Michael Steele & Chuck D
Posted on March 1st, 2009 by Tariq Nelson
Chuck is delusional if he thinks that America will move toward a multi party system
Michael Steele has his work cut out for him, but give him credit for facing the lions. He even repudiates Limbaugh (sort of). And DL Hughley was very respectful
Filed under: Politics
Well Chuck didn’t say the US WOULD move to a multi-party system he stated that he feels it SHOULD. That’s a difference and I think most feel that way. Too much power is in the hands of only two groups. Mind you I’m writing from California where our government virtually shut down because one party refused to come to agreement with the other party.
I think the best thing Steele stated was that the Republican party needed an urban agenda. Liberal elite practice conservative values and preach liberalism so as to exploit a corrupt values system and effectively become poverty pimps.
I’ll leave the rest to Brother Malcolm:
http://faithinactiononline.com/2008/06/17/malcolm-x-on-white-liberals/
Mr. Steele did a pretty good job “facing the lions”. Although I may not always agree with everything he (or his party) may say, I think it’s wonderful that black folks have varied political views.
I also enjoy reading your blog.
He did a great job offending Chuck and lots of others by assuming Chuck was “from the projects”. Oops.
Rasheed, I am a white dude that loves and virtually agrees with Malcolm X(Malik el Shabazz)’s message. However that one excerpt is before he performed the Hajj. That was not his belief before death.
Also, we see that Chuck D obviously thinks that Steele is an uncle Tom. That is apparent when he calls Steele’s childhood neighborhood “a place where black people live” not the ghetto.
Yep! Michael did the right thing in not cowering to his adversaries.I’ll give his due on that.
I remembered seeing a little of Steele during the primaries and how he was very open in distancing himself from Bush Jr. He barely “distances” himself from Rush, which really bugs me.He may as well say that I support Rush’s statement. If he can condemn Bush for his actions, why not him? I understand that he wants to look good and eventually become president of the US(I hope not), but I just wish that he would just say ” I didn’t agree with Rush……” without hiding behind a curtain( in this case)
I like his accomplishments, but I cannot see myself voting for this guy, because of his party’s ideologies. It seems that the Republicans feel that we Obama in the office because of his race. If that was the case, we should have put Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm or Carol Moseley-Braun in the Whitehouse and two of the three were pretty credible candidates. African-Americans didn’t come out in droves to vote for them. On top of that there were other races of people who helped contribute to Obama’s win. I voted for Obama because I could no longer stand the hypocrisy of Bush. Other wise, it doesn’t matter what race they come from as long as they are not right -winged.
Far as Chuck D,he must realize that w live a multi party country. So far, people are only only going to two of them.I hope I’m very wrong, but unless the people put a persuasive candidate and is able to sway the voters into their hands, it’s not going to work. As a matter of fact , the idea may do the people more harm than good as some of us may have seem what the addition of the Libertarian party during the presidential/gubernatorial elections.
@ Leon -
Also, we see that Chuck D obviously thinks that Steele is an uncle Tom. That is apparent when he calls Steele’s childhood neighborhood “a place where black people live” not the ghetto.
I think that Chuck is referring to his neighborhood - because many blacks live in communities where their income and educational levels surpass that of whites.
Salaam
News Flash,
Michael Steele just apologized to Rush Limbaugh. In his radio show yesterday Rush told Steele to in effect “stay in your place nigger”. He didn’t use those exact words but his comments pretty much sums up that interpretation. I always thought Steele was pretty much a punk. Now everybody knows it.
Now I expect Steele to be replaced soon enough. You stated in another post Tariq the Demos should stay away from Limbo but like I stated the GOP and Rush are one. Steele’s actions prove it.
Simply stated, hip hop is a youth phenomenon, a youth activity, a youth mind set and thus it should be treated as thus and left behind as thus. If we want to talk about self-empowerment then we need to look at what empowers people - full grown and fully-fledged people, not children. Many will see this as derogatory but I think we need to look hip hop in the eye [especially Black Folk] and examine it for what it is. I think our youth do need cultural activities and vehicles in which they can formulate and express themselves on their way to adulthood!, but once they’ve arrived at adulthood, the transition should be complete. I would be happy to expand my argument if need be but thought I’d voice this here and now.
