Peace, Progress, & Power

Peace,

Todays Supreme Mathematics is Culture. Culture is a way of life that consists of your ways, words, actions, morals, ethics, intellectual positions, etc... Culture is what gives people a framework for how to interact and conduct themselves in their environment. Ultimately, Culture produces Knowledge, which is the foundation for one's life. I want to cover a couple of topics today that will be dealt with in more detail at a later date. Alright kids? Got your thinking caps on? Heeere we go:

- I took a trip back onto memory lane the other day, and stopped at my time of being infatuated with wrestling; you know, WWF, WCW, AWA, & all of the other alphabet associations from that time period. As I started to think about all of the characters and all of the different situations, a pattern of accultaration started to emerge. Do the Knowledge:

- Junkyard Dog: A slick talking, growling, uncontrollable Black Man from Detroit
- Tito Santana: A high-flying mexican who wears a sombrero and has a chicken with him at times
- Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat: A high-flying Asian who bears an uncanny resembelence to Bruce Lee
- Jimmy "Superfly" Snukka: A high-flying Pacific Islander who has "wild" hair and wears leopard-skin tights
- Kamala & Abdullah The Butcher - African Characters who were portrayed as maniacal dictators (Abdullah) and uncontrallable cannibals who could only be tamed by his white "handler"
- Slick - A pimp who handled various wrestlers
- Razor Ramon - A So - called Hispanic who was a dead-on impression of Scarface
- Whaoo Mcdaniel - A Native wrestler who finished people off with the "Wahoo Chop", and had moves like the "Indian Burn".

Get my drift? From a very early age, we are given a framework from which to look at different ethnicities based on very exaggerated stereotypes. Popular culture has to do this in order to maintain the status quo and keep the social order. In this case, social order is kept by giving everybody what they "need", and making it what they want.

- After pondering for a spell, I'm ready to build about the Hip-Hop Political Convention that took place in Chicago (C-Medina) two weeks ago. At some point, I'll do a larger piece for a project that is yet to come (In comes the sound of anticipation!) For now, I'll share some observations:

- Hip-Hop is not a culture. I repeat, Hip-Hop is not a culture. Hip Hop has some cultural implications, and Hip-Hop can impact and affect culture. If Hip-Hop is culture, what is the value system? The food? The financial framework? Hip-Hop came out of culture, b.u.t. it is not culture.

- With an umbrella as large as Hip-Hop, what kind of political platform could you hope to come up with? You have communists, liberals, conservatives, anarchists, and people who barely care about politics in the same room, and you're looking to come up with....? You'll have a good conference and you may even create some good networks, b.u.t. you won't have a movement. For example like Adisa Banjoko and others have noted, what is the Hip-Hop position on abortion? Foreign Policy? The Middle Eastern conflict? Until we're sophisticated enough to move to that place, it's smoke & mirrors.

- Chicago is on some shit. Gentrification in C-Medina is unlike anything I've ever seen. Community control must include economic self-sufficiency. Say what you will about the projects, b.u.t. it fostered a strong sense of community, and was a strong voting bloc.

More to come....