An Ignorant Opinion on Hip-Hop

"It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt."

Mark Twain



I was mugged at the gate of my home on February 9, 2007,  roughly midnight. What you're looking at here is what's left after two guys in hoodies whacked me in the face with a large Maglite(?). That one hit put me to the ground but not quite out. That came after my assailants said, "What kind of dude is this--no watch, no wallet, no drugs?" Metro Emergency found: (1) fracture to nasal bones, (2) cervical strain, (3) concussion. About $1,000 for EMS and $6,000 for three hours in the emergency medical center. It would have been more but there were no charge codes for my screaming and crying.

Sub(conscious)text

It might be best to begin this explaining why I placed the mugging photo first: 1. to grab your attention (I'm not above using cheap and tawdry appeals every now and then), and 2. to explain what might be the single most significant event influencing my feelings and opinions on race from my subconscious.

Conscious

The events I'll list as conscious are drawn from memory as best I can remember. That memories deviate from reality has long been known, but while no one can possibly remember each detail after so many years, I'll try to convey the truth as I recall it.

Why all this precision?

Elaborating without clarifying the limits of my observations would be unfair to the reader and to me alike. As the photo reveals I'm not African-American and I don't claim to be qualified as expert on racial issues. Despite being regularly described by my otherwise very likable Georgian brother-in-law as that "nigra-lovin' Yankee Jew-Communist who married my little sister," my bona fides as non-racist are still very much subject to examination and dispute. 

In my gut this feels like walking on eggshells. But fools rush in where angels fear to tread. That's what got me into this topic to begin with.

Unpretty Past

As a youngster growing up in a second-generation Polish household in a virtually white neighborhood of southeastern Cleveland, I could have learned Polish at home but we children were already very skittish about the strangeness of our grandparents and we wanted no part of it. Our first generation parents who could have insisted on it were themselves sensitive about their backgrounds and let us off without a complaint.

Socially we had no contact with black people. Our primarily Polish Roman Catholic parish was stainlessly white and you'd be hard pressed until the later '40s to find an Italian. The only Jews were the the ones who ran a bakery on Kinsman near 147th and that was like going to the moon.

Other categories of white people were mostly eastern and southern Europeans often simply categorized somewhat pejoratively as "Bohunks"--everybody from Croatians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians, etc. Germans were respected as Germans with no reference to any part their continental relatives may have played in the Second World War. French? French were only in movies. English? Nobody knew anyone who was English unless you counted war brides who were strange ducks. Irish were mostly priests or smugly high-falutin' Catholics who couldn't identify with Slavic immigrants.

To have had contact with any black people of our age one would have had to go to public school. We didn't. We went to the local parish Catholic school--to wit, Our Lady of Czestochowa. We called it St. Mary's which was incorrect but as little kids entering kindergarten we just couldn't (and probably didn't want to) pronounce it properly (cf, "skittish" above).

So, except for an occasional puzzling reference to a group of people casually referred to as "N------s," we had no direct knowledge of them or of the emotional freight this word bore. I'd like to think our insular parents and relatives didn't either. More on that later. The first time we (I) had even indirect knowledge of such people was on hearing from the neighborhood kids who attended public school. Then came the onslaught of the N-word in all its ferocity and only slightly less hateful terms in the borderline comical jigaboos and moolajohns. I was spared other terms until hearing some of them for the first time in a skit with Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live.

Grocery Store and Alleged BO

When I was about eight I was with my mom in a small neighborhood grocery store on a Saturday morning where I saw a really dark black man (by this time the respectful term was Negro) in line at the checkout behind a white woman's cart as she was unloading her purchases for the clerk. Her little boy in the child seat began agitatedly pointing at the black man and screaming, "Oh, mommy, it's a smelly black man!" (He said "black man," not any of the epithets. That I do remember.) "He's gonna get me. Mommy, he smells so bad!"

