Why Hip Hop Won’t Tangle With the Tea Party: Call for a Militant Mind Militia
by TRUTH Minista Paul Scott
Whatcha do get your head ready. Instead of gettin’ physically sweaty”
Welcome to the Terror-dome-Public Enemy
In breaking news, two of Hip Hop’s most popular artists died today. In what was the culmination of a year long beef, an altercation in the middle of 52nd street has left both men dead. No, they didn’t shoot each other. As they stood arguing in the middle of the street, they were run over by a Tea Party Express bus that was running late for a rally…
Beef. That is one word with which the Hip Hop community has become very familiar over the last decade and a half. The term has resulted in many tragedies in the black community ranging from neighborhood feuds to deaths on street corners. Black people taking it to other Black people is an everyday occurrence in ‘hoods across the country. This is what makes the Hip Hop community’s (and the black community, in general) lack of response to the current climate of hate fueled by the Tea Party, Birthers and other agents of White Supremacy especially disturbing.
For the last year, anti-Afrikan behavior has escalated from anti -Black propaganda being promoted on radio stations to black Congressmen being called racial slurs and spat upon. All over the country Right Wing racists are rallying thousands of people, while black folks are pretending not to notice.
Since Hip Hop has always prided itself as being the true voice of the black community, you would think that rap artists would be on the front line fighting against these disses to black folks.
Not so.
So far, there have been, relatively, few Hip Hoppers calling out the Right Wingers. This is not to say that “no” rap artists are speaking out on issues, as there are Hip Hop Freedom Fighters in communities across the country but most have heard about the attacks that came upon such political artists such as Professor Griff and Sister Souljah in the 80’s/90’s and don’t want the same thing to happen to them. Many of them feel that even if they did take a stand, an unorganized, apathetic black community would just leave them hanging.
I don’t know if you noticed it or not but radio stations have even stopped playing “violent” music over the last few months. Instead, radio has dumped violence for misogyny. While we must not condone black on black violence in any form, the rationale for the sudden change in radio rotation must be examined.
The industry knows that one of the by products of Hip Hop has been black male rebelliousness. This is why those in power were quick to blame incidents of racial unrest such as the Virginia Beach and LA rebellions (riots) of the late 80’s/early 90’s on the music of groups like Public Enemy. Immediately, they went to work to replace revolutionary Hip Hop with gangsta tales of black on black homicide and chemical genocide (crack sales). During the following decade, since “racism” became less overt, the black male displaced aggression generated by Hip Hop was used on other black males.
However, with racism/White Supremacy becoming more “in your face” over the last year, the “powers that be” don’t want to risk the fratricidal message of gangsta rap to be misinterpreted as a call to “fight the power.” They know that with a change of a couple of words a 50 Cent song becomes a Dead Prez-like call to “bang on the system.” So now, all you hear on the radio is “stripper music” dealing with girls instead of guns.
The agents of white supremacy have studied our history well. They know the success that Bunchy Carter, Fred Hampton and others had in transforming gang bangers into revolutionaries during the Black Power Era. They know that a Blood or Crip esposed to a strong dose of political education has the potential to become Black Panther or Deacon for Defense.
They also know that even the most hardcore thug will become outraged if while flippin’ the channel between Hip Hop stations, he hears a Right Wing radio host call him a “no good bum who will never amount to anything” and his mother a “lazy welfare queen.”
And with the escalation of anti-black rhetoric from Right Wing radio hosts this scenario is possible if not probable.
In every city the Right Wingers are organizing their troops via Conservative radio stations, as media giants such as Clear Channel have begun converting their country music stations into virtual 100,000 watt Ku Klux Klan headquarters. In, North Carolina they recently turned 106.1 FM into “Rush Radio, named after their star player, the infamous Rush Limbaugh. Clear Channel realizes that all politics is local so ,although they broadcast the likes of Sean Hannity, Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh, throughout the day , during the morning drive time, their programming becomes early morning strategy sessions. So while the nationally syndicated bigots like Limbaugh lay out the national strategy, the local hosts and their listeners politic on how to implement it locally. All the while black folks are busy lip syncing, “How Low Can You Go” on their way to work, totally oblivious to the plans being devised on the talk radio station at the end of the dial.
In NC, the WRDU “Morning Show” insults black folks every morning with the same Right Wing racist garbage without being challenged. They have even set up a chat room where their racist listeners hold strategy sessions every morning from 5:30AM to 9AM EST because they know that most black folks are too busy laughing at J. Anthony Brown jokes on the Tom Joyner Morning Show to pay them any attention.
Twenty years ago, we would have never stood still for this disrespect without challenging it. However, nowadays we are too busy getting into Internet “beefs” on YouTube with other Afrikans that we don’t seem to have time to challenge those who espouse the tenets of white global domination and the oppression of Afrikan people.
That is why it is important that we form “Militant Mind Militias” in ‘hoods across the country to counter the lies and attacks on black culture from the Right wing. We have to start calling in to these Right Wing racist talk shows and challenging their racist rhetoric.
Don’t get it twisted, this has nothing to do with whether one agrees with the politics of Barack Obama. This is about the anti-Afrikan white supremacist ideology being spewed by the Tea Party and the rest of their crew.
It is time that we dust off our Neely Fuller and Amos Wilson books and put the principals into action. Some of us have read hundreds of books on African History but only use the information to prove that we are intellectually superior to our black brothers and sisters; never once challenging the Ph.D carrying members of white supremacist think tanks.
It is time that we start using Youtube, Facebook and Twitter for something more than booty calls and coonery.
It is time that we start using our Afrikan minds to challenge white supremacy ideology.
Militant Mind Militias must be started immediately using our strong Afrikan intellect as weapons.
We have nothing to lose but our mental chains.
I know that some of you are going to cop out and give 100 reasons why we should not get into ideological debates with white folks. You really only need one reason to do so; our people need to see black intelligence in action. Isn’t that what inspired us to follow the teachings of Malcolm X, Dr. Khallid Muhammad and Dr. John Henrik Clark, that they were not afraid to challenge the best white scholars in open debate?
The ancestors are crying out for us to engage the oppressor in a battle of the minds.
Unfortunately, so far, Hip Hop and most black folks have been missing in action.
TRUTH Minista Paul Scott writes for No Warning Shots Fired.com. He can be reached at (919) 451-8283 or info@nowarningshotsfired.com
For examples of the racism being spewed every morning by 106.1 FM in North Carolina visit
http://wrdu.com/pages/morningrush.html
No Warning Shots Fired.com
(Hardcore News and Views with a Gangsta Attitude)
http://www.nowarningshotsfired.com
(919) 451-8283