Around the world, America has a respectable reputation, which is providing equality and fair treatment to all of its citizens. Yet sometimes some groups of people may not always receive fair treatments especially many color communities. The communities don’t always receive the necessary funding or help from the government in order for the community to thrive in the future. Due to a lack of resources many residents are not receiving job opportunities, proper education or guidance. Many African American communities are embedded in a never ending cycle of poverty and criminal activity. Gang Starr’s “Code of the Streets” and 2Pac “Changes” exposes the experience of living in low-income communities, witnessing conflicts there and determining the …show more content…
In the song “Code of the Streets” Gang Starr feels that majority of the African American will not resolve the ongoing issues in the community. The listener can tell that Gang Starr feels hopeless because the overall tone in the song is depressing. Gang Starr used multiple different samples to create the soundtrack and overall tone in the song. The song included samples of “Little Green Apples” by Monk Higgins and “Synthetic Substitution” by Melvin Bliss. The artist used samples from “Synthetic Substitution” to create a drum beat from the start to the end of the song, which helps to create a serious tone. The artist used a few saxophone samples from “Little Green Apples” to create another constant background sound. The saxophone scenes were changed a little bit in order to create a low pitch in the song, which can represent the sadness of living in a poor community. While the soundtrack of the drums and saxophone had a constant rhythm throughout the entire song, when the song mentions the “The Code of the Streets” the artist uses a DJ turntable to stop the soundtrack by scratching the record. The rhythm of the song is disturbed in a way. This could represent that a person has to carefully know the rules of the streets in order to survive. Gang notice that these poor communities have their own system and rules such as dealing …show more content…
Miller and “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander sheds light of these two songs. Miller talks about the importance of self-reflection because it can tell a story about the musician’s life. When telling a story through a song, it can create multiple different emotional feelings and thoughts for the listener. Gang Starr who wrote “Code of the Streets” wants to tell a story of how people are stuck in poverty and why there is violence in many poor communities. The artist talks about the emotions a person might feel when living in these poor communities. People might feel frustrated and hopeless because they aren’t given any opportunities to earn money to finically support themselves. When some people take part in criminal activities they enjoy it because it’s an opportunity to earn money. 2Pac and Gang Starr have similar views of the ongoing struggles that are happening in poor African American communities such as the violence, drug dealings and other criminal activities. Michelle Alexander mentions various problems that African American communities face each day such as “high levels of unemployment, discriminatory mortgage practices, and the gutting of early-childhood learning programs” (179). Gang Starr feels the future of these communities will not change and the people will be stuck in poverty. 2Pac sends a hopeful message in his song about positive change that these poor communities can
1-The story tells, Real facts occurred in the 1940s, where it was a racist society. Gangs were scattered throughout the cities, and regions, and the streets. To live, you have full get away, or belonging to one of them. You should help the gang members that they were right or on falsehood. Also, it is a kind of bigotry, not much different from intolerance, national, ethnic, and sectarian That were prevalent in American society. in fact, it is the inevitable result of this society. When the corruption becomes prevails, injustice and lawless prevails too, and justice will disappear.
Wilson, William J. More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City. New York: Norton & Company, 2009. Print.
For the children of the projects, the pressure to join a gang never waivers. Quick cash and protection are hard forces to resist in a world of poverty and violence. However, the children's role in these gangs is inferior to that of the leaders. At first, the concept of joining is quite attractive. According to Lafeyette, one of the two brothers profiled in the book, " 'When you first join you think it's good. They'll buy you what you want' " (31). However, " 'You have to do anything they tell you to do. If they tell you to kill somebody, you have to do that' " (31).
This movie was very sad but depicted the many social problems of struggling black communities in the early 1990’s. We learned in Adler, Mueller, & Laufer how criminal behavior as a result of frustrations suffered by lower-class individuals deprived of legitimate means to reach their goals are
Songs are one way of expressing feelings and emotion, many artist do this constantly in their music. To some it is why they make music. There are endless signs and verses that hint at many things such as problems, politics, living in racist era’s also places. I chose to focus on one main rapper and his music only. I chose to examine, review, and study a few of his songs. Kid cudi grew up in cleveland, Ohio. His father passed away when he was a young age which affected the kid ever since. He writes about living his life and having to go through many obstacles
In the early 1990’s in Los Angeles, California, police brutally was considered a norm in African Americans neighborhoods. News coverage ignores the facts of how African ...
The downgrading of African Americans to certain neighborhoods continues today. The phrase of a not interested neighborhood followed by a shift in the urban community and disturbance of the minority has made it hard for African Americans to launch themselves, have fairness, and try to break out into a housing neighborhood. If they have a reason to relocate, Caucasians who support open housing laws, but become uncomfortable and relocate if they are contact with a rise of the African American population in their own neighborhood most likely, settle the neighborhoods they have transfer. This motion creates a tremendously increase of an African American neighborhood, and then shift in the urban community begins an alternative. All of these slight prejudiced procedures leave a metropolitan African American population with few options. It forces them to remain in non-advanced neighborhoods with rising crime, gang activity, and...
