There is a myth that Black youth are estranged
from civil-rights-type African American politics.
It is not true. In fact, it is a great lie,
promulgated by the Right. The fact is, Black
youth, and many not so young, are frustrated
by the ineffectuality of current Black leadership,
and are eager to expand upon the gains of
the Civil Rights Movement of the Sixties,
and to push issues related to today's Black
realities. The right wing, and it's corporate
media, have spread the falsehood that Black
youth are fodder for conservative ideology.
Yet they, the right wing, have never
assembled any large gathering of young Blacks
to affirm this lie – because they cannot.
Black youth conservatism is wishful thinking
on the part of our enemies.
In the absence of creative and forward-looking
Black leadership for the last thirty-plus
years, more than a generation of young African
Americans have been left on their own. They
sought solace in culture, which spreads on
the streets
and neighborhoods no matter what the NAACP
or the Congressional Black Caucus or the other
designated Black "spokespersons"
decide should happen. And there was political
content to that youth culture, as there has
always been in Black life. "Fight the
Power," by Public Enemy, is a work of
artistic and commercial art that addressed
the political situation as it confronted African
Americans, and made it real to the listeners
– a political expression that led to
the banning of political thought in Hip Hop
by the corporations that took control of the
music. These corporations then invented Gangsta
Rap, and coerced Hip Hop artists to produce
anti-social lyrics and videos – to defame
their own race.
The advent of the second National Hip Hop
Political Convention this month, in Chicago,
following the first one in Newark, New Jersey,
in 2004, shows the real trajectory of Black
youth political opinion. They want more, not
less, Black activism, and in areas that the civil
rights-associated generation did not even
envision. They want an end to a regime
of Black mass incarceration, an urban agenda
that deals with gentrification, a domestic
policy that accords citizens a meaningful
right to a good life, and a foreign policy
that is anti-imperialist. These young people
who call themselves the Hip Hop Generation
are the best of us. And they are multi-racial
and multi-ethnic, because that is the human
reality that confronts entrenched white supremacist
power in the United States. They are eager
to "Fight the Powers that Be."
There is a continuity between the Sixties
and early Seventies, and Black youth activism
of the Twenty-First Century. How could it
be otherwise, since there also exists the
continuity of racism and exploitation? Crimes
will always be answered by the cries of the
wounded. How could it possibly be different
with the youthful victims of America's racist
policies, domestic and foreign? The National
Hip Hop Political Convention – a movement
of young Black people and those who identify
with the values of our people – is the future
of our folk, and our world. When youth are
set in motion, we cannot be defeated. For
Radio BC, I'm Glen Ford.