How Miseduction on Hip-Hop Leads to Discrimination

Hip Hop like any other type of music is meant to entertain the crowd while delivering a certain message and it has quite a large number of listeners.  Jamilah Evelyn’s, “The Miseducation of Hip-Hop – Discrimination in Education”, makes valid points on both sides of the argument that the genre of music is harming the educational morals and values of today’s youth.  Hip-hop is a music genre or type of music which is associated to deliver some message but it is mostly associated with hardcore or ‘Gangsters’’ who sings or raps the hip-hop lyrics in way of talking their bad side and how they deals with it for example tension and conflicts with other members or with other gangs or even some run-ins with the police.

‘Miseducation’ is the selective getting of information without getting the whole content leading to being mislead in your decision making. In the case of miseducation of hip-hop a person or persons get some few selected information about the hip-hop music and misinterpret it thus altering the real meaning and hence ends up taking wrong move positively or negatively as far as the social context is concerned. This may lead to discrimination in education where the persons surrounding you may create a negative attitude towards your behaviors.

Jason Hinmon experienced a life of his own after he transferred to the Delaware University from Morehouse College. Hinmon was seen as a hoodlum of the hip-hop which leads to discrimination and stereo typing but on my own opinion it was not worth it. There were a number of considerations which must be put in place.  On the other hand, Dr. Midgette makes the point when he says “I used to wear bell-bottoms, but I learned to dress a certain way if I was negotiating the higher education maze.” (Midgette pp. 559, 2008) and that there are different ways to dress for different occasions.  The educators need to understand that the world is changing and what was being done or practiced in the old days has changed. The music has as well changed and sometimes students’ background plays a key role in this. The way a person is brought up and the cultural background with the kind of music at time has implications to ones behavior. Hip-hop might be seen ‘dirty’ or ‘gangster-like’ and hence having a real understanding of the genre is a great deal. 

Hinmon dresses in a way other college mates and the educators feel it was not good, but I think having transferred from another college, there are a number of issues to be considered before making judgment. The former college was part and parcel in shaping the destiny of Hinmon. He also dresses according to the current tread of life. There are some motivations which dictate his course of behavior. Hinmon argues that all you need is to be yourself.  Davren Noble, a junior at the University refers to always dressing a certain way as “just keepin it real”, I would argue with his reasoning. Noble says “Why should I have to change myself to get a job? If anyone wants to hire me but they don’t like my braids, then either one of two things will happen: They’ll just have to get over it or I just won’t get the job.” (Noble pp. 563, 2008).

Midgette has the right to maintain that students like Hinmon have to behave differently.  Midgette says that some students are even seen reciting songs’ lyrics while walking in college instead of doing something constructive like recalling what will be in their exams paper. He believes that change must be there no matter what.  If one wants to be an academia one should behave as one. He argues that regardless of all other underlying conditions change will be brought by what you want your destination to be. Contrary, Midgette needs accept the fact that, most people have different orientation in life and a times there are the ones which determines a person’s character at the moment. There is also a big gap between the times of Midgette young times and the present times where evolution has been everywhere in everything. Hip Hop’s clear meaning needs to be understood and not to discriminate others.

Reference:

Evelyn, J. (Ed.). (2008). The miseducation of hip-hop - discrimination in education. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

"The Bias Of Language, The Bias Of Pictures"

            Steve Powers and Postman Neil drafted a short essay with the title “The Bias of Language, The Bias of Pictures.” This writing has detailed description of newscast structure. In their essay, they discuss pictures and language with focus centered on the differences between moving pictures, language and stationary pictures are discussed.  Powers and Postman highlight the way the above three subjects are interpreted, misinterpreted at times and the way they are perceived.  The judgments and descriptions that people make depending on what they unveil out of the three subjects is also discussed by the two authors.   It is very captivating to realize how people infer some things at times and interpret them as very wrong depending on what they get or see when they watch or read a sentence and misinterpret it.  

