ok...I like rap music (some of it). But it is a shame to see "hip hop" being recognized as a culture. Don't black Americans realize that they have so much more than that in their history.

As I walk the street and seee ignorance at its best (pants hanging off of a$$e$, gold teeth, drinking 40's on the coner, youth purposely making themselves look ugly and poor) it comes to my attention that because they are taking hip hop as a culture, that the images of mass media are brainwashing our children to emulate what they see.

After all, they aren't educated on the amount of contributions blacks have made to this country...so who else but the rich rappers should they look at as heroes and people to want to be like.

I am currently in a legal battle of my own, and everytime I go to court, there is nothing but black youth on trial for senseless acts of violence and drug possession....


Rap music, even though it is a form of entertainment, is helping to keep our inner cities and ghettos opressed. We need to make a stand and educate our children at home, and dump money into our communities to start minority outreach programs...

Not only that, but more blacks need to be made aware of the ones that are out there.

I write all this because everytime i walk out of my door, I am reminded by the state of helplessness and emergency going on in our community.....

We support timberland (owned by a known KKK leader), we support Hilfger (who doesn't design clothes for "blacks) Our kids get arrested for stupidity because it is now being glorified in our own neighborhoods (he is a badman). We fight at parties, we support underage drinking in the name of making a dollar....and we let our children buy explicit albums from artists who have nothing positive to tell them.

And here is the biggest shame...Our outlets of mass media promote those artists that have nothing to say more, than those who try to spread a message (Nas for example).....our children are teased with images of success and money and loose women in videos..when we are at home telling them to go to school and be like mommy and daddy (who can't show them these images of richeness)....The same artist who are flashing these signs of wealth are telling a story of their life filled with drug selling, jail and killings...

Now I wonder why our children wouldn't try to get arrested or sell drugs......That is the only way they see a black man being rich and powerful....cause now he has a story to tell.