Homeland and Hip Hop
To think about the origins of Hip Hop, in this culture, and also about Homeland Security, is to see that there are, at the very least, two worlds in America: One of the well-to-do, and another of the struggling. For if ever there was the absence of Homeland Security, it is seen in the gritty roots of Hip Hop. For the music arises from a generation that feels, with some justice, that they have been betrayed by those who came before them. That they are, at best, tolerated in schools, feared on the streets, and almost inevitably destined for the hell holes of prison. They grew up hungry, hated, and unloved, and this is the psychic fuel that generates the anger that seems endemic in much of the music and poetry. One senses very little hope, above the personal goals of wealth, to climb above the pit of poverty.
In the broader society, the opposite is true: For here, more than any other place on earth, wealth is so wide spread, and so bountiful, that what passes for the middle class in America could pass for the upper class in most of the rest of the world. Their very opulence and relative wealth makes them insecure, and "Homeland Security" is a governmental phrase that is as oxymoronic, as crazy as saying "Military Intelligence", or "The U.S Department of Justice". They're just words, that have very little relationship to reality.
Now, do you feel safer now? Do you think you will anytime soon? Do you think duct-tape and Kleenex and color codes will make you safer?
From death row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
