Chapter 2 Hip Hop Wars Hip Hop Reflects Black Dysfunctional Ghetto Culture

Chapter two is entitled "Hip Hop Reflects Black Dysfunctional Ghetto Culture". The chapter talks about how Hip Hop might be influencing or promoting a dysfunctional black culture. Rose states that Hip Hop is perceived to be the contemporary promoter of this black underclass urban culture of dysfunction. She says that the criticism of the so-called dysfunction was created by the poor urban black community and it revolves around three pillars violence, sexual deviance/excess, and illiteracy. Rose says it's a disturbing claim that Hip Hop and what is said in songs reflects the black urban underclass dysfunction.  Even though it's hard to defend these claims because of what is said in some songs.  Rose says that there are four major problems with the simplistic idea of the poor black people as culturally dysfunctional; contemporary claims about black cultural dysfunction are not new, newly created black cultural expressions have always been seen as a threat to a larger society, fictitious self-generating cultural patterns, distortions that undermine research efforts to prove the value of black cultural expressions. Rose states that the myths about the black culture are explanations for the racial inequality that occurred throughout most of the 20th century. They were said to have no cultural traditions in the 19th and 20th centuries. The music and poetry of black cultures were seen as threats to a larger society during the early years. Rose says that blues music was considered 'devils music' by others in the 1920s. However once this music was not viewed as the sound of the youthful generation it was accepted and was no longer seen as a threat. Rose states that viewing new black expression as dangerous while embracing old forms, like jazz, is a pillar of contemporary racism. She says also that black culture is influenced by many societal factors such as politics and economy. The Black community is not the only culture influenced by these factors. She also talks about black females being the heads of the households, this is said to cause dysfunction, because it is not "normal" in society. Rose talks about how for long periods of time black culture was seen as dysfunctional but now, it is accepted as valuable and distinct. This acceptance did not come easy it took a lot of political, social and intellectual effort to make this happen. The environment in these black communities gives the culture a dysfunctional perception. The dysfunction is environmentally induced. Rap songs talk about these environments and these words are encouraging young people to emulate the practices and activities that are described in these songs. The commercial hip hop artists promote this behavior in their songs, but this is what sells so many people support it and thus advertise it. This as a result does not help the situation even though they are pro-hip hop they are promoting it wrongly. The only way to combat these issues, Rose states is to reject self-destructive paths and create real opportunities for the youth in these black communities.