A Response to "Notes on a Dying Culture"

AResponse to "Notes on a Dying Culture" byJames Ford III | special NewBlackMan
WhitneyHouston's unexpected passing shocked me. I mourn for her and her loved ones whofeel her recent passing more profoundly than I ever will. I thought Bob Davis'srecent post would help me consider the impact of this loss. Sadly, his postrepeats the same Civil Rights vs Hip-Hop generation storyline. As a member ofthe generation he criticizes, I see his post as an invitation for furtherdiscussion.
Davissays the culture of the American Civil Rights Movement was "rejected…by its ownchildren" and two camps sprung up: one upholds the Civil Rights Movement'svalues and another doesn't. The latter group may erase black culture altogether.This decline storyline sabotages communal self-reflection, which is only effective when every generation is accountable for itsstrengths and weaknesses. I learned this from listening to hip-hop, in therawness of the Rza's beats, the low-end of 808s, Big Crit's bluesy productionand lyricism or Kanye's My Beautiful DarkTwisted Fantasy. Sometimes, rawness refers to uniqueness; it's not wrong,just different. At other times, rawness points directly to what is detrimentaland must be overcome. How does this relate to Davis's post? Davis doesn't wantto deal with all that is raw withinthe Civil Rights Movement and those who witnessed it. He scapegoats hip-hop toavoid facing this issue.
Davisdoesn't consider that some in the older generation have betrayed—or, at least,are highly inconsiderate of—the younger. Was Jesse Jackson an "elder statesmen"fatigued from guiding rebellious youth when he said he'd castrate PresidentObama? Was Ice Cube betraying the values of the Civil Rights Movement when he,a rapper, said Jackson's words were deplorable, considering the history oflynching in the US? My point is that, in Davis's account, there's no room forJesse Jackson to make such a terrible, selfish decision or for Ice Cube to be appropriatelycritical of it. He makes criticism a one-way street, when it should always goboth ways.
Butthere's more. Was Kanye betraying Civil Rights Movement values when he publiclycritiqued racism and Hurricane Katrina? Or when David Banner volunteered alongthe Gulf Coast? Was Mos Def betraying the tradition of Civil Rights Movementpublic protest when he was arrested outside the Video Music Awards for his impromptuperformance of "Katrina Clap," his song critiquing the Bush Administration? Onanother note, what about Common's recent performance in the White House or LupeFiasco's critiques of Obama in "Words I Never Said"? On yet another note, there'sPharoahe Monch's album W.A.R. (We AreRenegades), an epic album placing black culture amongst the anti-warmovements. I mean, Monch has a song called "Let My People Go" on the album.What more can he do to draw on Civil Rights culture? We can't understand the continuitiesand discontinuities between these eras with Davis's antagonistic perspective.More importantly, why don't these examples of hip-hop and politics show up onhis radar?
Perhapshe misses them because they don't fit his image of black "culture on display." Davissays America first saw it with Aretha Franklin's performance at King's funeral.Davis sees glimpses of it in R Kelly's and Alicia Keyes's "killer performances"at Whitney Houston's funeral. I wholeheartedly oppose the idea that R Kelly, ofall people, can reinstitute any morality. Kelly counts on people conflating thebeauty of his performance with moral virtue so he can get away with abuse. It'shard for me not to ignore the misogyny that links Jesse Jackson to R Kelly,Davis's potential "elder statesmen" to come. I wonder, can spectacle truly makeup for everything? Is the Civil Rights Movement all spectacle? Connect hisfocus on Kelly's performance to his emphasis on witnesses of the Civil Rights Movement and to televised events, andit seems that spectacle is what counts most in Davis's post. It's not adifference in cultural values. It's a difference in spectacles…King's orHouston's funerals vs XXL magazine.
Butmaybe that's it. The best (or even just decent) hip-hop interrogates anddisplays the shortcomings of seeing the Civil Rights Movement as spectacle. Hip-hopdiscusses King's activism, speeches, relationship to Malcolm, and assassination—the latter being theelement that no spectacle can or should be able to supplant. Hip-hop alsofocuses intently on the complexities of the drug abuse that troubled JimiHendrix, Michael Jackson, Richard Pryor, Gil Scott Heron and, yes, WhitneyHouston. Noting this does not condemn these brilliant artists. It condemns a worldthat pushed them to despair and profited from their momentary escapes from pain.But it also means that in the 80s and 90s, when Davis blames hip-hop forrejecting the Civil Rights Movement, the hip-hop generation could see the painand frustration of their parents and other community members who witnessed theCivil Rights Movement. Why wouldn't this encourage the younger to seekalternatives to what didn't work out in the previous generation? Indeed, hip-hopculture inherited some of its deepest issues from its immediate predecessors,who witnessed the Civil Rights Movement. But few will admit this because itshatters the image of the Civil Rights Movement that has replaced thecomplexity of what actually happened, good and bad.
WhitneyHouston did amazing things. Her angelic voice literally unified a nation withthe 1991 Superbowl. In her recent interviews she gave all the right answers aboutovercoming drug abuse. She knew the exact scriptures to quote when Oprah askedif she finally believed in herself. Millions of fans loved this. But none of ussaw she was still doubting herself, still hurting, still feeling anxious aboutthe future. Admitting this should not take away one iota from her artistry,because these are troubles we all face to some degree. But it should challengeus to consider the relationship between spectacle and substance, which is notalways easily understood. Hip-hop is just one of the artforms in black culture thatparticipates in and questions the spectacles in American popular culture. I'dlike to think that if she answered interviewers differently and acknowledged shewas still struggling, that we would have listened. Then again, I fear that we,whatever our generation, have been so caught up in the spectacle that we call "WhitneyHouston" that we might have missed her calls for help. This, and not hip-hop,is the sign of a dying culture.
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James Ford is Assistant Professor of African AmericanLiterature at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA. He is currently working ontwo book projects. The first book, Thinkingthrough Crisis: Depression-Era Black Literature, History, and Politicsexplores the insights that Black Radical writers from the first GreatDepression can teach about the current depression. The second book, Hip-Hop's Late Style: Liner Notes to AnAesthetic Theory, uses aesthetic philosophy to consider what post-GoldenEra hip-hop can teach us about living after America's Golden Era has ended.