Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou
Activist, Educator, Author
"American Sins, Urban Solutions: Understanding the Politics of Hip Hop"
October 24, 2001

Rev. Sekou: I want us to call in the question the very notion of the perceived saliency of Hip Hop meaning that fifty years ago, would we have had a jazz summit…meaning to pull together John Coltrane, Sevon, Billie Holliday to have a conversation about the politics that are affecting that particular generation? I submit no. And the reason why we wouldn’t have had that kind of conversation because there were organizations and structures in place that wrestle critically with questions of social misery in the African American community that are not in place now. And so then we are in a televisual culture whereby we are preoccupied with those who have access to the various forms of media whether it be music or television to the point that we assign unwanted forms of leadership and intelligence to the individuals who are engaging in particular forms of culture particularly that of Hip Hop.

And so then, the very crisis in which Hip Hop exists in terms of it’s ability to give some democratic representation to everyday brothers and sisters: Bone representing for Cleveland, Nelly for St. Louis, the various rappers from the various boroughs in New York, rappers Mac Ten and others from…and Ice Cube from the West Coast, Mini-Mob Outkast, Cash Money and others from the South. This kind of democratic sensibility and the sense that they give some sense of agency to the various members of the community in which they come from, only becomes salient in the absence of profound notions of leadership.

And so then the very issue of the politics of Hip Hop represents an impoverished moment in Black Leadership in America. And this is central for us to understand. Now, I love Hip Hop across the board. But, the issue is that we can…part of our discourse about the politics of Hip Hop is grounded in the context that we do not have adequate forms of leadership speaking to the very crisis that people are existing in. And so then we have major civil rights organizations with profound legacies that we are indebted to, your mere presence at this University reflects the legal work of the NAACP. But, often times, at this current moment in American History an emphasis becomes placed on cosmetic opportunities, economic ideals and televisual form so that more black people in Hollywood becomes a campaign. And so that is going to end poverty.

Boycotting the flag without calling into question the economic arrangements in which poor people in South Carolina are under is problematic because it doesn’t take into account the hell everyday people are catching. And so then who speaks for young people in America and the hell that they are catching? In the last four years, the first black president…you know Clinton…in the last four years of his presidency he doesn’t even say poor people. Doesn’t even come out of his mouth.

In the last election between two mediocre candidates both who benefit from daddy’s money and pigmentation and a little bit of charisma, the black church, we got a monopoly on that. Mediocre candidates who don’t even have the audacity to wrestle with critical issues in terms of the hell that everyday people are catching. Bill Bradley running in the primary is saying that you know, we need 11 million people to be covered in insurance…but 35 million Americans don’t have health care. What does that mean in the inner city? That means that poor people don’t go to the doctor, suffer higher forms of infant mortality because they don’t have the insurance.

And so then, who is speaking for poor people? 40 million Americans make $6.00 an hour. Who is speaking for them? Who is giving them agency? Who is representing for them? Not para-political forms of leadership, which is primarily televisual. So, the major leaders, many of them preaching in the country are preoccupied with press conference and corporate shakedowns without calling into the question the very structures that a corporation then sells.

So, then who is keeping it real? And so the very agency of Hip Hop is shot through this major vacuum in black leadership. And this vacuum in black leadership has to do with the access to resources of the middle class at the expense of the downward mobility of poor people. Again, I am not demonizing middle class brothers and sisters. I got a tendency to pray for me. But, I am not demonizing middle class brothers and sisters. I am not demonizing people who live in the suburbs who want access to be able to take you know…to take the…the…grocery cart off the lot to your car. So, you know, want gas station to pump gas, want safe schools. I am not demonizing these kind. But, I am saying what are…how does one acquire these and what is the structures in which people get access to these kinds of resources on the backs of who?

And then we have to have these kinds of conversations. So, then when you look at the conditions in inner cities, when you look at the neighborhood that produces Jay-C, that produces Tupak Shakur, that produces NCA, that produces Master P, one has to come to grips with what are the systems in place, what leadership, what institutions are in place whereby their leadership is not become the primary articulation of those from the inner city? And so then, the politics of Hip Hop is situated in that context of televisual forms of leadership not connected to programmatic follow through in the capacity building of everyday people.

