Brainwashing-Out Oppression

Author: Jared Ball
Title: Hip-Hop, Mass Media and 21st Century Colonization
Hip-Hop and the Corporate Function of Colonization

my wordle

I understand that he is arguing here that all hip hop and mass media is a fabrication becasue it has been dumbed down, censored, and manipulated until we loose the messages of oppressiona and retain only "good beats" and "simplistic story lines"
"there can be no popular representation of the colonized that does not reflect a justification or omission of their colonized status". becasue the white people that buy popular culture don;t want to think about it
Even though ip-hop is popular in the black community, it is not a postive force because it does nothing to improve education or SES, just maintines the status quo.
"the lyrics comittee censor the political, not linguistic messages"
just think about hwo much swaering you hear, but you never head how education is poor in specific racialized areas or how the arrest rate is entirely unproportional, when we know such artists exist.
"encourage a behavior among the colonized which produces self-inflicted wounds that in reality result from externally-based oppression" divide and conquer method to maintaining control: set up a hirearchy and let the people go after themselves, its less work for the people at the top, lasts longer, and is more effective
"success" depends on adherance to a set of values defined by popular culture, white, straight, christian, able bodied, high class culture.


What i dont't understand:

minority elite=white men- i didnt understnad this reference. people with power in a society by definition are not a minority in an oppressive way.

"better beats" argument as opposed to music industry focusing on inspirational/meaningful/real words that depict the real reality?


connection:
- Randy on American Idol- as the seasons go on his style gets more and more prep- and more and more "white". i would argue that it helps his image to sound slighly urban but to conform to every other white stereotype thats exists

-hip hop is not much different from poetry- it is poetry, which can be used constructivly or not. but like slam poets, the more mainstream the poet, the more mainstream the jargon they preach. someone like andrea gibson is just small enough that while she get national attention she had to start as grassroots and hence is comfortable speaking out, even and uchually against the goverment and whats media's implications are for society

-heres kats: