Kanye West's New Slaves and Black Skinhead: The Aftermath

Ok, I'm sure everybody has checked these two videos out, and come to conclusions ranging from "Holy shit!  This is HOT!" to "I don't get why people follow his music. He sucks."  If you haven't seen them, here they are:

Black Skinhead:



New Slaves:

Long story short. I LOVE both songs, and here's why:

Check the comments on the US Magazine article pertaining to the videos.  Responses like these can be found all over the internet. Notice how folks are quick to call Kanye all kinds of racist names, and say the same things to those who refute the racist comments. Some are saying that Kanye is racist, and that he shouldn't focus on slavery and that he has no right to talk about something that he didn't experience.

Hmmm

Using that logic, should American Jewish people stop talking about the Holocaust if they didn't experience it?
What about American Whites who speak about their ancestry, and the wars that occurred in their home countries?

But anyways, the point is that people say this is a "post racial" America and that Kanye is just "another Black man with a chip on his shoulder."  Nevermind that he mentioned for profit prisons (which are locking up other races as well as Black people, by the way), and what Black people have to deal with EVEN IF they may have money.  Sure, Vibe Magazine can point out the hypocrisy in his lyrics for New Slave since he's rich now (I'm sure Bruce Springsteen, and other artists who have spoken out against this sort of thing have been pointed out by numerous magazines, fans etc).  They can call him "arrogant" because of what he did, but what Kanye says is true. So many people were quick to dismiss, ignore, and minimize the performance, and message because he's Kanye, and they DIDN'T EVEN LISTEN to what Kanye was saying.  Based on the comments made on these performances and everywhere else on the internet, especially when it pertains to Black culture"...Racism still alive, they just be concealing it".

Is Hip Hop Destroying Black America?

I had the opportunity to get behind the scenes look at my local college radio station. I noticed they played the same songs each week, but in a different order each day.  They would rotate a new song or two in the regular playlist from time to time. As a result, the listener gets pummeled with the same message over and over and over, which desensitizes them. As a result,some people seek out the life depicted in the songs, and some don't. This same effect could be seen with Rock and Roll. For a while "sex, drugs, and rock & roll" was the mantra for the genre, and may still be.  Some people succumb to it, and some don't. People use music as an escape, and as a result, they are listening to the radio and wishing they were in that life (just like watching TV sitcoms did for a lot of people).  It gets perceived as how life should be, and so it's imitated. Since Blacks make up a small percentage of the population, a larger section of that group will appear to succumb to it more often than others. Other ethnicities will display a broader selection of people who have bowed to certain ideals presented to them because there are more of them to draw from. I feel that is why it looks like American Blacks in general are doing far worse than other ethnicities in this country.  Thanks to the media, we have seen the American Dream being shoveled into our faces through various outlets, and as a result, people are bragging about getting: money, sex (in various ways and methods), drugs,material possessions... you get the point.  People desire these things, and will stop at nothing to get them. So before we accuse hip hop of doing this to a select group of people, we must recognize that America has been doing this to the WHOLE. WORLD., for quite some time, and this is just a cog in the machine, so to speak. The poorest of the poor come to North America in search for some of these things. They flock here because in some way, shape or form, media has told them that America is the place to be if you want to be somebody, meanwhile America's poor (and not so poor) people are seeking this out as well. The American Dream does not help Blacks at all because the same media that touted riches for everybody who entered, is the same media that systematically and continuously crapped on that particular ethnicity for so many years, in various ways and told them to shut up about it at the same time. Could you blame them for screaming for the American Dream, since it seems like everyone has it and they don't, especially when statistics are routinely made in order to drive the message home ?  From my standpoint, the image of the snake eating it's tail comes to mind.  I feel that hip hop is not the culprit here, it's this gangster ass pyramid scheme of a culture that belongs to North America.