Nelson George On Gangsta Rape

The United States (US) incarcerates its citizens at the highest rate in the world, 707 US citizens per 100,000 are incarcerated, a rate 5 -10 times higher than other western democracies (National Research Council, 2014). From the 1930s to the 1970s the number of incarcerated citizens in the US remained relatively stable, 161 citizens per 100,00 were incarcerated in 1972 (Hindelang, 1977). However since the 1970s the population of America’s prison system has increased by 700% (ACLU, 2011), and there are now currently over 2.2 million incarcerated Americans. Because of this rapid increase to an unprecedented level US incarceration levels have been widely discussed across academic literature. Not only are current US incarceration levels internationally unique and unprecedented, they are unique and unprecedented within the history of the US itself. This makes the US incarceration levels best suited to a single case analysis, as there is a high level of internal historical change to compare across. It is widely accepted that the rise in US incarceration levels are due to ‘the war on drugs’ - tough on crime law enforcement strategies introduced in the 1970s to combat illegal drug activity. However, there are differing theories as to how these historic policies continue to impact incarceration levels today. In this essay I will argue that the war on drugs is one of many mechanisms employed to continually discriminate against the black minority in America. I will analyse

Gangsta rap is a form of music that is enjoyed by everyone and there should be no stereotypes attached to it. It has been debated if Gangsta Rap harms Black Americans; it is a heavily criticized art form since its inception. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines “Gangsta rap: a form of hip-hop music that became the genre’s dominant style in the 1990s, a reflection and product of the often violent lifestyle of American inner cities afflicted with poverty and the dangers of drug use and drug dealing. The romanticization of the outlaw at the center of much of gangsta rap appealed to rebellious suburbanites as well as to those who had firsthand experience of the harsh realities of the ghetto. “

In the United States the number of people placed in prison has increased almost 5 times more among the 1980 and 2009. Minorities were greatly impacted, while Blacks completed thirty-eight percent of the prison population. Blacks make up thirteen percent of the U.S population. It is said stated that by a Black male reach the age of thirty, twenty-one percent will serve time within the prison system. As for White males, only 2.5% will serve in the prison system. While increasing, Black males will more likely spend more time within the criminal justice system, rather than attend college. It is revealed that this disparity is associated with the battle with drugs and sentencing, which would mandate longer prison time for low-level drug charges

In his pointed analysis of urban life in the United States, sociologist Elijah Anderson (2013) posits that public awareness in America is fundamentally color-coded in that white skin is commonly associated with trustworthiness and civility while black skin tends to epitomize crime and incivility. In a country where more than a third of black men in their twenties are under state control at any given time, official criminality is not only attached to individual offenders but also to an entire social group (Pettit & Western, 2004; Roberts, 2004). For poor, undereducated black men, who represent the fastest growing segment of the nation’s prison population, incarceration is a common and almost predictable life experience (Roberts, 2004). It is our hypothesis that by effectively eroding several critical keystones of normative functioning, discriminatory policing and imprisonment creates a cyclical pathway for black men to return to the criminal justice system. This chapter reviews and evaluates the existing research on the long-term consequences of incarceration on African American men, focusing specifically on a) economic opportunities and mobility, b) social networks and connections, and c) civic and social citizenship.

Hip hop is something that has been around since the 21st century. When it comes to the hip hop community, there are so many stereotypes that the media portrays. This essay will show that the stereotype of violent, crimes African American in rap music can become self-prognostication for the hip hop community. This is a behavior that has been corresponding in the rap music and has become accepted as a social norm by the African American community.

The achievement gap between black and white students in America continues to grow. Many black students attend overcrowded and underfunded public schools that are racially and economically segregated from mainstream America. Problems of violence, education, and mass incarceration are linked to black America’s jobs crisis. The unemployment rate for blacks is double that of whites, but in many poor communities the variations are even more staggering. The unemployment and underemployment fractures families and neighborhoods and chokes off hope. Crumbling public schools have become a feeder system into the nation’s prison-industrial complex. The drug wars of the ’80s turned poor black neighborhoods, including public schools, into incubators of racial injustice and oppression. The social, political and economic stigma attached to felony drug convictions has been defined by legal scholar Michelle Alexander as The New Jim Crow, a new caste system that contains striking parallels with the separate and unequal regimes of racial injustice constructed in slavery’s

During the “New South,” there was also an establishment of the “Convict-Lease” System, in which southern states leased gangs of convicted criminals to private interests as a cheap labor supply. Such a system is important as it set up the basis for the current prison industrial complex, in which there is a rapid expansion of the U.S inmate population due to the political influence of private prison companies and businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies. This complex, originating from the Convict-Lease system of Reconstruction disproportionately affects black men modernly, as it affected black men during the late 19th

who sell expensive cocaine … what happens after the jail time is evened out? (Williams 151). Does that change the fact that there are higher rates of incarcerated black men than any other race in the United States? Instead, blacks as a community must, even in hardship, prove themselves stronger and overcome challenges just like our predecessors did in the 60’s.