To discuss Powers and Postman’s claims concerning the differences found between moving pictures, language, and stationary pictures, it is important to start by focusing on the usefulness of the language.  In this case, language is mainly used to evaluate, describe, and reason or conclude things about an action or an event.  This is best illustrated by taking an analysis of three sentences from the Powers and Postman’s essay to illustrate their claim. Following excerpts clearly demonstrates their arguments; “Manny’s weight is 235 pounds and measures 5’8 feet in height”. “Manny is fat grossly.” “Manny eats a lot.”(Postman & Powers, 1992, pg.483).  The three sentences outlined above were quoted by different people depending on what they saw thus implying he notion of a description.  The third sentence shows an inference, simply because we have no idea of what Manny eats.  In this case, the reasoning is made because he looks overweight.  All the three sentences are different descriptions and interpretations of language. This illustration supports Powers and Postman’s claim about language that states that we will come across these kinds of sentences constantly when language is involved i.e. judgments, inferences and descriptions. This implies that each and every individual interpret things in a different way when seen or heard and they either pass judgment on the event, describe it, or state things falsely.

            Looking at pictures, a saying goes that a thousand words can be reflected by a picture. The truth of the statement is that pictures contain a language and can as well represent so many things to an individual. The difference between pictures and the language is that you see the words in the former come to life.  Pictures give more emotions compared to words because of the motion involved.  Seeing what goes on in a stationary picture is possible but figuring out what is really happening involves harder thinking.  In a stationary picture like news being watched, an individual gets the emotion from the story, the whole event, and how fast or the speed of the occurrence is. Therefore, both stationary and pictures in motion permit us to depict the situation as a whole other than leaving us wonder concerning the events happening or just about to occur.

            To a greater perspective, this is vital in a write up because Powers and Postman provide evidence that describe the differences found between language, stationary pictures and moving picture by talking about the television shows and newspapers. Here, TV shows contain a series of events that happen in a given sequence whereby the sequence is similar for every viewer. The authors’ main claim therefore concerning today’s newscast is that viewers must or should  come with information, a prepared mind, opinions, a sense of proportion and a system with an  articulate value. This is because most viewers lack mental equipment to differentiate between TV show and a newspaper article.

            To sum it up, I definitely agree with the authors because most interpretation of the three subjects depends on an individual and newscasts are usually brief.  Therefore, they tend to leave a space for the viewer to input his or her thoughts on the event. This increases the participation of the mind of the respective viewer in order to grasp the ideas being presented.

Young Vader, the legend continues

This ad’s real force is seeing a kid do what kids love to do:  Make Believe.   As this young boy, portraying to be a young Vader goes around the house testing his powers and finds himself struggling to use the force of his power to start a washer and dryer, get the family dog to do something, bring a baby doll to life and make his lunch appear in the kitchen with Mom, all fails to work.  When dad arrives home in his Volkswagen Passat, young Vader comes out to work his magic on the car and to his surprise; he was shocked to hear the engine roar to life due to his father starting the car inside with his remote.  This clever act of his father is a very traditional way a family in the 21^st Century would react to a young child’s imagination.

The recent release of the new Star Wars episodes has captured the attention of a whole new generation of younger admirers.  The commercial appropriately illustrates the love and affection that the older generation has towards the original star wars and the joy they have in sharing this character in the younger generation today in the 21^st century.  And all of that feeling good just happens to rub off on the Volkswagen at the end.    As this similarly portrays, we know that young Skywalker, the boy who eventually becomes the evil Darth Vader, was an emotional and impulsive young Jedi who always felt his powers were superior.  With the famous Star Wars music in the background, we see a youngster dressed as Vader trying to use his Force powers unsuccessfully around the house before his father returns home—in the all-new Volkswagen Passat.  To his success, as Vader dashes outside and shoos away his father's hug in a typical Vader rage, he tries one last time to use the Force on the car in the driveway.   This fascinating take on children of this age, using their imagination is a huge important part of childhood; to a young kid, anything is possible.

"Baby" by Justin Bieber ft. Ludacris

This truly amazing video of Justin Bieber singing, “Baby” focuses on the young gender relationships between teen boys and girls.  A video like this shows a young audience that love relationships or crushes are real.  This concept of Justin Bieber trying hard to win the attention of a beautiful young girl is done by showing love through competition and flirting which is a very traditional way, although, it’s not traditional when you see dancing competitions inside of a bowling alley.  Kids today don’t seem to hang out in bowling alleys anymore like they use to.  In the past, a non-traditional way a girl would act is not being as dominant, however, today in the 21^st Century, girls do seem to be more in control and dominant like it shows in this video.  Bieber and Ludacris’s representation of this song was very talented and shows how you can indeed put pop and rap together today in the 21^st Century. Taking a risk outside the traditional way works and in this case captures the attention of the young gender.