Know What I Mean.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to relay something that was passed on to me. Michael Eric Dyson is visiting XU on Nov 14. I would really be interested in attending that event - it sounds pretty interesting.

I have to admit that I haven't sat down and read the entirety of any of Dyson's books (I've seen them and thumbed through them a little). But I'm confident it will be interesting based on various articles and TV appearances I've seen him in. He's known for approaching Hip Hop culture with a very thoughtful and academic approach that I know I've rarely seen among other intellectuals.

Ok Geoff... try to say something deep...

On Dyson's website there's an opportunity to post your response to a question someone, I presume Dyson, is asking visitors. The question: "Is Hip Hop good or bad for the culture at large?"

I'm trying to come up with an appropriate way to respond. My first thought is that the question itself trivializes the scope and variety of Hip Hop. How often do we hear people asking if radio is "good or bad for the culture" or if television is "good or bad for the culture." People would obviously say "Some of it is and some of it isn't." Perhaps we're being overly simplistic in trying to reduce Hip Hop into narrow terms like this. It's far more useful to discuss what trends in Hip Hop are positive and what trends are negative. The way it reveals the dark, underexposed corners of the most prosperous nation to ever exist on the planet - America - seems to me to be a good thing. While not all of Hip Hop expresses it, there is definitely a trend toward misogyny and homophobia in a lot of Hip Hop culture. That's definitely a bad thing.

It's kind of like when people try to ask questions about "the media" as if it's a single entity, as if The Wall Street Jorunal and The Devil Wears Prada and Ken Burns documentaries and Maxim Magazine and Heroes could all be painted with the same brush. The question itself implies a lack of depth. But of course it's easy to poke holes in what other people say rather than say something yourself.

~Geoffrey Dobbins
Vice President, UCABJ