Gang affiliation has been a major influence on the career path of rappers since the beginning of the generation X hip hop genre. Rappers, producers, record label owners, and even the simplest of bodyguards have endured drastic repercussions of artists unintentionally combining the music industry with their street life. From having trouble with the law and having trouble in the streets, rap wasn’t the only lifestyle for them. Most are able to escape the effects, while others tend to drown in the downfall that follows after their unvarying course of adverse decisions.

Just as a mirror reflects the problematic discoloration and rise of unwanted pimples or unruly hair, as does Hip Hop as it allows black youth to question and interpret the socio-economic and political ills and conditions reflecting their generation. Nixon’s declaration of the war on drugs characterized the growth of the Hip Hop generation as it aggravated the abuse and neglect directed towards African American communities. As birth products of the war on drugs, mandatory sentence minimums and racialized incarceration demonstrates the association with poor, pre-dominantly black communities. The war on drugs heavily influenced the Hip Hop generation and music; moreover, the economic, political, and social factors that impacted the African American communities formed a reflective, yet pervasive soundtrack of gangster, conscious and political rap.

The war on drugs was what caused an increase of arrests and people going to prison. The incarceration boom in the early 1970’s, where African American’s, mostly young men, were twice as likely to get arrested for drug crimes as were a white male. However, when the sentencing standards changed on the federal level to mandatory sentencing, a black male was now four times more likely to get arrest on drug crimes than a white male (Clear, 2007). These changes were made to attempt to make the streets and the communities safer from drugs. What the law and policy makers were unaware of was how these changes would bring about widespread incarceration of young black adults, which would disrupt the families of these offenders, mainly in the inner cities of America.

In today’s society music plays a very large role in influencing the young generation. The most popular music that is praised by young African Americans is Hip-Hop. The African American youth are being influenced with a “gangster” lifestyle. A major topic in hip-hop music today is the sale of drugs as a primary source of income as well as drug usage as a social activity. There are other issues African American’s struggle within the community such as poverty, broken homes, drug usage, depression, and gang violence. Because of these social problems, the youth are subjected to high levels of peer pressure. The young males in particular flock towards “gangs” and “cliques” within the community for solace and a sense of home. These gangs and cliques

When analyzing rap, the struggle of African American people can be identified. Mukasa argues that gangster rap typically is affiliated with the truth about the struggles of American Americans. He also argues that there is media tends to connect rap with negative things such as crime and violence. This is supported when he says: “There is a tendency to pigeonhole black life and identity, especially as portrayed in mainstream American media, within the confines of a decrepit, immoral, destitute, criminal underworld.” Media overlooks the quality of black life. What the media does not show, Gangsta Rap vividly demonstrates. Gangsta rap is a genre that is characterized by lyrics

As the ‘golden age’ came to an end at the start of the 1980s, a new type of hip-hop was developed, it’s called “gangsta rap” and was created by artists such as N.W.A, Schoolly D and Ice T. This variation of rap was different because of the violent lyrics and inappropriate

In Gangsta Rap, many artist use lyrics in which strengthen stereotypes specifically about rappers; and in turn African American citizens. By this I mean, rappers would rap about five core topics. These topics, as stated by John Paul Hampstead, “feasting, raiding, treasure, misogyny, and fatalism” are five topics that Gangsta rap and Heroic Poems cover (Hampstead 77). Overall, these trends we see in Gangsta rap become habits of the everyday person, and become ritualistically a way of life for some. Lyrics, commonly, speak about sex with women, use of drugs, crimes and money. For example, in Nas’s “NY State of Mind” he says “I’m like Scarface sniffin’ cocaine/ Holding an M16, see with the pen I’m extreme, now/ bullet holes left in my peep holes/ I’m suited up in street clothes, hand me a nine and I’ll defeat foes” (line 9-12). In truth, the lyrics often gives a picture of a criminal; since a majority of