And then when we do have leadership that is willing to tell the truth such as Ralph Nader, they are so alienated from the black community that they have no saliency. I was with Ralph about a month ago. I said, bro Ralph, what are you going do about black folks next election? You going to run again? He said, well you know I campaign more than any other candidate in ghettoes. I said if you are serious about black people, you in the ghetto tomorrow. Because you are going to invest in the capacity of everyday people. To speak truth to power for themselves.

But, so alienated from black communities, the monopoly that the Democratic Party has on discourse…political discourse in African American communities…we have more and more, fewer and fewer, models as it relates to leadership who are going to speak truth to power and call into question the various structures in which we then…and so then, Hip Hop becomes relevant in that context. Young people in search of meaning in response of this notion of American sins.

And American sins are those forms of social transgression against the very humanity in which we describe and prescribe in our most sacred document. Here, the stomping grounds of Thomas Jefferson. We have to call into question the very nature of a country that creates an electoral college with distrust the will of everyday people. Now, most people thought the Electoral College was a small, liberal arts school in Indiana. But, the creation of institutions that distrust the demos…it is an historical legacy in a nation whereby…it’s constitutions is written 20 percent of the people are in bondage. No women at the table. Only propertied, white men have access to resources. The whole notion of privilege comes from a root word that means private law. Meaning that there is legal supporting of the kind of country club access and networks in which Thomas Jefferson benefited from as he penned the letters that would shape American politics.

And so these notions of American sin is captured in the notion that I call European Patriarchical Capitalism in an attempt to always keep track of race, class and gender. These forms of American sin, they are not unique to America. When we look around African civilizations, when we look to Asia and other parts of the world, there has always been discrimination. But, in no point in world history does race, class and gender coalesce with the kind of vengeance that it does in the southern plantation.

By race, class and gender, we mean that in terms of how we respond to race as an idle that we bow down at the altar of race without raising other critical questions. For instance, when we look to the analysis…the predominant analysis coming out about O.J. in the black community…he in trouble again, pray for him…he going to jail to because John ain’t around. I just know if I get into some trouble, I am going to get Johnnie.

But, I am saying that when we think about our analysis of O.J., if I had been accused of killing Nicole and run, I would be in jail because I can’t afford O.J. That is a question of class. I mean, I can’t afford John. That is a question of class. But, the demonization of O.J. in American popular culture has to do with our emotional connection to race. In American popular culture, we hate O.J. more than we do Timothy McVeigh. This is a racialized discourse; an emotional attachment to race that emanates…that produces notions of pity and contempt. And so then this notion of race playing itself out historically in terms of black bodies being demonized and the black codes and various forms of subjugation whether through legal forms of arbitrary violence as it relates to black bodies.

Secondly, when we look at the question of gender, we are going to do contemporary and historic. Contemporary in 1996, under the Welfare Reform Bill, the draconian Welfare Reform Bill, black women are held up as symbol of laziness. Since slavery, black women worked in the field, in the home, subject to sexual violence from master and sexual violence in their home. Since slavery, 50% of black women are working outside of their homes doing reconstruction. If it were not for black women, reading the words of When and Where I Enter by Paula Giddings or books by Bell Hooks, her text, Ain’t I a Woman. When we look at the reality that if it were not for black women, the economic back bone of the African American community would collapse. How do we hold them up as a symbol of laziness? They have worked harder than anybody and have the least to show.

Finally, question of class. Class playing itself out in such a way that poor people, those who don’t have access to resources are not able to gain the means to meet human needs. And so then 40 million Americans making six dollars an hour, the CEO of Disney making $11 million dollars in one year and then laying off six thousand people the next.

In Midland, Texas, 40 thousand white folks primarily laid off. What do we have to say about that? And then when we look at even the current discourse about bail out, primarily the money is going to corporations who don’t need the money. Whereas the masses of poor people are ignored in the whole discourse about rebuilding the economy. And so class plays itself out if you have enough access to resources to shape those resources in such a way that you can manipulate some space for yourself in American culture, so be it. So, the history of America says it is grounded in race, class and gender. And often it is justified through religion.

So, then if this is the legacy of slavery, homophobia let’s pause and have a conversation about that. First of all in many communities in which we have come from there is always somebody in our family that we have been a little suspect about. And that suspicion we say not as a…with that suspicion is often evaluated…and I don’t want to demonize gay brothers and sisters because I will take a gay Langston Hughes over a straight Clarence Thomas any day.