Embarrassed (?) or just unnerved by her kid's outburst, the woman hurried the clerk and tried to hush her child but did not look at or say anything to the man. He, too, was upset and angrily spoke for everyone to hear, "I don't smell. I just came from home. I'm clean. Is this what you teach him at home? Why, lady, why?" He looked around among the white crowd as if for some support. Many downcast faces, many eyes averted, but no one answered him. 

I vaguely recalled that my mom and I talked about it as we walked home and to be fair to my mom she thought it was a shameful experience. I felt she was saying what was shameful was that the woman was publicly exposed for her prejudice. Sadly I don't clearly remember that my mom said we should feel bad for the black guy. That part may have happened but I really don't remember.

Bikes and Bounds

Black people began moving into the neighborhood--first on the streets we considered     borders--a family here, a family there. Their kids started showing up on the local playground but we each pretty much kept to ourselves. We passed each other without making eye contact and if either of us said anything as we passed it was clearly to our own group.

One day I was riding my bike with two other friends and we decided to venture as far up the street as we could get before our own sense of distance drew us back home.  Inwardly we each knew that we were testing the envelope both geographically and socially. We were about two blocks from home when we were set upon by three black kids about our own age. Without saying anything they pedaled directly at us. We tried veering away but as they caromed past they grabbed at our arms and ripped us backward off our bikes.

We fell in the street getting the usual "street kiss" of scrapes and bruises. We were terrified as we had not anticipated being attacked. They whooped with joy as we tumbled to the ground.

We said nothing. Just got back on our bikes and went home. They turned around and went back to wherever they came from. We weren't about to get in a fight so far from our neighborhood. Apparently we learned a lesson about limits.

[I should clarify that the only other time I was accosted on the street and beaten was when a band of boys from Murray Hill (Little Italy) assaulted me and my nerdy companions on Euclid between 105 and 107 in the vicinity of my soon-to-be high school. This taught me that vicious attacks are based on group identity and needn't be racial in character.]

Civil Rights Comes to My Street

The civil rights movement raised everyone's awareness. I learned of black families buying houses on nearby streets. My peers began talking about how the "N-----s are getting uppity" and might have to be taught "their place." Seemed strange to me that a boy my own age would have so sophisticated a worldview to know where various peoples' "places" were. I figured he got this at home.

Before long homes on my street and nearby on adjacent streets had been sold to black families. And not long after that one became aware of "blockbusting." These were tactics of aggressive real estate agents calling the remaining white residents all hours of the day or night saying, "We have buyers for your house. Perhaps now is the time to sell--before prices start to fall." Or another popular variant, "Do you have young daughters and are you concerned about their safety walking in the neighborhood?"

Out of Nowhere . . .

I often served as an altar boy for funeral masses one perk of which was to ride to the cemetery in the funeral director's black air-conditioned limousine with the priest to hold the final prayers at the grave site. Conversations varied widely. Once the priest officiating took an adversarial position on my being a science-fiction devotee--"Frivolous tales. You're far better off keeping your head out of that nonsense." But another time with my head deeply involved in news, history, and local events (I was by now in eighth grade),  I asked him why the parish school had no black students especially since there were now so many black families in the neighborhood.

"Well, there aren't very many black Catholics," he replied, "They're usually Baptists of one or another variety." Would our church make any attempts to convert them? "What with them having so many marriages and divorces not many of them could become Catholics because their marital situations are so confused." For a child of the parish school which as first and second graders we bought "pagan babies" in Africa I was bewildered why the Catholic zest for conversion ground to a halt once they're next door.

[As a method of encouraging youngsters to give to the missions the good sisters of the parish school issued a certificate of "baptism" to every child who gave at least $5 to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith (the missions). Supposedly the $5 bought a "pagan baby" to which the contributor could give a Christian name. Envision the far flung missionary nuns going into the jungle with fifty dollar bills and having to return with ten infants for the next set of baptisms. We never heard whether the new Christians were returned to their parents or whether they just piled up at the orphanage door. Maybe to somebody it seemed like a good idea for six and seven year olds who were too young to understand financial support of hospitals and schools.]

