The First Amendment Applies to Hip Hop Too Guys!

English 1010-11 Reaction Essay


I read an article once that talked about the first amendment. It focused not just on the amendment itself but in particularly the freedom of speech portion of the amendment. The author mentioned that in his opinion the most important attribute of a citizen in regards to this amendment is the ability to fight for the rights of people to publicly say words we may hate. I had to think about that for a minute. The concept itself is staggeringly profound. The idea that we live in a place where individuals have not only the ability but the right to articulate almost anything they see, feel, think, believe, or just plain want to put out there, (short of slander that is) is marvelously extraordinary. Many countries kill for such blatant displays of freedom.

The first amendment states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

What exactly does that mean? I wonder sometimes if our forefathers thought this through completely. My understanding of this right is not that we may say whatever we choose providing it does not hurt, anger, or offend anyone else. To me it means that we may use language whatever language we may choose(i.e.: English, music, art…..) as a medium to express ideas and emotions any way we see fit, be it through journalistic prowess, poetry, painting, and even lyrical content. I don’t always support someone’s position but if they are being suppressed I will vehemently fight for their right to express themselves. This brings me closer to my point.

I grew up in South Jersey as we residents fondly refer to it. Growing up there I lived in a rundown town riddled with drugs and crime, a “ghetto”. We had a great deal of racial tension there when I was a child due to the segregation of the area. It happened that in a time when everyone was working hard to be “P.C.” the town I lived in was the quintessential segregated urban population. A town that was literally separated down the middle by the rail road tracks, a city where all the blacks lived on one side of those tracks and all the whites lived on the other. There was one elementary school on the far end of either side of the tracks within the city limits. As a way of curbing attention the “bureaucratic powers that be” decided to forcibly integrate the community by way of the school system.

The solution was to have K, 1st, and 2nd grade attend the school closest to each locality. ALL of 3rd and 4th grade would attend one school and ALL of 5th and 6th grade would attend the other school…….make sense? Talk about a hotbed of disaster.

The tension built and built for years and by the time I hit high school it was virtually explosive. People said and did all kinds of vile things and there was little respect for your fellow man. Hip Hop crossed the boundaries for both sides. It was the one thing we all had in common. For the first time we had something to relate to.

Here is some guy who we have never met, from an entirely different side of the globe, who was having the same life experiences we were. I actually remember being afraid to walk to school because you could get stabbed or shot for walking by a drug deal and looking up from the sidewalk at the wrong time. There was a man who was stabbed to death across from the police station and left there. I was in fifth grade at the time. He laid there until us grade schoolers found him and someone ran across the street to tell the police.

Faced with these kinds of tribulations there has to be a release. I wonder if these people who have such negative things to say about Hip Hop have ever been exposed to the kind of violence I grew up with. I gather “no”. If they had they would understand the relief you feel when you find something to connect with.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think all Hip Hop is uplifting. Some of it’s crap. A lot of it however has much more substance and more positive moral messages than its harshest critics are willing to merit. I think it is sad when anything becomes defined by its least positive examples. Look up a song by Spice One called The Ghetto you can find it on Youtube. It talks about the harsh reality of growing up in a place where violence rules and no one cares enough to change it.

No matter how you feel about Hip Hop, the truth is, it’s established and it is not going anywhere! Get used to it. Enjoy it, detest it, let it provoke you to think and grow and maybe even infiltrate a subculture of America and get to know it better. You don’t have to like it to learn from it.

My Fathers Music

“Take life as it comes, where there’s life there’s love, where there’s love there’s hope, where there’s hope there’s cause…….” The lyrics rolled off of my father’s tongue like Jell-o from a mold. “……Let destiny lead you, let fate be your guide, let trust be your judge, but with honor and pride.” Words that, until he put them together, held only a small portion of the wisdom imparted. “Take it as it comes……there’s really not much changin’ it after it’s here.”

From as early as I can recall the sound of my father’s guitar has soothed me, like a soft comfy blanket, wrapping around me and warming me, penetrating me down to my core. The words in the lyrics were always sung with such emotion that you had to stop and listen, not just listen, ponder.

When I was little I would stay awake late at night pretending to be asleep on the couch so that I could listen even longer, holding on to each moment with all I had so as not to lose my grip. Funny, that hasn’t changed. Although my father has passed and is no longer here to guide me his words are forever imprinted in my mind and my heart and I hold on to them tightly.

The songs he would sing were always full of meaning. He would tell of great tales through his music, whether original or cover, each journey we would take would be full of imagery, meaning, foresight, as well as hindsight. Sometimes the hero would be dashing sometimes tortured, but always true.

I remember one night in particular watching him perform a song in public. The song was written about a little boy named Robbie Wade who had been tortured and abused by his parents until they eventually killed him. When my dad read the story in the paper it broke his heart. To find a way to relate to Robbie he locked himself in the attic for three days with no food or blankets, nothing for comfort. When he came out he had written a song he called, “Love and Bruises”. At the end of his set that night a woman approached him in tears, sobbing, “No one should ever have to endure what you have! My heart is with you!” .....she thought the song was about him. I think that was the first time it hit me, what my father really did that is. He told these stories as a way of teaching. He gave a voice to those who had none.

How has this made an impact on me, on who I am, and who I am yet to be? Simple, it has taught me to look beyond the obvious to what lies deeper, beneath the surface. It has taught me that there aren’t always happy endings, but no matter what, there are always lessons to be learned. I understand now, that to fully comprehend what someone has been through; you have to find a way to see through their eyes. I have learned that not everything that has meaning is tangible or even agreed upon by others. Above all, I have learned that I can affect people in ways I may not even realize, (beyond that I may not even know when I am doing it), and with that knowledge, I harbor a great responsibility to my listeners. I am responsible for the message I put out and I alone have the ability to choose not only what to share, but how to accept what is being shared. So, “…As we roll through the motions of white light and aging, of wine of roses, of candles and rain” I promise to “Take it as it comes” because as the song says , “there’s really not much changin’ it after it’s here!”

