Black History Month
Talk about being black in America. Not the hard stuff though; talk to us about how black people invented street lights or something. In this very honest world, it almost feels as if that ‘s what Black History Month has boiled down to. It’s a month where the white guilt seems to creep once again, like a boogeyman out of the closet. So, we hear “Let’s celebrate Black History Month!” during the shortest - and one of the coldest - months of the year for most of the Western world. That first sentence is what I hear every time I’m told that we should celebrate Black History.
While I am proud of the melanin in my skin and the rhythm that laces my bones with elegance, I don’t want to talk about just the positives. I want the real stuff too.
As I continue to let Kendrick Lamar’s “DNA” resonate in my soul, I remember all of the elements that make being black anywhere that isn’t Africa so hard. May it be the possibility of being shot in the street by those who are supposed to protect them. Getting shot down for job opportunities because your name is different from the majority. Being considered lesser because the pigment of your skin is darker than most other people.
“DNA” has a quote that is so good. In the beat switch, someone says: “This is why I say that Hip-Hop has done more damage to young African-Americans than racism in recent years.”
Oh, how that person is so wrong.
While I could go on and speak on the hundreds of artists who were able to make a name for themselves by expressing themselves in this unjust society, I won’t. We all know their stories. How they made it out of the ghetto or from the projects because they were able to do music or play a sport, becoming multi million dollar icons. That story is known by many and used to represent the everyone can make it mentality that just isn’t true.
I want to talk about music. See, these artists have long been able to create and explain the realities of their worlds. As the legal world starts to use Hip-Hop lyrics as accounts to throw black men and women in jail, I hope the academic world and the social world can listen to the lyrics and see them as valid historical accounts and accounts on the prejudice felt by black people everyday.
May the words of Meek Mill ring to their souls as much as it did for me. “I used to pray for times like this, to rhyme like this / So I had to grind like that to shine like this / In a matter of time I spent on some locked-up shit / In the back of the paddy wagon, cuffs locked on wrists / Seen my dreams unfold, nightmares come true”. Let’s talk about how jail is a social construct designed, not to reeducate, but to kill the humanity inside many. Let’s talk about how black people are more likely to go to prison.
Hip-Hop will remain a part of the culture, so we might as well make it a part of Black History Month. While we are at it, we should also make Hip-Hop part of history; not as a sde piece but as a primary source of the crazy nonsense that black people have to do just to survive in this world that loves to steal its culture and kill its people.
But that’s my opinion.
Do you agree with the author of this article? What do you think about Black History Month? Why do you celebrate Black History Month? Sound off in the comments below, follow on Instagram at @YongeEntertainment for more unfiltered comments on rap, the community, and music in general.