NWA vs. the Confederate flag

I was once engaged in a spirited debate about the meaning of the Confederate flag, and whether it is inherently racist (or just an innocent symbol of "Southern pride"). While not necessarily inherently racist, I would argue that the use of the flag to symbolize Southern pride cannot be separated from its use as a racist symbol, given that these two uses are so deeply and so historically intertwined.

Anyway, the debate then gravitated to such topics as gangsta rap, (and to the problematic concept of "reverse racism").

Here is what I commented then.

I do have a certain amount of respect and sometimes even fondness for rap/hip-hop, and think, at its very best, it is brilliant - like, for example, Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising, as well as some of the recordings of The Jungle Brothers, Wu Tang Clan, Dr. Dre, Cypress Hill, Boogie Down Productions, Beastie Boys, Eric B and Rakiim, Salt `N Pepa, Queen Latifa, Grandmaster Flash, etc. I used to live in the Bronx in the mid 1980s (I now work there), and certain rap cuts help keep that time of my life alive via musical association memories.

When I think of gangsta rap, I think of it, in some ways, as analogous to some of the political punk bands - like MDC (Millions of Dead Cops), CRASS, Dead Kennedys, and others from around the same era. Both are brash, angry, somewhat witty, and sometimes not very intellectually sophisticated; then again, both were primarily the product of adolescent energies, rather than more mature thinking. As a teacher, I am very comfortable being amongst adolescent energies and trying to channel some of it toward intellectual sophistication.

A song like "Fuck Tha Police" by NWA might seem offensive; then again, if we look at a song like this in context, and realize - via the Rodney King verdict and the investigations in the root causes of the ensuing riots - that racism and brutality among the LAPD (as well as other police agencies) toward the poor minorities of Compton, South Central and East L.A. was - and perhaps still is - endemic, then the song begins to make a bit more sense; if one group systematically oppresses another group, then the oppressed group may just feel -and periodically express, perhaps even poetically - some anger toward the oppressor.

In other cases, such as Ice T and his pimp story raps, or a bit later on, in Snoop Dogg's songs, my sense is that the performer is trying to achieve something like a cinematic-styled, or narrative, verisimilitude in the raps; [it's interesting, and not surprising, that both Ice T and Ice Cube (as well as Snoop Dogg) wound up making their mark in Hollywood.] In other words, a thick description rather than a justification for the lifestyle being depicted. This is in following a long African-American tradition going back to the early blues and griot singers, and to later pulp fiction authors like Donald Goines and Iceberg Slim.

In comparison, I see nothing of any positive value in an institutionalized confederate flag.