Who Am I?

This was written in response to a blog I read about defining the SELF. It just came out.

WHO AM I?

I never really know,
for it changes day to day,
based on a sum of,
experience on the way.

Each person that I know,
acquaintance, friend, or foe,
allows me in some way,
to to self actualize and grow.

People just like you,
who think and question too,
allow for my expansion,
as I discover points of view.

Even those who never wonder,
what it's all about,
reinforce my path is sure,
and I need not doubt.

Who am I? I don't know,
and I suspect I never will,
fully understand,
the grace from which I fell.

But this I tell you truly,
for I know it in my heart,
Whatever I am,
I've been it from the start.

I chose this life you see,
before I ever came,
even though I knew this life,
would include much loss and pain.

Through it all I stand tall,
though sometimes I may falter,
I know whats set before me,
is meant to make me stronger.

So I'll take my lumps,
and the accolades as well,
knowing that one day,
I'll meet my future SELF.

On the day we meet,
the one thing I want most,
is to love whose there before me,
regardless of her ghost.

So faced with the prospect,
of tomorrows aches,
I choose not to regret,
but to learn from my mistakes.

I swear to have integrity,
in everything I do,
I'll even do the hard things,
that I don't want to do.

I promise to laugh with joy,
every chance I get,
the feeling in THAT moment,
I never will forget.

I am grateful for each moment,
that molds and shapes ME,
into what one day I'm sure will be,
the me I'm meant to BE.

Crimes of the Heart

For my theater class this semester we were required to write a reaction essay to Beth Henley's play Crimes of the Heart. I really got into this one and the paper I wrote on it sums up a lot of real life emotions for me. The question we were to ponder while writing was this:

Beth Henley was once asked what was the driving force for her when writing this play to which she replied, "I became fascinated with the idea of writing a play about a woman who attempts to kill her husband and yet have her character portrayed in such a way that the audience can not find fault in her despite what she had done"

Do you think Beth Henley accomplished her goal?

Crimes of the Heart

Beth Henley did a fantastic job making Babe easy to love despite the fact she had shot her husband in what some might call cold blood. I keep coming back to our class discussion, when you asked “should all people who shoot someone or even commit crimes deserve to be locked up and have the key thrown away” and Amy said “YES!”. She truly sounded as though she believed that, I wonder if she found Babe to be a hardened criminal who was a terrible threat to society and should be locked away forever. Based on her statutory rape comment (although I was curious about that too) probably, still, I hope she was able to see beyond the black and white spectrum of the issue (no pun intended) at hand and realize there is always more to the story than the facts presented. My dad always said “there are three sides to every story, his, hers, and the truth!” and so far as I can see FACTS rarely leave any room for the reality of all three to exist simultaneously.

As a product of an abusive environment I understand all to well just how complex people are, not to mention the situational paradigms they find themselves in. Life is as convoluted and messy of an adventure one can find themselves in. It dips and curves, speeds up and slows down, throws things at you with less than a moments notice to respond, beyond that, it allows you the mis-perception that YOU have the ability to control any of it.

My father was both verbally and physically abusive with my mother and with me. Never my brother, he was the “golden child.” Later on with my step-family, I again bore the brunt of his angry episodes. He never broke any bones or anything that drastic, but I had a black eye or two and more then one welt to show for it over the years (my big mouth sure didn't help any either).

As twisted as it is, he sincerely thought that he was doing these things to benefit me. He truly loved me. Every day of his life he loved me. No matter what he did or what he said I never for one moment thought he didn't. He was terribly affectionate and easy to love back despite everything he put me through. My father wasn't a bad man! He was a good man. Fundamentally down to his core he was an amazing dynamic human being. Does that mean he was infallible? Not by any means. He was, after all, human.

The heartache I carried was insurmountable. It was never the beatings that got to me though, it was more the things he would say like, “you'll never amount to anything! Your mother is a mooch and a leach and your gonna end up just like her!” It broke me. I even spent a long time believing him.

Somehow I came through it all stronger and more independent. When leaving my fathers home at sixteen I took along with me his core values. Respect, honesty, integrity, activism, personal growth, and a vigorous love of humanity with all of it's diverse idiosyncrasies were just some of the ideals imparted to me, through him. My godfather described him once as “a man of grand principles....who didn't always know how to follow them himself.”

I love how the characters in this play have so many layers and quirks. It makes them more approachable to me. They almost seem like family. I found it easy to have sympathy even empathy for Becky and the road that led her to that tragic event in her life. I understood why she felt there were no other options, and quite possibly there were not, especially when considering her husbands position in their community. I found that there were pieces of me in all of these sisters even the pieces I don't particularly want to relate to (Meg and I had a lot in common during one stage in my life than I care to revisit). This play served to be a tremendous reminder that life comes at you, no conditions, no apologies, you just have to do the best you can with the hand your dealt. Other than that all you can do is hold on tight and enjoy the ride.

The Tide is Turning

As a fan of change I found this video to be

• well thought out
• beautifully illustrated
• especially enjoyable to watch

I first clicked on this video because the site I saw it on intrigued me, so of course I was curious. Immediately I recognized Roger Waters singing (I love Roger Waters/Pink Floyd). The song was as if it were written for the purpose of this video. I don't know who put it together but I wish I did I have a feeling I'd like him. The song and I suppose the video is called "The Tide is Turning"
Enjoy!!!!