Out of the many messages that are sent through It's Bigger Than Hip Hop, the one that stuck with me the most was that neocolonialism has infiltrated American society, and is so engraved into the system that it appears racism is completely gone. Neocolonialism is defined as "the use of economic, political, cultural, or other pressures to control or influence other countries, esp. former dependencies." It may appear as though America is a land of opportunity, freedom and equal treatment, but this is all merely an image, because it can be seen through scrutiny and challenging of what we've been told that white neocolonialism has overtaken every aspect of American society. Economically, politically, and culturally, white people are containing, controlling, and exploiting not only African Americans, but non-whites and even oppressed white people.
We can see examples of the control that whites have over hip hop. 90% of today's hip hop consumers are white males. However, most hip hop songs are displaying a negative image of African Americans. The modern hip hop songs imply that African Americans are violent, criminals, uneducated, and that African American men are only interested in crimes and women. These subliminal messages create a prison for the minds of all of American society. To non-diverse white people or other non-oppressed people, these messages become assumptions that are set into their minds and cause judgement and belittlement of African Americans. To African Americans, this is a prison of identity. There's a wish to feel like an individual, and not part of the stereotypes, but there's also so much display of what Blacks should be like through the media that some African Americans start to believe that these stereotypes are true, and they begin to impersonate what American society has displayed them to be. This in itself is a mental and cultural prison. Asante explains, "This prison is erected by the need to respond to the racist portrayals of Blackness and maintained by our cultural obsession with the "real" in inability to see through the traps.".
It's our job as the post hip hop generation to end these stereotypes, and start utilizing rap to display uplifting messages that challenge authority and the status quo. Ornette Coleman said, "The insanity of living in America is that ownership really is strength." As of now, the strength is in the people who have ownership of money, ownership of large houses, ownership of the stereotypes that are being put out about the oppressed people of America. We can change that by gathering numbers and demanding control of our culture. We have made these observations of the injustice, racism, segregation, oppression, and exploitation in America, and now we are OBLIGATED to put everything we have into changing and transforming these observations.