Steele, Alan Keys, Ward Connally, Ken Hamblin all these are cut from the same cloth and are suckers, they preach against affirmative action yet the irony is they are only allowed to rebuke Black people. so it’s not surprising steele had to go to rush and kiss the pinky ring
@Marc
While I agree that hip hop is somewhat youth centered, that does not negate its utility in terms of expressing self-empowerment or any other idea articulated in adulthood. In this it is no different from any other cultural expression. quick example most would say that if you wanted to express an idea to adults you wouldn’t use animal characters to do so (childrens books but not adults), I can think of a more political work than Orwell’s “animal farm”, what I’m saying is that hip hop is no less or no more viable than any other instrument of expression.
Marc and Abu Usamah,
I do think we need to have an honest reflection on the role of hip hop in uplifting Black people. I think this is especially in light of the fact that hip hop has been appropriated by so many others. In fact, many in the hip hop movement have distanced it from its roots in Black culture. At the same time, people listen to conscious hip hop and do little transform their societies. Then we need to take an honest assessment to see how this form of cultural expression has allowed for so many of our men, and women, to wallow in extended adolescence. This is the reality we must hit head on. And for some of us old heads, we need to allow room for those in their teens and early twenties to develop a youth culture, as opposed to us old heads over 30 trying to hold on to the lime light, trying to look all young and hip on myspace, while pushing out low quality product.
@ Marc
co-sign.
I was just telling a friend that a man in his 30s looks juvenile doing hip hop
@Abu Usamah - a find the statement that it is a “cultural expression” a bit of an embelleshment. Don’t get me wrong. I am not here to attack hip hop. I own and still occaisionally listen to hip hop from my youth because I can crack a smile and think back about things that the music resurrects for me from that time. Nonetheless, America in generally and Black America in specific [as in what I'm addressing here] has issues with transitioning fully to adulthood. And I see hip hop as a symptom of this [not a causation of it]. And more over, people are forgetting that hip hop was a youth vehicle for Black youth who were talking about issues they faced. Is there a hip hop asthetic? Sure. A culture? How so - for a culture is something that reproduces itself. Where has hip hop reproduced anything? I am trying to draw the line between asthetics and also to lay down a line between childhood and adulthood.
Thanks,
@Tariq
I simply don’t agree that artistry should be defined by age but rather quality secondly hip hop is fueling global industry, there is hardly a product in which hip hop hasn’t influenced it’s marketing. Older Black artist who have gone through the process should not step back and allow new artists to be taken advantage of by even older elderly white men.
Being involved with hip hop doesn’t just mean singing and dancing, look at the behind the scene decisions being made?
If we are honest the flowering of hip hop / rap help to easy the way of Blacks into all levels of mass media and marketing as a whole, and now with the 30ish 40ish rappers push the “executive” image being self-made, self-empowered. for example when I was young no one spoke about publishing rights, mechnical rights, publishing, master recordings etc.. yet now large numbers of artists are aware the financial rewards of ownership and that is empowering.
Now as far as the “actual message” in todays lyrics that is a whole other issue. the last two CDs I brought were years ago (Missunderstood, Amir, Parish)
Now Amir is no spring chicken and he doesn’t really use music create songs
@Tariq
I simply don’t agree that artistry should be defined by age but rather quality secondly hip hop is fueling global industry, there is hardly a product in which hip hop hasn’t influenced it’s marketing. Older Black artist who have gone through the process should not step back and allow new artists to be taken advantage of by even older elderly white men.
Being involved with hip hop doesn’t just mean singing and dancing, look at the behind the scene decisions being made?
If we are honest the flowering of hip hop / rap help to easy the way of Blacks into all levels of mass media and marketing as a whole, and now with the 30ish 40ish rappers push the “executive” image being self-made, self-empowered. for example when I was young no one spoke about publishing rights, mechnical rights, publishing, master recordings etc.. yet now large numbers of artists are aware the financial rewards of ownership and that is empowering.