. . .  the Parish Takes Action

Diocesan priests of the Cleveland area were never known for interesting, topical, or instructive sermons, especially back in the '50s. For them to have preached on something as radical as racial understanding or racial justice would have required unheard of learning, faith, and courage. They didn't want to shake things up any more than circumstances around them were shaking things up. So they stayed with the safe stuff about rosaries, love of the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary), and for kids, listening to your parents, and yes, all that gory suffering of Jesus' crucifixion during which I would often faint.

So it came with real astonishment that the parish was sponsoring an evening meeting about blockbusting. Not about "Blockbusting and a Christian Response," no, just blockbusting.  I told my dad I wanted to go and he said only on the condition that I not say Anything.

The meeting strategy quickly summarized was "We've got to stick together. Hang tough and don't sell." Selling would lead to total abandonment of the neighborhood, the church and the church school, and would leave those who didn't sell (primarily older folks) in what would inevitably become a deteriorating and dangerous neighborhood. 

By this time I'm a junior in high school, I've heard a lot about Catholic social justice in my religion and history classes, and standing a bit away from my father, I raised my hand. The MC spotted me and said, "Over there, let's hear from the young man."

"Is there going to be any talking to people about how we should learn to live together? That these people have every right to move where they want? What about the church welcoming people here?' You'd have thought I threw a bomb in the place. The yelling went up, "What's that kid doing here anyway?" "He has no grasp of what's going on."  "Whose kid is that?"

My poor father kind of snuck behind everybody and grabbed my arm to take me out of the meeting. "Oh, you had to go and do it. You couldn't just shut your mouth. Wait 'til we get home. You're going to get a lesson." The walk home was rapid and brief. Fortunately my mom intervened and I was spared for the evening. Shortly after that I wrote the poem about the black Madonna.

1962 and a Blockbuster Interview

My mom had open-heart surgery that summer and it was thought best I should not get a summer job. Rather my unpaid internship was to be at my mom's beck and call as she was to be bedridden the whole summer. Once she had resolved her day into defined periods of activity and sleeping I could sit in a rocker on our front porch, read, and enjoy whatever cool breezes were available.

Early on while making headway into Crime and Punishment I noticed that a guy with real estate signs papered on his car door from one of the recognized blockbuster companies parked his car near the corner of the street and approached the front door of the house on the corner, knocked or rang the doorbell, and struck up a conversation with the resident. When done there he moved across the street to the other corner house and zig-zagged in that pattern until he came to ours.

"Good afternoon, young man," he began. "Your mom or dad home?" "Mom's home but she's recovering from surgery and she really can't be disturbed," I answered. "How about your dad?" "Won't be home until after six." "OK. I might catch him later another day. So long." "Wait, don't go just yet. I want to ask you a question," I asked as I closed my book and looked him directly in the eye. "Sure," he responded.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked. "What do you mean 'this'?" "I'm young but I wasn't born yesterday. You're from a real estate company that is known to be working this area--blockbusting. You're not just here innocently offering your service. You've parked on the corner and you're working every house. Just when do agents make a pitch to every house on the street? Never, under ordinary circumstances. But when you're blockbusting you can move a lot of houses in a short time. "

"Look, kid. Somebody's gonna make money here. I don't see why it shouldn't be me. Human nature isn't going to change today, this week, or this year," he defended. "But you're preventing people from learning directly about each other. I wouldn't be surprised if your sales pitch didn't stir up a little fear and if necessary a little hate. That's no service either to buyers or sellers or the neighborhood as a whole."

"Listen, kid," he condescended again, "you sound like a bright young man. But after a few years of experience, you'll see what I mean. Ideals are fine for the young. I've got a family to feed and worry about. You'll see." He headed back across the street to knock on the next door. 

