I knew Snoop Dog didn't start misogyny. I knew that Tupac Shakur didn't start sexism, and God knows that Dr. Dre didn't start patriarchy. Yet they extended it in vicious form within their own communities. They made vulnerable people more vulnerable.
Interpretation
The quote critiques how influential figures can perpetuate harmful societal norms even if they didn’t create them.
Michael Eric Dyson reflects on the impact of prominent hip-hop artists like Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur, and Dr. Dre in perpetuating misogyny and patriarchy within their communities. While recognizing that these artists did not originate these societal issues, Dyson emphasizes that their influence has significantly amplified and exacerbated the vulnerabilities of marginalized groups, highlighting the dual role of artists as both products of their environments and powerful shapers of cultural norms.
In practice
In a discussion about the impact of hip-hop culture on society, this quote can highlight the responsibility of artists.
Hip hop scholarship must strive to reflect the form it interrogates, offering the same features as the best hip hop: seductive rhythms, throbbing beats, intelligent lyrics, soulful samples, and a sense of joy that is never exhausted in one sitting.
Oprah Winfrey represents the most ingenious and creative expression of black spiritual genius in the public mainstream that we've had in quite a long time, if ever.
My ambition didn't grow out of nowhere. It was planted in me by a community that nurtured me.
When Dr. King was murdered, I had no idea who he was. But as soon as I heard his words on television that night when I was 9 years old, I was dumbstruck, awestruck by their power.
I grew up in Detroit. I was a teen father. I lived on welfare for three years. I have a brother serving life in prison, though I believe he's innocent.
George Bush ran a campaign where he bragged about being an anti-intellectual, dismissing his Harvard and Yale pedigree, pretending he was an American every day, ordinary everyman, and as a result of that, played up his fumbling speech because it signified that he was a good guy. That is deeply and profoundly anti-intellectual.
A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others.
True, Heaven prohibits certain pleasures; but one can generally negotiate a compromise.
Man is important in one sense only. He was made in the image of God: That is his importance. He is not important for his body, ego, or personality. His constant affirmation of ego-consciousness is the source of all his problems.
Whereas a lot of Buddhism concerns itself with stages of enlightenment, various precepts and moral codes, and even power structures and hierarchies, Zen is just like, 'Shut up, sit down, and observe your thoughts - oh, and by the way, what you perceive as you' doesn't actually exist.' I loved the minimalist approach of it.
If we should ever get to Heaven, we shall find nobody to reproach us for being black, or for being slaves.
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.