Now as far as the “actual message” in todays lyrics that is a whole other issue. the last two CDs I brought were years ago (Missunderstood, Amir, Parish)
Now Amir is no spring chicken and he doesn’t really use music to create songs per se, but you cant deny that his work is inflenced by hip hop,
And I my oppinion I think he’s more effective because his voice sounds more like KRSOne, than his voice sounds like Imam Johari
“I was just telling a friend that a man in his 30s looks juvenile doing hip hop”
What Tariq? Tell that Rob Swift or Qbert. Do you even know who Rob Swift or Qbert are? I think you misunderstand what hip hop as culture is. Maybe for you it was something heard on the radio and an activity to be performed. For heads like me it is culture. No different than my Chicano culture or black culture. It influences my worldview, my speech and my dress. Mind you I wrote “influenced ” not “dictate”.
@ Marc manley
Hip hop reproduced brother Ali.
Brother Ali - Good Lord
“And Imam Mohammed used to pound the podium
And Popmaster Fabel works it out on the linoleum
Chappelle bust funnies
And Mos Def bust rhymes
And Muhammad Ali is the greatest of all time.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufVBdAqmko0
@Marc
“Black America in specific [as in what I'm addressing here] has issues with transitioning fully to adulthood….. I am trying to draw the line between asthetics and also to lay down a line between childhood and adulthood.”
The whole culture vs asthetic is convoluted when it comes to Blackamericans in general so good luck trying draw a line between them in hip hop. Here’s the thing and Tariq has touched on this before and that is we need to do a way with the so-called adolence period it doesn’t exist.
Now as far as transitioning to from childhood to adulthood for many there is no transitioning, not just in terms of aborted development, but also because many have had to make life or death decisions as well as have the respondsibility to provide for themselves (in some cases even siblings) as teenagers.
It reminds me of the saying “when I was a child I played with childish things, when I became older I put them away”, yeah that sounds cleaver but I’ve always thought ok, what if you’ve had to deal with adult things as a child, then what?
@ Leon
I was highlighting his stance on white liberal culture with an emphasis on liberal. If you look keenly into what he is saying it has more to do with culture and ideology and less to do with skin color. I do not recall Malcolm distancing himself from his conservative values nor embracing liberalism even after the Hajj.
@ Hamza21
In most cases I would agree with Tariq on Rappers in their 30’s. I understand what he is getting at, when a man hits 30 something inside him happens (or should) and he realizes he has to step up to the next level. That being said I have to agree with you Brother Ali is the exception to the rule… The brother is phenomenal MA… May Allah increase him and give him the Tawfeeq to elevate in the game….
Interesting article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/27/AR2007052700926.html
@Sis Aziza
yes the article is interesting only from the standpoint as the writer feels confident in writing on a topic he dosent have a clue about. And cherry picks one example ie the to make a blanket generalization, that no other group “class sinks” and hip hop is causing the Black Middle socio-economic class to “class sink”. No the real reason is that the Black Middle socio-economic class never truly created a cultural bridge of mentoring for the lower class to come up.
So when “some” of their sons get tired of wearing the emasculating mask that Dunbar wrote about, they come to the inner city (or sometimes accept Islam) to act out macho fantasies
@Abu Usamah - AB, I am in now way diminishing the artistic content of hip hop. What I am saying is that I don’t see hip hop as a real bona fide adult activity just as I think it’s a bit ridiculous for men in their 30’s and 40’s to spend time playing XBox or Playstation. What I am trying to get at here and maybe I haven’t articulated it well enough yet, is that many of the grown men/women who were into hip hop when they were you [yours truly included] have tried to carry that same sensibility over into adulthood - and I think that such a mindset is detrimental to leaving youth behind and fully taking on the mantle of adulthood. I say this again in the context that modern society [that portion that pertains to the 30-40 crowd especially] seem to want to keep teething on their youth - be it hip hop, Playstation, or even as I had mentioned to my wife, I have seen the same behavior in the hipster, alt-rock crowd, where you still have 30-40 adults “going to shows”, getting lit and puking, dressing like they did when they were 15-20, and so forth. It may sound bourgeoisie, stogy or stiff, but I do believe this to be an issue when you’ve got 30 year-old men walking around with baggy pants hanging off their butts, sporting hooded sweatshirts and athletic gear 7 days a week. We may agree to disagree on this point - I respect your viewpoint. I also hope I have articulated a bit more clearly what I am trying to get out here.