And so then as it relates to homophobia, we got to have a conversation because the devastation of what it is doing in our communities when black women are representing 30% of new AIDS cases, the number one killer of African American males between the ages of 24 and 35 being AIDS. We got to have a conversation about homophobia and misogyny and heterosexism in terms of men were socialized to get as much as we can without the consequences. And this is life and death. Typically black women don’t sleep outside the race, so that means black men are giving them AIDS.

So, we need to have a conversation in the black community as well in other communities as it relates to the question of AIDS, Homophobia and Homosexuality and Male Sexuality because when we continue to hide behind a veil of homophobia, people continue to die. I was talking earlier, I mean, if all the gay brothers walked off the organs Sunday, let’s have a protest…no gay brothers going to play organs or direct choirs. The church would look a lot different, wouldn’t it? This is not to stereotype all brothers in music as being gay but it is to say that in the black church, the choir has always been a space for gay brothers and sisters…or gay brothers in particular could exercise their gift and lead us in to the highest form of spirituality. Two things important in the black church: can he preach and can the choir sing? And you will go to a church where the choir can sing and they can’t preach. Now, talk back to me now.

And so we have to beg to have a conversation about homophobia in ways that are really relevant, that are compassionate and caring, and that are not preoccupied with valuating people’s sexuality. And I don’t like church folks. Pray for me.

This preoccupation, the demonizing gay people without taking seriously their humanity. If you consider yourself a Christian and you are serious about the ministry of Jesus, you can demonize no one. So, then these notions of race, class, gender and heterosexism are a part of these broader notions of American sin which Hip Hop has no monopoly on it.

In 1903, the boys is more the manner of Negroes…the boys asks a question so what is wrong with young people? They say it is the music they are listening to and the dances they are doing. This is 1903. Leadbelly, 1933 and his one song says come on bitch, give me them drawers. He is so good you think I am Santa Claus. 1933. 1950 the vast majority of families in New York, LA, DC, Boston, St. Louis, Missouri, Philadelphia…50% of the families are economically supported by women. That is 1950. 1963, the number one killer of African American males has been handgun violence. So, you can’t blame rap music for that.

What structures are in place, they breed poverty, they breed the opportunities for people making bad decisions. My grandmother who the baddest philosopher I ever known, said that if you give people chitlin choices they going to make funky decisions. (laughter) And so then, when we look at a culture whereby people have limited options, whereby many of them visually the only options that they see that they have are options related to basketball, rap or drugs and whether consuming them or selling them, this is sin. Such what you have done unto the least of these, so have you done unto me.

Again, I am not one of these people who believe in historical determinism, economic determinism to the point that people do not have an option to make decisions but many people have in a situation where choices are a luxury because that is the natural outcome of a culture whereby everything is commodified. The great Henry James says America is a hotel civilization preoccupied with comfort and convenience. And in a hotel civilization, we leave our room, come back hope they are clean, and never ask how much the people getting paid to clean them up. And so then as America as a hotel civilization preoccupied with comfort and convenience, historically there have been existential institutions to keep demons at bay so that historically the black church has been a place whereby people could find moral and ethical resources to hold demons at bay. But, it is a slowly, quickly eroding place.

So, that historically in the black church, one could go and hear a sermon about social justice, a sermon about helping somebody, a sermon about linking yourself to a struggle bigger than yourself, a sermon that honored your ancestors. Now we have struggles and stories that preoccupy with Mercedes and Rolls Royce at the expense of the Gospel. Preachers preaching sermons that say poor people are poor because it is their own fault. Sermons that are preoccupied with material wealth which is no more than a recycling of the corporate culture in which we exist. So, then pastors are CEOs with corporate mentalities.

And we need to interrogate the very notion of the corporation. And so then when we look at the realities of everyday brothers and sisters and the hell that they are catching, they can’t even go to church space to find a kind of moral, ethical and spiritual wealth necessary for them to keep on keeping on whereby suicide is not a primary option.

So, we have given over to the prosperity visions and corporate conversations and let people believe they are the theological project. And so then, this notion of American sins is grounded in the kind of…grounded in the kind of mendacity that is linked to these questions of not having enough spiritual weaponry. Even in historic African American communities, and I am not romanticizing pre-segregation, pre-integration, but in segregated African American communities there was still some symbol and sense of what a community looked like even though that community was valuable. Many of us are neo-local. Many of us we are suburbanites meaning we grew up in communities whereby we were always the only one, had no connection to the people, in terms that the race card became more and more prevalent as we entered a high school to became more competitive with our friends. And so then the race card began to play itself out there. Or those of us who lived in the inner city find ourselves in communities always moving around in search of work, decent living, sometimes in flight from domestic violence situations in which our moms have been in. As a result of that, we do not know what community looks like and how to experience it even in it’s most valuable forms.

