Hip Hop Wars Analysis

Superior Essays
Tricia Rose’s “The Hip Hop Wars” commences and entitles the first chapter as “Hip Hop Causes Violence.” Before furthering on with the chapter, one may intuitively develop a bias supposition that what is titled is based on an actual fact without having any valid evidence to prove why it is the way it is. Tricia Rose, whom is an author, a scholar, and a public speaker presented an argument stating “a key aspect of much of the criticism that has been leveled at hip hop is the claim that it glorifies, encourages, and thus causes violence (Hip Hop Wars, pg.34).” Although several critics may agree that hip hop promotes violence, Tricia Rose covers the significant aspects of the controversy whether hip-hop indeed causes violence. These aspects …show more content…
In this essay, I choose to support Tricia Rose’s inviting statement. In “Hip Hop Wars” Tricia Rose presents an array of arguments. One argument she presented is the stereotypical assumption that rap music seems to promote violence due to the association of African Americans. The history of white Americans labeling black Americans as uneducated, deviant, and felons initiated the stereotype of African Americans. Because of such belittlement, interpretations of black Americans made critics reckon them as that. Another argument is the five components that led to the decline of economy in black communities. These elements consist high levels of chronic joblessness, loss of affordable housing and urban renewal, drug-trade expansion, access to automatic weapons, and incarceration over rehabilitation. The destruction of low income black urban communities led to homelessness. Corporate business owners would purposely employ white Americans and black Americans last to prevent business loss. Although employed, the job security for black Americans were uncanny and abrupt. Hence, when business is slow, they would be the first ones to be laid off! As a result of this inequality, it led to …show more content…
One may come to an assumption that violence presented in rap lyrics might promote emulated actions among young listeners. For instance, teenagers who listens to derogatory rap lyrics or see violence in video games may integrate such actions in their lives. This assumption is due to the firm societal perceptions and the stereotypes among African Americans. To support this statement, Carrie B. Fried, who is a social psychologist claims that “Lyrics presented in rap music are judged more harshly than the same lyrics presented as country music, which concludes the stereotypes of American Africans (37).” Because people only see and hear the surface of the story, black Americans incessantly suffers from belligerence. Dismally, I do have to disagree with such minimal acclamations as there is not enough evidence to conclude that hip hop encourages violence and that the stories and rhymes in rap music are not the primary source to blame. Without further ado, I hereby agree with Tricia Rose’s statement that hip hop does not cause violence. Tricia Rose profoundly outlines the injustices, discriminations, and stereotypes that African Americans experienced. She conveys two main solutions which is includes the following: One solution is to take this matter into consideration and initially express these concerns to black youth and the legitimate violence they face in a form of social change. And the second

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