My brother has been involved in the music industry for quite some time, including playing and touring with such acts as The Roots, Ericka Badu, and other hip hop groups [Q-Tip...]. Let me tell you, on his behalf, that while it may be a “global industry” as we imagine it, in reality, it is an industry that cannot employ that many, compared to other more fruitful areas of the private sector. Can you get a job in hip hop? Yes. Will it last and be a stable one? Probably not - and that comes from first hand feedback from musicians, studio techs and the like who work in the industry. My point is that you’d be better off getting a “real job”, having a stable lifestyle, and perhaps buying some hip hop albums. The industry is notoriously shaky and shaddy. Record executives and corporations are not loyal to employees.
@Hamza 21
I would have to differ here as well. Chicano culture is based around an ethnic identity for one [while hip hop might have been started by black folks, it is no longer synonymous with them]. Secondly, what you are calling Chicano culture is in reality a reference to a socio-political movement that started in the 40’s and saw its head culminate in the 60’s. In fact, there are some that say that the movement is dead today because it was rooted in social liberation [whether they're liberated or not is up for debate but I hope you see my point]. What I am trying to illustrate here is that we [people in general] are often too quick to want to inflate social phenomena and slap the label “culture” on them simply because a group of people engages in some quantifiable activity. i would be more agreeable to calling hip hop a movement than a culture.
@Abu Usamah
How so? Can you provide some backing to your assertion? This seems more like typical a priori statements that many people make about Blackamericans [including other black folk!] - case in point here, that hip hop is inseparable from black folks and that in a manner of speaking, the two terms are interchangeable [black/hip hop].
This is a keen observation. And to provide a response, life conditions to not justify life actions. In other words, because I experienced “x” as a child is not justification to habitually perform “y” as an adult. And to tie this into Islam, since we’re mostly all Muslims here, the Prophet would not have condoned someone’s actions simply because they did it in their jahiliyyah - whether that be the time before Islam in the 7th Century Arabia or our time before our Islam as children [for we do not fully take up the mantle of Islam until we reach adulthood]. For that person who had to be an adult as a child - they should seek rectification for their character through counseling, reading about the Prophet’s [s] life, reading Qur’an, etc.
Hamza - case in point, the article I just wrote on the relation between bebop, Blackness, and Islam; could we then call bebop a culture? There are many who have tried but as you can see, it’s not had any lasting social contribution and has been seen now with the lens of history, as more of a social movement that was interwoven into and born out of social justice issues.
I appreciate everyone’s comments!
should read: is that many of the grown men/women who were into hip hop when they were young
@Marc
how do you guy make the quotes highlighted
[quote]How so? Can you provide some backing to your assertion? This seems more like typical a priori statements that many people make about Blackamericans [including other black folk!] - case in point here, that hip hop is inseparable from black folks and that in a manner of speaking, the two terms are interchangeable [black/hip hop]. [/quote]
@Marc
Side steping the whole issue of what defines “culture” I’ll try to explain what I mean by it being convoluted when it comes to hip hop, to do so I will have to also explain why I buy into Ustez Abdul-Hakim’s notion of Blackamerican as a social construct.
If you disregard social expriences as a result of skin color, at every given socio-economic level there’s practically, no fundemental cultural (ie, language, morals, religion, clothes, recreation activities, sports, etc.) differences between the majority of Blacks and Whites at that level, the differences if any is in how the culture is asthetically expressed.
Blackamericans are nothing other than Americans as the vast majority of our culture is a direct result of being in America, yet at the same time to deny the social expriences that come with being Black in america would be folly.
