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 Latest
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Diaryland |
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2003-10-04 - 11:39 a.m. Oh, what have been doing, neglecting you so???? Anyways, sup!  It's destined to be mine. Oh yes, no job, hardly any money, but this, THIS must be obtained at all costs. Anyways, in other news..... On Wednesday night, after class and hanging out with Bat and Nick. Nick and I went to Holy Frijoles with me only having 6 and change in my pocket. But HUMP day they serve 2 dollar bottles of Modelo Especial, my drink of choice. So, 3 beers and nachos later, I attend the HIP HOP SUMMIT at my university. It was fairly disappointing, but good nonetheless. I got a free book out of it and I "called out" the speaker of the evening, Bakari Kitwana on some critical consciousness type shit about what he preaches-the idea of organizing the hip-hop generation into politics and activism. Me being a women studies major, my question was like this, "Hip-hop is mainly black male artform. Our political system is one that is driven in that of a patriarchal construction. How is the hip-hop generation supposed to bridge the gaps of various inequalities within a patriarchal construction?" Well, the question wasn't that word for word, I was nervous as shit and coming down from pounding 3 beers in 20 minutes. It was some rough shit too, the whole crowd started "ooohing" and "Ahhhing" and even one cat said, "Damn, that's deep." So Bakari side stepped it at first. I translated it bad and he basically put the ball back on me and started asking ME questions. It was rough. My professor gave me props for asking it and told me to work more on wording it right. She was disgusted with the summit though and basically she said that he had no developed critical consciousness for it and she was right. Now I use that phrase "Critical Consciousness" all the damn time. She said something very important to me too, to the effect of, that for alot of people, it isn't about the white or black anymore, it's about the GREEN. So fucking true. I was especially disgusted with the lack of good questions the crowd was asking. I told Rio (my professor) about this and she gave me the critical consciousness response. People were asking all sorts of dumb questions like "Why don't Puff Daddy help the schools?" and "Do these hip-hop artists invest their money into black banks?" Some dumb shit, asking about where they gonna throw some money and talking about the Source being garbage, shit.....It was whack. How are you gonna start ANY grassroots movement with the idea of where you gonna throw your money? I approached Bakari after the speech and cookies and soda reception and got more indepth with me and he again basically told me, with the natural rise of hip-hop generationers in politics, that the issues I speak of will naturally come to the platform. He's all about bringing the people together and it seems that's about it. It's far-fetched to actually see any hip-hop agendas coming soon when a whole rack of people are wondering why hip-hop's socially conscious aren't in the forefront of their minds, TVs, and radios. People need shit spelled out for them I guess. The cookies and soda were good. I gotta free book that I already have though. The lady that runs the women's center, that sponsered this event, commended me for my question. I felt good that night. I called out Kitwana. I'm a scholar.
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