Critical Race Theory, Nelly, and How Law Still Aids and Abets Racial Bias

Nelly has created controversy before with his "Tip Drill" video but a recent controversy in Branson shows how folks can use law and other administrative maneuvers based on what appears to be racialized motives. According to a local news story (see http://www.news-leader.com/article/20100728/NEWS01/7280441/Appeal-for-outdoor-Nelly-show-rejected), the local government rejected a number of permits to have the outdoor concert. From what I can tell reading the articles while this drama has unfolded, the main issues under discussion are noise, traffic, parking, and space. There may also be an issue regarding non-union musicians here as Nelly and his band are not members of the local musician's union. However, it certainly appears that hip-hop, the likely age and race of the audience, and people's preconceived notions about hip-hop also seem to be playing the biggest part.

There are three salient points that critical race theorists have been making for a while-

(1) Hip-hop acts still struggle to negotiate the business end of live music and there is certainly a much greater cost for them to do business than other music acts. Everything from getting insurance to getting permits seems to cost more money for hip-hop acts.

(2) It appears that hip-hop is being used as a proxy for race. Many participants (especially the comment section to the article) seem to assume that a hip-hop concert will bring in a primarily or even exclusively black audience and that this audience will likely cause trouble.

(3) It appears that local business leaders are using facially race-neutral rules to enforce a de facto ban on hip-hop and to attack what they presume will be an unusually racially mixed crowd for Branson.

While none of this is surprising, it is disappointing to see this happening in my own backyard.

Recent DMCA ruling & Electronic Frontier Foundation Victory

A recent Fifth Circuit ruling held that circumventing technological protections does not violate the Digital Millenium Copyright Act if the user was engaged in otherwise permissible things with the text/object, such as time-shifting or educational use of quotations. (See http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/07/23/29099.htm for an article about the case). Because I have not yet read the full opinion, I am skeptical that - despite the optimistic headlines - that the Supreme Court will agree. I certainly would anticipate that this ruling will be appealed and the copyright industries will do whatever they can to lessen the impact of it.

I would urge similar caution to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's victory regarding jailbreaking and video-remixing. (See http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/07/26). Again, we will see if these victories are permanent or only temporary. I am skeptical that there will not be some sort of lobbying effort to overturn this decision. In the meantime though, I urge all you film makers to get out there and get your critical documentaries out now while you can!

Adult Contemporary Hip-Hop?

There is a thought-provoking article at allhiphop.com (http://www.allhiphop.com/stories/features/archive/2010/07/22/22306569.aspx) about the rise of "Adult Contemporary Hip-Hop." I like it as I think it speaks to how hip-hop and its audience is evolving. Even if the early days of hip-hop were not how people like to imagine them, they are quite different than today. For one, folks like Jay Z and Eminem have way too much market power and too much of a built-in audience to simply fade away as did earlier generations of hip-hop artists. Plus, they can spend some of their millions to record and distribute albums even if they tank. Same thing with the Roots, now that they have their perch on the Jimmy Fallon show, they are simply too well-known and too commercial to be anything other than adult contemporary hip-hop (and I really like the Roots). Even groups like A Tribe Called Quest and/or Q-tip can count a pretty hard-core nostalgic following (I know I bought Tip's latest cd). It also doesn't hurt that a large number of their audience are now in the late 20s and early 30s (if not older) and likely have more disposable cash (even with the recent recession) than those same people did 20 years ago. All the recent retrospectives on hip-hop at Vibe, VH1, BET, and other places certainly help create/solidify a middle-aged audience.

While article does not mention it, the fact that the second wave of hip-hop stars have turned 40 also matches with how a number of hip-hop icons, from Chuck D and Harry Allen to KRS One and Ice-T have been talking at college campuses for over a decade. I remember seeing Ice-T in the late 1990s and noting how his ground-breaking moment has past. Similarly, hip-hop has completely infiltrated the academy with lots of books and courses about it. Certainly, hip-hop or anything changes once that happens.

Given my own argument that much in hip-hop is ironic, I hope that the growing recognition of hip-hop's adult contemporary audience (of which I am probably a member) produces a shift of sorts about how scholars, journalists, and even the stars themselves talk about the music and the culture. It's a good piece, check it out!

The Purposes of General Education?

Because Drury has been engaged in a revision of its general education curriculum for awhile, I have been thinking on and off about the purposes of "general education." Without doing a thorough literature review, it seems like there are (at least) three competing ideas about general education.

The first concept is focused on achieving intellectual excellence. To me, this seems to be the oldest form of general education (probably borrowed from the Greek philosophers among others) and one that is focused on critical thinking, communication, finding one's place in the world, and developing the traits and habits of an educated person. Some might be tempted to term this the wisdom approach to general education. If this still exists in the contemporary university, it seems to exist in required seminars for students.

A second concept seems more rooted in the Enlightenment and modernity and is focused on possessing the requisite knowledge of the world. I think of this as a more modern approach because it assumes a fairly stable and masterable amount of knowledge in the world. I also think this version dominates universities and has shifted from common curriculum to a more menu-drive approaches.

The last approach is focused on the skills that students need for the careers (or what Andrew Mills calls the can-opener approach to education). This is frequently tied to service or experiential learning programs as they both "engage" students and provide marketable skills for students. While such experiential and service projects contain the rhetoric of active and applied learning, I guess I am a bit skeptical how much can be achieved if students lack wisdom or knowledge.

In a nutshell, the concept of general education seems to be on a journey from wisdom to knowledge to professional skills. I am not sure what to make of this evolution. Philosophically, this certainly bothers me as I like the concept of universities teaching wisdom and the right kind of habits or dispositions. However, as a practical matter, that does not seem what students or employers want. If colleges (like any other business) do not give people what they want, we cannot force people to pay for and attend the "right" kind of college and then the more traditional colleges will simply go financially bankrupt.

I am beginning to think that if general education merely becomes associated with basic professional skills, then we might need to abandon the concept altogether.

On the bright side, most decisions at colleges and universities are more political than philsophical. As a result, we will likely to see hybrid models that try to do a bit of each of these things. I guess I will need to focus my energies on the parts that focus on wisdom or knowledge

Irony and Eminem

I finally got around to checking out Eminen's latest and was a bit surprised to see how he has embraced a more ironic mode of storytelling. Songs like "Talking 2 Myself" & "Going Through Changes" seem like the complete opposite of some his earlier boasting and bragging. I do think it is interesting to see that Eminem has moved almost completely away from his earlier personas to reveal them as a mask or mere artifice. "Talking 2 Myself" really helps lift up the mask and show the limitations with his earlier form of presentation. It is an interesting turn of events! Along with the changes in Jay Z's lyrics, I think somebody needs to write a book about the lifecycle of rappers and how their rhymes change over time!

RS

Celebrate Freedom this Fourth of July!

Some classic things to add to your Fourth of July Celebration:

• Frederick Douglass "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July" http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=162

• Immortal Technique "Freedom of Speech" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcUJQCykXLU

• Dead Prez "Propoganda" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psdgRH_p3XI

• Bruce Springsteen "This Land Is Your Land" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX0nFo0bqAM

• Bob Marley " Redemption Song" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFGgbT_VasI

• India Arie "There's Hope" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NHjUEdiebE

• Jimi Hendrix "Star Spangled Banner" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCSS1Xy6kfE

RS