So, again Hip Hop becomes more important because it has a language of socialization whereby everybody is on the same page. Having a epistemological framework that is in common, that speaks to the needs of a generation. And so then, this notion of American sin plays itself out as we described in public policy in terms of the Welfare Reform Bill, the Crime Bill, a budget balanced on the backs of poor people. We have been fighting for campaign finance reform, for tax credit for poor families, not enough money. And then in less than 24 hours, 40 billion dollars raised in a war effort.

Where is the money coming from? They are going to loot Social Security. Well, what does that have to do with you or those poor kids whose mothers or fathers who died untimely death who get Social Security checks as ways to keep on keeping on. It has been under attack since Reagan. And so then it plays itself out in public policy but we don’t want to have an abstract conversation about public policy forms of sin without not wrestling with our own demons that haunt us when we are in the room alone by ourselves, the ones of our fathers not being in our lives.

I think the number is three black women are sexually assaulted before the time they are 18. One black woman reports a rape, she represents 15 to 20 of us in our community and no dialogue about it. One in seven black boys sexually assault her and we still don’t want to have no conversation about that. And so the kind of personal pain, agony and despair that plays itself out in a way whereby people feel like they need…and the only options for them are in a culture where they need to consume. So, if I have enough Tommy, if I have enough Gucci, if I have enough Versace maybe this pain about my uncle touching me in my private places will go away.

Impoverished options in pursuit of spiritual weaponry. What does it mean for me at six years old for my father to die and for me to determine at six years old that I did not get? What does it mean for me to have suppressed a memory of one of the only good memories I have of my father until I was 28? What does it mean to be born to alcoholic parents? A mother who abandons you and you wonder for 22 years why she gave you away? What does it mean to grow up in a place where you don’t feel like you belong and you are always shifting and shaping in a way so that you can just get by so you don’t make so much trouble because the space that you are live in is not your space and people are quick to tell you that? What does that mean? What does it mean to be on a campus whereby you have been told it is one of the best institutions in the nation if not the world, and that you still feel empty that you have majored in majors that are unimportant to you because of pressure and money to follow that pressure…you majored in those majors and ultimately your heart is not there? What does it mean to pursue technological forms of career when ultimately you want to engage in forms of humanistic and intellectual kinds of discourses such as English and other forms of the humanities? What does that mean and how do you make some sense of it?

So, then Tupac Shakur becomes extremely relevant then. Discourse about nuanced forms of eroticism and thin forms of feminisms as articulated by Little Kim and Destiny Child becomes important. So, what does it mean to be a black woman who has economic success and a fear of black men as it relates to that economic success? So, Kim you pay my bills becomes relevant because I can pay my own. But, the relationships are predicated on money exchanges versus care and compassion, love, touch and tenderness.

And so these notions of American sins are grounded critically in the history of the hotel civilization that is shrouded in the blood of race, class, gender and homophobia posing in a culture whereby one consumes and still finds oneself existentially empty. This is why in the last five, last ten years the majority of books that have been sold have been self-help books because the hollowness of the American Dream. People are trying to find some meaning for themselves. In light of all that I have consumed, all the money that I have, I still feel empty on the inside because the very nature of American culture is an erosion of the soul. I suggest in my text that the problem in the 21^st Century will be the problem of the American soul.

It is building the kind of spiritual weaponry necessary to keep demons at bay while not losing sight of social good. And this is not to say that Christianity has a monopoly on this. Actually I am not even trying to recruit people for Christianity. I am trying to get people out. We have enough jerks in the religion as it is making my job hard

But, how to we accentuate the best of the prophetic Christian tradition that makes a leap between personal holiness and social holiness, between private lifestyle and public policy? How do we eek a space out in light of these fundamental contradictions in such a way that we can keep on keeping on. And so then, in the notes of my conclusion of: this notion of urban solutions, this is not to say that the city has a monopoly on this. But, for me, my fundamental question of any religious tradition, of any organization, of any movement thereof, any ideology, the fundamental question for me is where are the least of these in your project? If they are a priority for you, we are on the same side. If they are not, I will see you on the battlefield.