There is currently disorder and chaos that fuels and sustains high levels of violent crime in some low-income neighborhoods. Skin color is not to blame because, humans thinking created the circumstances that lead to these dynamics (melanin did not). Poverty also is not the cause because pro-social people, regardless of race, moved out of these neighborhoods. That left specific blocks in urban cities that are riddled with anti-social behavior. It’s not just an individual, but rather it is a group, that society (for racial reckoning reasons) calls a culture. In reality, it’s more akin to a cult with a hierarchy of leaders, followers, products, values, and beliefs. Violence is the expected result.
But First, A Word from Our Sponsors
Upper-middle class citizens did not experience all the same issues as low-income, inner-city residents, specifically blacks. However, they did share some of the same interests that politicians capitalized on and made millions from over the years. Today, many black adults recite similar stories about the struggles and hardships their grandparent’s faced growing up in their hometowns. This is the only solid commonality and critical narrative because 90% of black Americans lived in the South prior to 1910. After the Great Migration and Civil Rights Movement, the stories grew greater differentiated as working-and middle-and upper-class blacks, along with whites, moved as far away from the epicenter of the inner city and disorder as they could. Discrimination in “systems” like law, academics, housing, banking, and media, united most blacks against systemic racism for the “Black Community.” Many of the politicians and celebrities who worked on the Civil Rights outcomes were successful, resulting in the creation of affirmative action and hundreds of government programs. None of these movements had a clear completed-by date, so many politicians took advantage of sustaining the movement’s funding and following. They showcased their “continued efforts and successes” to win grants, re-election, and business deals. However, the divide among black people was growing as the inner-city’s income and education levels shrank, and single parent homes and violent crime rates increased. Politicians, including black leaders, could not explain this without admitting that political movements such as the War on Poverty and the Black Nationalism lined the pockets of themselves and the street gangs, and contributed to the increased amounts of drugs, and anti-social behavior that was becoming pervasive in the inner-city. These “black leaders” were often self-promoting and sometime corrupt.
The Message
“You’ll grow in the ghetto, living second rate. And your eyes will sing a song of deep hate” - Melle Mel, The Message, 1982
In my article, Why Violence Is So Prevalent in Black Neighborhoods, I discussed how militant groups directly transitioned into gangs. For example, on the West Coast, the Black Panthers transitioned into the Crips, and on the East Coast, the Nation of Islam (NOI) into the Black Mafia. In fact, it was from Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, that I first heard the phrase “Blacks can’t be racist,” and the contemporary use of “white supremacy.” The Five Percent Nation of Gods and Earths, or Five Percenters, was started by a former member of the NOI in 1964. The FBI classified them as an anti-white gang. In the 80s, The Five Percenters and NOI created newsletters, cassette tapes, and rap songs to spread their message. The primary messages that the Five Percenters spread through their rap was that black people are the original humans; black men are Gods/Kings; black women are the Earth/Queens; white people are the devil and black people are the ruler of the planet and thus themselves. If a black person understood this, then they had “knowledge of self” and were “woke.” Other slang terms and phrases they used were “word is bond,” “word to mother,” “dropping science,” “representing,” and “third eye open”. Brand Nubian, a Five Percent rap group had a popular song titled “Wake Up” in 1990. By 1999, Erykah Badu, also a Five Percenter, encouraged black people to “stay woke.”
In the 80s and early 90s, rap music was being commercialized to the delight of drug rings, politicians, and stockholders alike. Most rap songs discussed drug dealing, anti-social behavior, and socio-political issues. On the East Coast, some famous rap Five Percenters included Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, LL Cool J, Queen Latifah, and Jay-Z. P. Diddy founded Bad Boy Records with money from the Black Mafia, who had several drug rings and illegal operations in Philadelphia. On the West Coast, NWA, Snoop Dog, and Tupac were representing the Crips. Suge Knight founded Death Row Records with blood money from the Crips. NWA rapped about police brutality in 1988 prior to the televised beating of Rodney King in 1991. Tupac, whose parents were Black Panthers and was himself a member of the Young Communist League, famously rapped, “Delores Tucker, you’re a motherfucker” after the Pennsylvania Secretary of State famously fought against the NAACP’s decision to nominate Tupac for its Image Award. The Image Awards were broadcast on the ever growing and lucrative, Black Entertainment Television channel. Tucker, who was from Philadelphia rejected the acceptance of rap music due to its negative portrayal of women and impact on the family. She even bought stocks in Sony Music so she could vote against rap in the company’s shareholders meetings.
Rap music reflected the hierarchy in the hood: social rights, anti-social behavior, drug rings, organized crime, and black militant movements. The record labels were funded by drug rings and the rappers “represented” their street and cities like griots reciting their rise through the drug ring ranks. Those who didn’t sell drugs rapped about their survival and rise in the anti-social ecosystem or what they call “the come up”. Everyone else could only relate to, understand, emulate or “respect the culture”. The product was not just a song but an image of inner-city life and the ways, style, beliefs, and language of hierarchies in the hood. All of it easily packaged and sold to an ignorant mainstream society.
In my next articles, we’ll explore the Anti-Social Social Class.
As For Me
In 1989, when I was around 12 years old, I lived with my uncle whose best friend Cornelius converted to Islam. He gave me a Quran and supplied me with numerous NOI cassette tapes. At the time, I was into the Conscious Rap genre because it emphasized learning, pride, and peace (which I rarely felt I had enough of). One could say I was “woke” but I was also “broke.” And I was surrounded by a community of anti-social people. Two years later, my boyfriend Tony was a drug dealer and he, and his partner Primo were enforcers. The duo was ruthless and aspiring rappers. Together, they owned “The Hollywood Heights Hustlers”. Primo’s half-brother, Qasim, was a big willie. They were all from Queens, NY. There, the brothers had been in a conflict that left their mother dead. She was shot in front of them while holding their infant sister. The men who killed their mother were caught. However soon after, the infant’s father and witness, was also killed. Many decades later I learned that the brothers, the killers, and their connections were part of Seven Crown/Black Rain which was gaining business as the Supreme Team was breaking apart. These three groups and their leaders originated out of the NOI.
And to think most whites don't know who you are talking about. In spite of that billion dollar rap music industry they constantly look at me with confused looks every time I tried to describe them. Some have told me only the mentally ill are like that. Someone said you're just talking about Street gangs. Almost everyone else says why are you attacking black people you racist? I mention them because they kill over 5,000 black people every single year. It's a culture not a race. Love demands that we criticize everyone who murders a black person. Anyone who teaches children to kill people who are probably black needs to be exposed as the murderers that they are.
Awesome article!