For Sale signs kept popping up everywhere--eventually on the lawn of the house next to ours. It sold to a black family. Except for occasional greetings as we went in or out contact was minimal. They seemed nice enough--quiet, respectful, kept their lawn cut at least as well as the previous white neighbor. They had a dark bronze Buick convertible--the "deuce and a quarter"--with a cream leather interior and white top. Never in a million years could you fit that car in the old frame single car garage. The tail was so long that it regularly scraped the street going in or backing out. Worst of all, the showy car reinforced the black stereotype.

A Note of Caution for Both of Us

Lordy me, as a teenager, wasn't I one goody-two shoes? Looking back it's somewhat startling. I didn't regard myself as a crusader, just a kid who read and heard about social justice and who took it to heart. Apart from occasionally stepping on a soapbox I was a socially backward, naively religious nerd bewildered about growing up, earning a living, and life's complexity.

Years Pass . . . I Mean, YEARS Pass

Lots of stuff happens in the intervening years which doesn't relate to racial formation or sensitivity.  Our family stayed in the neighborhood until after I graduated from college. By then we were practically the last white family on the street. I went off to graduate school in Indiana and when I came back home after one year my parents had moved to another pristinely white neighborhood near my mom's sisters and brothers.

I got a job with the Post Office which became my career work. For the first time in my life I was daily exposed to working with black people.  My formal education taught me to accept all people and apply any judgments fairly but my informal education from the white parochial culture continued.

When a klatch of exclusively white workers gathered conversations regularly included and promoted all the epithets and stereotypes you'd find anywhere else. Others presumed I held the same prejudices and were nonplussed when I didn't join in or objected. When the group included black workers, or when black workers might overhear, conversation quickly moved to a sterilized mode. And this wasn't just among the lower level employees. It continued all the way to top officials, although they were more cautious.

I wasn't grouped with the "typical white worker" and I made genuine warm friendships with many black colleagues--not all of whom were male. These friendships led me to making more socially conscious choices in life. When my wife and I were looking for a place to live we chose to buy a house in a mixed community where there were already a high percentage of homes owned by blacks. Our first home was located in between two black families. Our second home in the same area was next to a black family.

We joined a church widely respected for its forthright stands on housing integration and social justice programs and became active in their governing structure. I joined the Heights Community Congress and worked to promote integration in housing and education. I participated in community organizations to promote transracial adoption and supporting legislation at the state level to remove barriers and ease the placement of so-called "unadoptable" children into permanent families.

Finally, This Matter of Hip Hop

It was because our church regularly has programs in February which are devoted to greater understanding of black history that I came to voice my unfortunate position on hip hop. Originally we were to be lectured at an adult education hour by a local expert in hip hop but circumstances interfered at the last moment. Several members of the Black History Team arranged to show and to discuss a PBS Independent Lens  documentary by Byron Hurt, Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes.

If the purpose of showing the documentary was to present a simple history of hip hop, they chose the wrong vehicle. Hurt relates early in his introductory remarks he has come to criticize rap in particular for its distorted portrayal of black manhood.  

My first knowledge of rap came through a segment of the weekly Cosby situation comedy in which the good doctor becomes fascinated by youngsters doing a new rhymey staccato speech usually backed up to scratched and scraped deejayed music. The only other part of hip hop of which I was aware was "break" dancing--an incredibly gymnastic, hyper-rhythmic, gyrational movement similarly performed to deejayed music frequently with rap accompaniment. 

As the documentary did not soften either the images or the language of violence and misogyny it was amusing to see the older black audience kind of squirm at the shenanigans of the young people onscreen. To their relief the documentary was halted to allow for questions and comments from the members.

Questions/comments split along two lines: younger black members (young even to fifties) dealt with the matter of growing up with rap music, recalling artists, songs, etc. Few touched on the other (main) aspect of the video, its predominant hyper-masculinity, misogyny, and abusive language. Some of the older black ladies expressed their thanks that they'd stopped showing the video. A few of the younger white members expressed some knowledge of rap and cited a name or two but clearly claimed no thoroughgoing knowledge of the artists. 

