Hip-Hop Politricks
When I first heard that Russell Simmons and Dr. Benjamin Chavis-Muhammed were creating an organization for the express purpose of melding hip hop with activism, I thought that it would probably increase the number of registered voters between the ages of 18-35. I thought that it would get a lot of positive press for Simmons, Dr. Chavis, and others involved with the organization. But when it came to real activism?
Not a chance.
I thought that with the best of intentions, the organization would do nothing more than give Simmons, Chavis, and others the perfect opportunity to cut deals on behalf of imagined constituencies, on behalf of the hip hop generation. Ensuring Hilary the hip hop vote in ‘08 in exchange for legislation that was pitched as helping black people, but would really help black folks with bank. I need to make it known that here I’m not tripping on Simmons or on Dr. Chavis-Muhammed (or any of the other folk involved with the Hip Hop Summit Action Network or HSAN as it is called). Simmons has done a yeomans job with both Def Jam and Phat Farm, and he should be applauded for helping to make hip-hop global. And even though Dr. Chavis has a checkered past (having been removed from the NAACP and allegedly the Nation of Islam for sexual improprieties), even if Dr. Chavis was in it for the hustle, I’m fairly sure it would not matter.
It’s just very difficult for an organization like HSAN, given the way it is constituted, to do anything other than help a select group of black folk at the expense of larger issues. Recent events have done nothing to allay my fears.
In a press release dated April 22, 2004, Dr. Chavis, called for a March on New York City. The March will occur on August 30th, coinciding with the first day of the Republican National Convention, and is designed to call attention to the Rockefeller drug laws. These drug laws, long thought to be some of the worst in the country, had a significant role in moving the nation away from rehabilitation and towards incarceration. It is not uncommon to hear stories about young sisters and brothers being locked down for 25 to 30 years for carrying dime bags of weed on their persons. And though I probably don’t need to toss out statistics, because we know whos on lock, 93% of the people currently incarcerated in New York for drug offenses are African American and Latino.
By bringing in what they hope to be tens of thousands of youth, Dr. Chavis and Mr. Simmons, along with other prominent figures in hip hop and in black politics, hope to infuse the hip hop generation with a political mission that will send Bush out of office with the quickness.
But check it.
Four years ago, the Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign, (PPEHRC) a coalition of organizations devoted to issues of poverty, homelessness and welfare rights marched on the first day of the Republican National Convention. The march was intended to draw attention to the way the Republican Party has basically poured concrete over the poor. One year ago, in February, the PPEHRC officially announced their intention to march again.
The March for Our Lives is to occur on the exact same date, at the exact same time, on almost the exact same marching route as the march announced by the HSAN. The leadership of PPEHRC has noted that they’ve tried to talk to the HSAN about moving the event, or figuring out how the two organizations could work together, avoid any possible conflicts and combine strengths, but they have been met with silence.
This is not the first time that the HSAN has bumped heads with activists interested in issues of social justice. Simmons worked with the Mothers of the New York Disappeared to reform the Rockefeller Drug Laws (an activist group dedicated to ending the Rockefeller Drug Laws), and nearly did so through legislation. But according to activists, Simmons did an end run around the Mothers, going directly to New York Governor Pataki. The end result was a series of amendments that were strongly criticized by the activists, amendments that ended up never being passed.
No one questioned whether Simmons cared about ending the drug laws, nor did anyone argue that Simmons was taking loot from pro-Rockefeller forces from behind the scenes. No one even argued that Simmons was engaged in the struggle largely to get pub for the HSAN, or even for his business ventures. These critiques would be wrong, but understandable. However, the critique activists did utter was far more damaging, and it points to one of the central reasons I believe that organizations like the HSAN are not designed to truly work for black people in general, or the hip hop generation specifically. Several argued that Simmons behavior revealed a disdain for activists who did real activist work.
While it is difficult to tell whether this is true or not, looking at the Board of Directors of the HSAN makes it easy to see why that critique would hold up. The Board is currently manned (literally there are no women) by hip-hop moguls from several labels (Bad Boy, Roc-a-Fella, So SO Def and Def Jam among others are represented), by one scholar activist (Dr. Manning Marable), and one traditional civil rights leader (Kweisi Mfume). No women. No hip hop figures that aren’t associated with a major corporation. No youth (Jermaine Dupri is the youngest of the crew at 31). No grassroots activists.
And no one with a salary below six figures.
Juxtapose that against the background of the folks involved in the PPEHRC’s march. The leadership of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union (KWRU), one of the organizations spearheading the PPEHRC march, is largely comprised of people who were or are currently homeless. And while they are able to make money through organizing, and in some cases through speaking opportunities, much of this money goes right back into the day-to-day struggles they face organizing the supposedly disorganized. And while the leaders of the KWRU and others in the coalition are elected from the ranks of the people they represent, I would be surprised if there are elections at any level within the ranks of the HSAN.
Let’s flip the script. One of the things hip hop has always been known for was its authenticity. “Keeping it Real” wasn’t even in the black vocabulary until hip hop put it there. What would we think if a group came into being for the express purpose of building a hip hop label from scratch, and that group was comprised of: C. Delores Tucker, Rosa Parks, Atallah Shabazz, Susan Taylor, bell hooks, and Latoya Honson (the first Spinderella) for good measure. Most of us, (and definitely all of the hip hop heads) would say that there was no way in hell this group could ever produce hip hop because — maybe with the exception of Spinderella — they weren’t hip hop!
Now there are some serious problems with the whole keeping it real mentality but if it matters to people in hip hop, to businessmen in hip hop, then why shouldn’t they be able to apply that to activism as well? Why doesn’t Russell Simmons, who may be hip hop, but isn’t an activist and has no real political constituency or history of political organizing, humble himself at the feet of the activists for whom issues like poverty and homelessness are literally life and death? It would be consistent with the best principles of black life, and the best principles of hip hop.
But I’m not holding my breath. I’m thinking that what will happen is simple. The HSAN will hold a march, with a legal permit, and get whatever headlines the powers that be decide to allot to covering protests of the Republican National Convention. And they’ll be lauded for bringing a dose of political activism to those brought up on Ice, Alize and Isiah Thomas throwback jerseys. And while they are, another group will march without a permit, no doubt leading to arrests, probably incidents of brutality, and mainstream media silence.
A silence so deafening you probably WON’T hear a beat drop.
