Abstract

Excerpted From: Christian D. Rutherford, “Gangsta” Culture in a Policed State: The Crisis in Legal Ethics Formation Amongst Hip-Hop Youth, 18 National Black Law Journal 305 (2004-2005) (Note) (180 Footnotes) (Full Document Requested)

Legal scholars have long proffered the idea that the criminal law is effective, and justified, in part, because of its deterrent effects. The common notion is that punishment rendered by the criminal legal system, as well as the moral condemnation and stigma associated with a criminal record, will serve to counter-act the compulsion individuals have to commit anti-social behavior. This logic works when one assumes would be criminals fear capture and the subsequent consequences. What happens, however, when punishment is no longer feared and a criminal record is revered? In this alternate case, the very factors society hopes will deter criminals actually act in tandem with other compulsive forces to influence would be criminals to engage in anti-social behavior. If imprisonment is no longer viewed primarily as a substantial loss of one's freedom and liberty to be avoided, but rather a rite of passage resulting in increased social respect, can we really expect individuals to fear or respect the law?

Many young people in today's society face the conflicting messages I have just described. In fact, young people, especially those in the lower-income urban regions of our nation, have contended with the “code of the streets” for quite some time. This conflicting set of values is nothing especially new. However, the recent ascendancy of Hip-Hop music and culture to the pinnacle of pop culture should give society, especially those of us who care about young people of color, cause for concern. The music video is now a prominent component of marketing music to the public. Therefore, the messages contained in the lyrics are now experienced both visually and aurally. Because of the position from which rappers are conveying their messages, an unprecedented reinforcing and legitimizing effect is taking place in the minds of many young people. It takes only a brief exposure to the lyrics and images of today's most popular Hip-Hop songs and videos to realize that the ethical framework embodied in much of today's music runs completely counter to mainstream society's ethical code. This ethical framework which used to be relegated solely to the streets is now channeled consistently to youth through the mass media. The initial shock expressed by critics in rap music's earliest stages has morphed into an eerie silence and indifference. In the meantime, Hip-Hop has assumed a central role in molding the destinies of a whole generation of young people. As writer Kevin Powell asserts, rapper Tupac Shakur is more relevant as a dead man to poor young Black people in this country than either Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton are alive. All the while, we are utterly failing as a society to successfully socialize our young people into a society whose customs, laws and structures we expect them to either successfully navigate or face grave consequences. Professor Yusuf Nuruddin, former research fellow at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and visiting professor of Africana Studies at the University of Toledo, accurately notes that an effective “survival script” or guide of instruction for navigating poverty and racism, which existed for prior generations, is utterly non-existent for today's youth. Instead Hip-Hop functions as the modern “survival script,” preparing a generation for many pending realities, but survival is not one of them.

In 2005, the anti-social influences many Black parents fight hard to protect their young sons from are now branded and marketed, bought and broadcast. Our criminal law system has not changed, however, and remains based in mainstream ethics. There is no doubt that those who run afoul of the criminal law still very frequently go to jail. Unfortunately, the messages embodied in today's Hip-Hop music overwhelm a healthy mainstream survival ethic in the eyes of many youth and as a result, society now runs the risk of fostering a generation of youth who will inevitably, tragically and perpetually engage the criminal justice system. Impressionable young people who are heavily exposed to the negative and criminal-related images in Hip-Hop music and videos, instead of developing realistic measures of societal norms of right and wrong, develop a criminal-minded value system that praises confrontation, aggressiveness and crime and shuns humility, kindness and legality. Hip-Hop culture is the paradigm used by many young people to order their lives. Those in the academy should take notice that this phenomenon of poetry put to music is perhaps the most prominent and relevant illustration of literature operating as “law” today.

It's a culture that cops find very offensive. I tell my 16-year-old daughter I don't want her listening to it. She'll have a hard time memorizing the Pledge of Allegiance, but she'll know all these rap lyrics by heart. Frankly, it's tough for cops to have objectivity about it. It's the total antithesis of what most cops believe...To [rappers], that's a badge of honor, but then you've seen the ugly side of what they're praising, when you've seen the reality, that's what's offensive. As cops we've been there to notify families at 3 a.m. that their loved one was just murdered. These guys want to glamorize guns and the drug trade, but there's a lot of innocent people who lives are ruined, little kids getting killed in random shootings, and for them to glorify that lifestyle, it's just repulsive to most cops.

-- NYPD Lieutenant Tony Mazziotti

Despite the dangerous dynamic of Hip-Hop's influence, many whose communities are directly affected and should be most concerned with this phenomenon remain reticent. There seems to be a strong reluctance on the part of many African-Americans to negatively critique a product of African-American culture that is both popular and lucrative. Hip-hop has emerged as a sacred cow that is too valuable to criticize. Adding to this reluctance is the reality that in many artistic respects, the music has evolved phenomenally. The beats are contagious, the style is flashy and modern rhyme skills are unparalleled by anything that came out of the 80's. However, these artistic advances serve to deter a much needed dialogue about what lies at the root of the music: the message. Self-interest should no longer permit silence as to the message within the music by those who both realize Hip-Hop's untapped transformative potential and care for the Black community. We should all realize our very personal stake in working to ensure that conceit, self-interest, misogyny, homophobia, aggressiveness and recklessness do not win out over respect, love, and community.

[. . .]

A growing resentment of the images of Hip-Hop music is emerging among many in the Black community. Nonetheless, many have not given up on the hope of the transformative and positive potential that lies within the Hip-Hop medium and culture. Grassroots Hip-Hop activist Bakari Kitwana organized the first National Hip-Hop Political Convention which took place in June, 2004, in Newark, NJ. Kitwana notes, “...if we can't be self-critical, then that will be the death of hip-hop. It's just backwards. Just because we all love hip-hop, we shouldn't defend something that is indefensible.” The stated goals of the conference are absolutely necessary to achieve the reclamation of Hip-Hop culture that I am promoting herein: developing leadership and an agenda for the Hip-Hop generation and healing the schism between the Hip-Hop generation and their predecessors in the Civil Rights movement. Perhaps most promising is that the best-attended workshop during the National Hip-Hop Political Convention was “Criminal Justice 301: Gang Education and Outreach,” evincing a growing awareness of the need for violence-prevention among our young people. I write with renewed hope because it appears that there is a burgeoning segment of the Hip-Hop generation who came of age listening to Hip-Hop and now realize we have the ultimately responsibility for shaping the destiny of the generation behind us and reclaiming the power of Hip-Hop culture's transformative promise.

J.D. Columbia Law School 2005; M.P.A., Wagner School of Public Service, New York University; B.A., Brown University. The author is Editor-in-Chief of the National Black Law School.

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