Many people claim that racism no longer exists; however, the minorities’ struggle with injustice is ubiquitous. Since there is a mass incarceration of African Americans, it is believed that African Americans are the cause of the severe increase of crimes. This belief has been sent out implicitly by the ruling class through the media. The media send out coded messages that are framed in abstract neutral language that play on white resentment that targets minorities. Disproportionate arrest is the result of racial disparities in the criminal justice system rather than disproportion in offenders. The disparities in the sentencing procedure are ascribed to racial discrimination. Because police officers are also biased, people of color are more likely to be investigated than whites. Police officers practice racial profiling to arrest African Americans under situations when they would not arrest white suspects, and they are more likely to stop African Americans and see them as suspicious (Alexander 150-176). In the “Anything Can Happen With Police Around”: Urban Youth Evaluate Strategies of Surveillance in Public Places,” Michelle Fine and her comrades were inspired to conduct a survey over one of the major social issues - how authority figures use a person’s racial identity as a key factor in determining how to enforce laws and how the surveillance is problematic in public space. Fine believes it is critical to draw attention to the reality in why African Americans are being arrested at a much higher rate. This article reflects the ongoing racial issue by focusing on the injustice in treatment by police officers and the youth of color who are victims. This article is successful in being persuasive about the ongoing racial iss...
In what can be called a viscous cycle starting with the war on drugs, a war that from the beginning has unfairly targeted minorities. A war that has helped contribute to the breakdown of the black family, and add to the constant socioeconomic struggle that perpetuates crime in many communities. These communities experience constant and unfair policing that puts so many youths into the system, that discredits, imprisons, and ultimately breaks them. Filled with discriminatory practices that have been overlooked for years under the disguise of gaining a “Victory.” A victory that may never actually come to
For the past 400 year African Americans have suffered severe forms of oppression, hatred and racism. Even though America has made great strides to eliminate the practice of hatful ideologies and discrimination the residue of inhuman treatment still resides in our society. Racial violence and institutional racism is still in full effect and receiving media coverage like never before. Controversy has arisen due to lives of many African Americans being taken by law enforcement. The African American community has been in an uproar as they feel injustice has occurred being that many of those law enforcement officers have been acquitted of all charges. Birthed from this pain was a chapter-based national organization
A race issue that occurs within the rap and hip-hop musical genre is the racial stereotypes associated with the musical form. According to Brandt, and Viki rap music and hip- hop music are known for fomenting crime violence, and the continuing formation of negative perceptions revolving around the African-American race (p.362). Many individuals believe that rap and hip-hop music and the culture that forms it is the particular reason for the degradation of the African-American community and the stereotypes that surround that specific ethnic group. An example is a two thousand and seven song produced by artist Nas entitled the N-word. The particular title of the song sparked major debates within not only the African-American community thus the Caucasian communities as well. Debates included topics such as the significance and worth of freedom of speech compared with the need to take a stand against messages that denigrate African-Americans. This specific label turned into an outrage and came to the point where conservative white individuals stood in front of the record label expressing their feelings. These individuals made a point that it is because artists like Nas that there is an increase in gang and street violence within communities. Rap and hip-hop music only depicts a simple-minded image of black men as sex crazed, criminals, or “gangsters”. As said above, community concerns have arisen over time over the use of the N-word, or the fact that many rappers vocalize about white superiority and privilege. Of course rap music did not develop these specific stereotypes, however these stereotypes are being used; and quite successfully in rap and hip-hop which spreads them and keeps the idea that people of color are lazy, all crimin...
The systematic oppression of the underprivileged is an unescapable loop that keeps people chained. J Cole’s album, 4 Your Eyez Only, shows the difficulties of escaping a difficult lifestyle. J Cole, a young North Carolina based rapper, focuses on the consequences that come with choosing to live a life of crime. Although living this lifestyle is wrong, many are forced into this life and tend to glorify it because it is all they know. J. Cole challenges this notion while also realizing the oppression he is facing while trying to escape the life. He chooses to tell the album from the perspective of his dead friend, who chose this lifestyle. Although this album is dark, it has an underlying tone of hope.
The movie City of God, showed the incredible world of gang youth in the undeveloped area of Rio de Janeiro, where gangs ruled the streets and young children were initiated into murder before they were teenagers. The urbanization of the third world is creating sub-cultures that are filed with chaos and run by crime, most of which is the result of drugs and other illegal activities. In his article Race the Power of an Illusion, Dalton Conley says, “the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s really marks both an opportunity and a new danger in terms of racial relations in America. On the one hand, the Civil Rights era officially ended inequality of opportunity. It officially ended de jure legal inequality, so it was no longer legal for employers, for landlords, or for any public institution or accommodations to discriminate based on race. At the same time, those civil rights triumphs did nothing to address the underlying economic and social inequalities that had already been in place because of hundreds of years of inequality.” (Conley, 1). Though the Civil Rights movement was able to get equal rights for blacks, it could not stop the brutality that still plagued them. The urban setting is so overcrowded that the people are living on top of each other.
Throughout, the documentary one can come to the conclusion that most of these African- Americans who live in this area are being judged as violent and bad people. However this is not the case, many of them are just normal people who are try...
The problems of race and urban poverty remain pressing challenges which the United States has yet to address. Changes in the global economy, technology, and race relations during the last 30 years have necessitated new and innovative analyses and policy responses. A common thread which weaves throughout many of the studies reviewed here is the dynamics of migration. In When Work Disappears, immigrants provide comparative data with which to highlight the problems of ghetto poverty affecting blacks. In No Shame in My Game, Puerto Rican and Dominican immigrants are part of the changing demographics in Harlem. In Canarsie, the possible migration of blacks into a working/middle-class neighborhood prompts conservative backlash from a traditionally liberal community. In Streetwise, the migration of yuppies as a result of gentrification, and the movement of nearby-ghetto blacks into these urban renewal sites also invoke fear of crime and neighborhood devaluation among the gentrifying community. Not only is migration a common thread, but the persistence of poverty, despite the current economic boom, is the cornerstone of all these works. Poverty, complicated by the dynamics of race in America, call for universalistic policy strategies, some of which are articulated in Poor Support and The War Against the Poor.