Algernon Austin presents an excellent, concise, and wonderfully read scholarly examination of the complicated landscape of race, class and popular perception. Besides the prison industrial complex, black strides in education, poverty rates, crime and other indices contradict claims that blacks are “moving backward.”--Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Director, Institute for African American Studies, University of Connecticut and author of Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (The Johns Hopkins University Press), 2004 and Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap (University Press of Kansas), 2007.
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From Black Directions v2n6
Eighty percent of hip-hop consumers are white according to the Simmons Lathan Media Group. In the various debates about rap, too little attention has been paid to this majority-white consumer base. Are white rap fans a force for “achieving Martin Luther King’s dream” as Bakari Kitwana argues? Or are they merely fans of stereotypical images of blacks as Bill Yousman declares?Rap has been a vehicle for serious commentary about racial inequality and American society. But the heyday of political rap was more than a decade ago. Further, researchers have found that references to alcohol, drugs and violence in rap have increased along with the growing popularity of rap music. Today, even Kitwana admits, one can find a parade of negative stereotypes of blacks on display in rap music. Much of the music, the critics charge, has become a modern-day minstrel show. Thus, one can ask, will white rap fans help or hurt black America? Do whites who love rap love black people or merely negative stereotypes of black people?
In addition to helping or hurting black America, there is, of course, a third alternative. Rap music may be just pop music and may not make much of a difference one way or another.
This issue of Black Directions reviews the social-scientific literature on the effect of rap music on white racial attitudes. Additionally, the Thora Institute conducts its own statistical analysis of white rap fans.
To order this issue send a check or money order for $9 made out to “Thora Institute LLC” to “White Rap Fans,” Thora Institute LLC, P.O. Box 367, New Haven, CT 06513-0367.
To keep abreast of the latest high-quality social science research on black America, subscribe to the Black Directions newsletter. Send a check or money order for $36 (33% off) made out to “Thora Institute LLC” for a year’s Black Directions subscription (six issues) to Thora Institute LLC, P.O. Box 367, New Haven, CT 06513-0367. Only Black Directions separates the myths from the facts about black America.
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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2007 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Reprint this article in your newspaper or magazine. Contact the Thora Institute to purchase reprint rights.
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