My question/comment went: "In America it's openly granted that blacks and whites grow up in totally different cultures, and it's a rarity, if not an impossibility, for one easily to understand the other. All I'd like to point out is that for rap exponents to promote an image of crime, drugs, domination, hyper masculinity, and misogyny is doing no good for black American society as a whole.

"I can't tell what good is accomplished by such images. I would guess that exaggerated 'hardness' stems from what in psychology is called reaction formation. The rappers deny black powerlessness and assert prowess as ladykillers, drug lords, and borderline psychopaths. But even they know that young black men like themselves are disproportionately in prison, out of work, and as such are unable to support and form families, and achieve the American dream."

Voices quickly rose to counter my comments.  Several offered to correct me. Sadly the questions did not pursue the vein I opened but went back to discussing artists and types. The sponsors resumed running the video. Regrettably I had to leave before the program ended.

Racism Revived

The problem of racism in America has worsened in many ways despite there being some progress made by a few. Generally that progress has not "trickled down" to black society as a whole. A few JayZs, PDiddys, and Beyonces do not make up for the vast numbers of blacks in prison or those released and branded as felons unemployable for life, or those denied a reasonable education over the years. 

The election and reelection of Barack Obama paradoxically released an even more grievous racism rather than marked any "post racial" period. Display of nooses, Ted Nugent referring to the president as a "mongrel," and Mitch McConnell gathering the congressional Republicans together the day of the inaugural to set a policy to insure the new president would fail in every effort. Whether they were as openly prejudiced as nooses or Nugent, or as subtle as Mitch McConnell's promise of non-cooperation, racist events blossomed like so many weeds across the American heartland. The prejudiced fearful people (like George Zimmerman and Michael Dunn and who knows how many others) bought guns to ready themselves for some open warfare. 

With sociopaths like Zimmerman and Dunn out there I would be especially wary of appearing the angry black man and I would have advised my black son to do likewise. No amount of loud music fun or bravado defiance is going to restore life to the dead Trayvon Martin or Jordan Davis. Mind you I'm not defending Zimmerman or Dunn in any way. But the rap posture of portraying young black males as being fatally dangerous plays right into the drama the crazies are seeking.

Finally a Word about My Mugging

The police report said I was assaulted by two African Americans. I don't remember ever saying that. It was midnight, they wore hoodies far over their faces and the lights were at their backs. Shortly before they grabbed me I tried to make the best of their approach with a "Good evening, gentleman." So much for how a soft word turneth away wrath.

I didn't see their faces and his voice--the guy who told me, "Don't do anything stupid," wasn't attributable racially. If anything, his voice was so commanding that I thought later he should be doing voice-overs not beating people on the street. He probably could have made much more had he gone into broadcasting, but alas. To no avail I tried to get the report rewritten but the police had criminals to catch and let it go. 

For weeks afterward I grew distinctly uneasy when I encountered men wearing hoodies pulled forward on their heads. My shrink identified it as PTSD from the trauma of the mugging. Seven years later I still get concerned if the encounter is at night anywhere if I'm alone or just with my dog.

The Ignorance

I didn't grow up in the Bronx with rap and hip hop. I'm no great student of black American history or culture. I make every effort to judge people fairly. I've spent my life working for understanding and reconciliation. And--despite my doctor son being able to rap with the best--I can't get into the beats. I have a similar problem with jazz. It simply doesn't work for me and I've tried. If you like your music loud (metal or rap), get earbuds and destroy your hearing but let me listen to the wind and the birds if I want to.

So to my friends of every stripe I confess that when I'm sitting in my car at a stoplight and some carload of kids pulls up next to mine with ear-blasting lyrics about "killing cops, bitches, f***ing honkies, etc," I get really nervous--whether they're black or white.