Yo+Mama

Kelley, R. D. (1997). Looking To Get Paid. In //Yo Mama's Disfunktional!// BOSTON: BEACON PRESS.

Named one of the top ten books of the year by //The Village Voice// **//“Yo Mama’s Disfunktional!:Fighting the culture war in America.”//**, by Robin D.G. Kelley is a compact collection of six ingenious essays dealing with the culture wars in urban America. Robin Davis Gibran Kelley is a professor of History and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. Dr. Kelley was promoted to the rank of professor and taught courses on U.S. history, African-American history, and popular culture, and at the age of thirty two years young, he became the youngest full time professor ever at New York University. In addition to these’s accolades Dr. Kelley has also taught at Columbia University among many other distinctions. Even if you do not agree with Dr. Kelley on all of the issues you are guaranteed to look at certain topics from a different perspective. The essay that relates to my topic of Hip-Hop in the classroom is the second chapter of the book. Kelley’s second essay entitled //“Looking To Get Paid: How Some Black Youth Put Culture to Work”,// claims that black youth remain victims of a horrible contradiction that postulates their bodies and identities alternatively as menaces to society or near-deities in the arena of athletics. African American youth have struggled “for survival and pleasure inside capitalism” despite racist stereotypes that generate fear in most Americans. African American youths are even putting these negative social constructions of themselves to work; with Hip-Hop and a disproportionate participation in professional sports being prime examples. The stereotype for impoverished African American youth is that their are three ways to make it out of the ghetto; rapping, playing ball, and selling drugs. Even though their is an African American president in this country, there is still a large disconnect between Obama and the population. Nike, Reebok and other athletic shoe conglomerates have profited enormously from the postindustrial economic decline in the inner cities of the United States of America. Television and print advertisements romanticize the deteriorating urban landscape in which African American youth do nothing but play “street-ball” all day; creating huge international market for over priced basketball sneakers. Their are many different issues going on in the world today and students do not always learn from these from the mainstream media. If teachers can use Hip-Hop in the classroom to teach students things they don’t learn on television; the same way that corporation’s have co-oped Hip-Hop culture to advertise to my generation, then maybe we can fight for the progressive social change as in the 1960’s.

By: Josh Widener