|
[ti:] |
|
[ar:] |
|
[al:] |
| [00:12.68] |
To think about the origins of Hip-Hop |
| [00:15.08] |
in this culture and also about Homeland Security is to see that there are, |
| [00:19.41] |
at the very least, two worlds in America: |
| [00:22.66] |
one of the well-to-do and another of the struggling. |
| [00:26.00] |
For if ever there was the absence of Homeland Security, |
| [00:29.03] |
it is one seen in the gritty roots of Hip-Hop. |
| [00:31.35] |
For the music arises from a generation that feels, with some justice, |
| [00:36.18] |
that they have been betrayed by those who came before them, |
| [00:39.48] |
that they are at best tolerated in schools, feared on the streets, |
| [00:43.97] |
and almost inevitably destined for the hell holes of prison. |
| [00:47.31] |
They grew up hungry, hated, and unloved, |
| [00:50.37] |
and this is the psychic fuel that generates the anger |
| [00:53.80] |
that seems endemic in much of the music and poetry. |
| [00:57.07] |
One senses very little hope above the personal goals of wealth |
| [01:01.31] |
to climb above the pit of poverty. |
| [01:03.90] |
In the broader society, the opposite is true, |
| [01:06.74] |
for here, more than any other place on earth, |
| [01:09.99] |
wealth is so wide spread and so bountiful |
| [01:12.92] |
that what passes for the middle class in America |
| [01:15.97] |
could pass for the upper class in most of the rest of the world. |
| [01:19.82] |
They're very opulence and relative wealth makes them insecure and homeland security |
| [01:25.26] |
is a governmental phrase that is as oxymoronic as crazy as saying military intelligence, |
| [01:31.89] |
or the U.S Department of Justice. They're just words, |
| [01:35.24] |
they have very little relationship to reality. |
| [01:38.83] |
Now do you feel safer now? Do you think you will anytime soon? |
| [01:43.41] |
Do you think duct tape and Kleenex and color codes |
| [01:47.77] |
will make you safer? From Death Row this is Mumia Abu-Jamal |