 AM

    This made me laugh out loud.

    "Pioneering female rapper MC Lyte encourages her fellow artists to take the responsibility that comes with their influence seriously. She wants luminaries of the hip-hop community to be "extremely certain in whatever it is [they] do."

    THIS IS NEWSWEEK?

    This is an incredibly poorly written article that goes nowhere. If fact it may even have the opposite effect of it's intention.

  • Posted By: cult followers @ 09/25/2008 4:03:59 PM

    Rapper DMX didn't even know who Obama was. Larry King had on Snoop Dodd and Wyclef John to Rock the Vote and neither are eligible to vote. Snoop is a convicted felon and Wyclef John is Haitian. Chris Rock is voting for Obama because Obama "voted against the war" which of course Obama didn't do because he didn't have a vote...he had a speech. Identity politics? Kevin Powell, however, is for real. But why is it just now: "The time is now to take back OUR communities!"? What we're THEY waiting for?

    • Posted By: THE RAVEN @ 09/26/2008 10:34:00 AM

      What the fu*k are you talking about--and who the hell is k. powell? The A$$ holes you mentioned don't represent black people or the black communities in this country--moron--just as I imagine your trailer park meth-smoking, pedophile racist white trashy A$$ don't speak for white America. Except for your fellow inbreeding klan members like sportass, ic eyes, and observe no . Dumbass.

  • Posted By: techresmgt @ 09/26/2008 10:03:24 AM

    God help us all. Rap that.

  • Posted By: summer4077 @ 09/26/2008 8:09:28 AM

    Wow, how did this article make it into Newsweek? Why doesn't someone write about Palin getting into office and filling it up with country music loving rednecks? Wow.

  • Posted By: maggieschumacher @ 09/26/2008 7:51:34 AM

    I can't believe this article made Newsweek? Wow what a dumb one-sided article. How many guns does Sarah Palin own? This article is borderline racist trying to scare middle america. Sounds like something someone in the KKK would write.

  • Posted By: bparnold @ 09/26/2008 12:12:15 AM

    Cynthia McKinney, the Green Party candidate for president, has a hip hop artist as her running mate and they make no mention of her-this is absolutely disgusting. The media has sabotaged third parties-I've been outraged at the bias and poor reporting msnbc has always done but, this election cycle, it' especially horrible.
    You guys make Fox look truly "Fair and Balanced."

  • Posted By: feubanks @ 09/26/2008 12:03:35 AM

    Keep living and y'all gon find out whut yo elders been knowin' and y'all gotta learn:

  • Posted By: alpenglow @ 09/25/2008 11:56:51 PM

    Are you trying to scare middle America?

  • Posted By: Lee Holmes @ 09/25/2008 6:43:54 PM

    Hmm. Wonder how many AK-47s you can count between these guys? Mebbe Suge Knight can cop a cabinet position. Anythings possible.

    • Posted By: TheVigil @ 09/25/2008 11:06:08 PM

      How many guns does Sarah Palin own?

  • Posted By: archmsu @ 09/25/2008 8:17:04 PM

    Good, they'll be the ones that Obama is going to tax to get all the money for his campaign promises.......Idiots!!
    Gangster rappers for Obama, just what this country needs!!
    P.S. When people use them term Hip-Hop, they're really talking about negros.

    • Posted By: glimps @ 09/25/2008 8:21:32 PM

      what about Slim shaddy? he's not black ( & B.T.W. he made some hefty dollars being a rapper)... he was way better then Vanilla Ice who B.T.W. last time i saw VH1 "where are they now"? is a rocker now w/ dreadlocks..... Ohhhhhhhhhh! goodness....

      • Posted By: archmsu @ 09/25/2008 9:27:32 PM

        I think the term is wigger............. I might be wrong on that?

        • Posted By: glimps @ 09/25/2008 10:13:12 PM

          ok ! so you said that the term "HIP HOP" is refering to Blacks only.... regardless on your view of whites that listen to hip hop you made a statement that only one race/culture listens to that music.... i just wanted clarity..

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