So I do not say that black and hip hop interchangeable, but hip hop is a reflection of the upheaval that has occured in the Blackamerican community and it can not be devorced from that fact.
So is hip hop a true culture or an asthetic, I’ll allow the social scientist to decide.
Lasting cultures create institutions which promote future replication, so the argument can made if Blackamericans formulate a real culture (rather than merely an asthetic of the larger American culture) where are the Black institutions that have had a lasting social contribution? The same can be said for Black American Muslims, if we are in fact distinct from other Blacks, Americans or Muslims where are the institutions that promote future replication of the BAM culture?
That my friend, is secret knowledge
I do it but putting the text in blockquotes.
@Marc,
which brings me back to my statement “the Black Middle socio-economic class never truly created a cultural bridge of mentoring for the lower class to come up. ”
I firmly believe that the results of integration coupled with the drug scourge and a distain for erudition are the aftermath of the failure of the Blackamerican middle class/elites/talented tenth (or whatever name you want to provide) to create institutions that promote and provide a path for upward mobility.
Prior to integration there were Blackamerican institutions (eg. Idlewild, Michigan) and neighborhoods were Blacks from different socio-economic levels interacted each authenticating the other once integration occured then the Black institutions were allowed to wither, because the Blackamericans from the upper socio-economic levels just simply up and left.
I’m all for personal responsibilty, but as I said before lasting cultures create institutions which promote future replication, and it is the duty of the elite and knowledgeable to perform the task.
Since the wider American institutions don’t the self-authenticating nurishment the some of these Blackamerican middle class children are missing they turn to the hood to seek it. That’s why Obama went to Southside Chicago, rather Prince George County.
And the Muslims are falling for the same trap, I know of two or three hafizul Quran, who walk around with sagging pants and baseball caps, not to mention those who know dozens of surahs who do the same or worst.
American institutions don’t produce the self-authenticating nurishment the some of these Blackamerican middle class children
@Abu Usamah - I have not in any way disregarded the social context of what we’re talking about here. Indeed, I am making my point by stipulating it is a social vehicle - and that the scope that’s being applied to hip hop as a culture is a bit too grandiose for what it really is: a youth phenomenon. If you re-read what I’ve written, you’ll see that I have couched my argument in the social construct theory. Again, for sake of redundancy, my point is thus: hip hop is not a culture but it is a movement or a phenomenon. To help make my case a bit clearer, imagine this: can hip hip, the word, but used interchangeably and applicably to any number of persons, from ages 8-88 and beyond, and not deviate from meaning implied? For instance, a young boy or girl may be infatuated by hip hop and thus seek to emulate and such hip hop artists in their mode of dress, in their mannerisms, etc. But, would a 90 year-old woman legitimately dress like a hip hop artist and be received as expressing hip hop in a bona fide manner? I conclude my case by stating that hip hop is more akin to a movement, primarily acted out and upon by young people.
Now…, with all that said, whether or not my case wins the argument or ultimately looses it, we must ask ourselves, what are we getting at with the whole question on hip hop and culture and more importantly, what should our stance as a community be towards hip hop, regardless of whether it’s a culture, a movement or the like? Because, for better or worse, hip hop has captured the imagination of many young people including Muslims. And for the betterment of our youth, we’d better have some stance, some sympathetic and articulate relation with it or we’ll wind up suffering the consequences of it.
As someone above stated, there are elements of hip hop that are in contradiction to the ethics and moral precepts of Islam. Thus, if we are to Islamicize hip hop [the semantics of which I’m not entirely comfortable with but I have not yet chosen a better word so work with me] for our young people so that they can embrace it [for they are embracing it] with two hands: one ready to grasp and the other ready to fend off if need be. In other words, if we’re doing our job of educating our youth about the ethical and moral injunctions of Islam, they will be able to embrace elements from their environment and the dominant culture [or sub-cultures as possibly in this case] without, in R.E.M.’s words, loosing their religion. That, I believe, is where are conversation needs to go.