The Hip Hop Wars Chapter Two

Hip Hop Reflects Black Dysfunctional ghetto Culture

Chapter two discusses how critics view hip hop as the contemporary promoter of dysfunctional culture. Rose states that “Criticism of this so-called culture of dysfunction revolves around the notion that poor urban black people have themselves created and perpetuated a “culture” of violence (which includes crime and prison culture), sexual deviance/excess, and illiteracy. (Rose 62) This statement is explaining the fact that hip hop is “proof” in some people’s eyes of black underclass dysfunction.

Rose later goes on to examine the four factors that contribute to the idea of black people as culturally dysfunctional.

1. Black Cultural Dysfunction as an Argument Against Black People

2. Black Culture seen as a Threat

3. Fictitiously Self-Generating Cultural Patterns

4. Undermining of the Value of Black Cultural Expressions

-In her discussion about Black Cultural Dysfunction as an Argument Against Black People, Rose points out the fact that critics cite programs like affirmative action for being the cause of the dysfunctional state but whites were the main users of welfare decades before. This is an example of reused ideas to support new circumstances.

-When explaining that Black Culture is seen as a Threat, Rose goes into detail on how any new black cultural expression is seen as a threat to society especially when it affects white middle-class people. She states “ Fears that the music would lure middle-class whites into unsanctioned sexual and other behaviors deemed a threat to acceptable society helped justify many efforts to limit, contain, and police “jungle music”. Now jazz and blues are cornerstones for African American musical culture.

- Rose states “All culture is both created and reinforced by environmental and social contexts”. This statement hits upon the fact that an overwhelming number of black children grow up with one parent, a mother who is responsible for moral development. (Rose 68) So this is seen as perpetuating black dysfunctional culture.

-When Rose speaks about Undermining the Value of Black Cultural Expressions she hits on the fact that “Calling black culture “dysfunctional” overshadows a vibrant tradition of revealing the cultural contributions of African-Americans”. (Rose 69)

By Chanae Reed and Craig Reck