Black Sexual Politics

The hip-hop culture once provided an outlet for the struggling African American, now it has taken on a new role of marketing “rebellious black masculinity”. Tupac Shakur was born after the great social movements during the ‘50s and ‘60s; he used his artistic abilities and the new wave of hip-hop to “symbolize the tensions of an era”. Tupac raps about his struggle of growing up as an African American in poverty, living the thug life style, and revolutionary ambition. Many African Americans could relate to Tupac’s words, he opened up a new channel for African Americans to express their feelings of oppression and rejection in the White mans society. “Tupac Shakur’s career came to an end when gangsta reality and representation converged.” Hip-hop then became a power source for all African Americans to speak their mind on behalf of poverty, racism, and oppression. The ideology of hip-hop transformed into a profitable market source instead of its original intention, the recognition of African American poverty and oppression.

            Rappers, such as Ice Cube, realized that they could make a profit off of African American oppression though they, themselves, had not experienced such a life. Having these wealthy African Americans play out this ghetto persona defeats the whole purpose of recognizing Black oppression, it segregates Blacks from Whites even more. If you listen to the hip-hop being created today there are handfuls of rap artists playing into their role of “violent and wildly dangerous sexuality”. This gives Whites the idea that “black men are proud of their irresponsible sexual behavior”.

This gangsta rap image that has been put out by the media “seems designed to scare Whites and African Americans alike into thinking that racial integration is dangerous”. African American rap artists are portraying a dangerous, violent image that most do not want to associate with, how is racism suppose to be fought when these images are constantly being shoved in front of us? “…Divided generations must begin to understand the ways that the new Black youth culture both empowers and undermines Black America. As brilliant a moment in history as the civil rights and Black power eras were, the older generation must realize they cannot claim any real victory if the hip-hop generation cannot build significantly on those gains.”

Racial equality cannot be gained if these harsh, violent images are continuously forces upon us, “if African American men accept the images of themselves as sexually irresponsible boys… then they too participate in structuring their own oppression”.  The media holds up a large barrier of racial segregation, it must remove the images of dangerously wild, oppressed, hypersexual African Americans and images of powerful, racist White Americans. Only then will American society be able achieve equality. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “people should be judged by the content of their character, and not by the color of their skin”.