According to keynote speaker Tricia Rose, just because there is a black president doesn’t mean discrimination no longer exists. In fact, it becomes a major distortion of the radical change lived, fought and advocated by Martin Luther King Jr.
Rose, Professor and Chair of African American Studies at Brown University, discussed inequality hip hop, MLK Jr. and white power on Monday to a packed audience in the Eastern Michigan University Student Center Auditorium. Rose received her PhD from Brown University in American Studies and wrote, The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop—and Why it Matters, in 2008.
“Martin Luther King has been tamed,” Rose said. “His courage is underrated. The media celebrates the non-violence, but ignored how radical he was. If (something) is meaningful and interesting, it’s not peaceful. In fact, it can get hostile.”
Dyann Logwood, professor of Women and Gender Studies and African American Studies at EMU, attended the talk with her mother, Sarah Logwood. Dyann valued the points Rose made about institutions that limit change and how Rose’s talk was relatable to everyone in the audience.
“(MLK) was an activist,” Sarah said. “He challenged the status quo. He is pictured as passive because of his stance; but he fought for radical change.”
Rose is worried about how far the Americans have slipped into the delusion that “we won, it’s over,” when the statistics in housing, wealth, education, incarceration and unemployment say otherwise. MLK’s message of “don’t judge,” has turned into being colorblind, which hides the operations of white power, she said.
“People of color feel hyper-invisible, like a fly in a sea of buttermilk” Rose said. “White has become the invisible standard of power. It’s a transgressive refusal to know, in the spirit of discomfort, of what knowing means.”
“(Colorblindness) is unrealistic because people do and should see it,” Dyann said.
“Everybody has a story,” Sarah said. “Everybody has a social injustice in their own country. If you have colorblindness, then you don’t see the impact of white power in institutions.”
Abdulla Ali, 26, is an economics major who has been in America for six months, after emigrating from the Maldives. He said he attended Rose’s lecture because he is new to the country. With the urge to know the country better, it includes learning the problems.“Great lecture,” Ali said. “Things have changed, but not to the level we want to see. I see so many blacks in good positions. It is improving at a slow pace.”
Rose explained how inclusion has superseded social change, with the example of hip-hop — a significant part of black culture — being reduced to a trinity of the whore, pimp and gangster. Hip-hop was about choosing dance and play instead of self-destruction. According to Rose, hip-hop lyrics used to tell a story that could fill up three of today’s rap songs. Hip-hop is now defined by narrow storytelling terms, which has created a system where black suffering has become entertainment.
“There are more consumers of what is negative and sexist,” Dyann said. “The only voices we hear are underground. Why can’t that be the dominant voice? I appreciate the points (Rose) made about the origins of hip-hop, the message within the music, and who controls those messages.”
Rose cited that 70% of African American children are born outside of a nuclear structure (a heterosexual marriage). The solution is to create an economically and emotionally structured argument for what a family means.
“Systems have been put in place to make the black family an ineffective institution,” Dyann said. “It takes both men and women working together and believing in the same things. Be connected spiritually, have the same definition of family, and work together for financial stability.”
“There are so many African American males incarcerated in their child-bearing years” Sarah said. “It is the
institutions that prevent economic success for African Americans and options for partners.”
African Americans are facing new challenges MLK could not have predicted. To create a community that sustains equality, affirmation of love and transformational love must be in place. Affirmation of love is leads to a positive culture in an everyday world designed to drag you down. Transformational love means to push each other to not do the minimum.
