Book Report on "Comparative Analysis of Two Books"

Book Report 9 pages (3075 words) Sources: 6

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Therefore, he ends up accepting and absorbing the musical aspect and sets out to search for great individuals who have the capacity to relay to younger and newer audiences hip hops' bleeding edge. He delves into the lives of elder statesmen such as Jesse Jackson and futuristic rappers of the time such as Ice Cube and Chuck D. Almost without exceptions. The leaders he thus chose, disappoint him. Ice Cube abuses LA's Korean-American community and Chuck D. never explicitly denounces the anti-Semitic insults his friends were making. And in Jesse Jackson's failed run for the presidency, he makes several anti-Semitic barbs of his own. In all of these cases, Chang is so much of a journalist, that he fails to elide their equivocations, and too much of an advocate to give justification of these equivocations. As a result, Chang's provocative and intermittently spectacular history begin to lose its focus and form (ABRAMOVICH).

Hip Hop's bid for Mainstream:

Subsequent chapters of Chang's book focus on the unwritten truce between LA gangs, on account of the LA riots, and a further 20-page history of a widely discredited hip hop magazine, The Source and a hilarious explanation of the manner in which hip-hop activists failed to appear at the Seattle protests, which could have made fine magazine articles. These two points taken together when viewed without the historical context that Chang had used in these two issues, seem arbitrary and irrelevant to the main theme of the book. This is demeaning, because Chang is first a founder of the widely acclaimed Quantum Projects music label, and second he is also a respected journalist, who is good at depicting the ways in which hip hop's movement towards mainstream acceptance undermines its own threat to the status quo. Chang does portray as much in his depiction of gangster rappers like Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre that paid their way for upwards progress on the pop charts. Chang says in his book that Snoop and Dre had, in a disquieting way become reassuring, and their presence now signified the difference between the exurbs and the ghetto, that did not need to be measured in terms of social indicators but in levels or degrees of 'cool culture' (ABRAMOVICH).

Comparative Analysis

Racism

Malcolm's changing opinions about America's racial issues reflects the transformations in his character. When at an early age, he watches both of his parents suffer and destroyed by white people, he feels despair and helplessness regarding the plight of the black community. His opinion however changes when he experiences life first hand in the black ghettos of New York and Boston that develop in him the notion that black communities should not accept any form of assistance from white people. The teachings of the Nation of Islam that Malcolm received in prison led to further changes in Malcolm's character and his perception of white people. His travels to the Arab World also contributed to further changes in his character; including his break from the Nation of Islam, which coincided with his new belief that blacks would succeed in their struggle of equal and civil rights only if they identify with other minorities around the world. His attitude at the end of the autobiography is the same as the earlier beliefs in that, in the end, he supports white involvement in the struggle for emancipation, an idea he opposed. Only after undergoing different phases in his life and looking at the race problem from different perspectives does Malcolm settle on a philosophy that he truly believes (Themes, Motifs and Symbols).

In Jeff Chang's book as well as with the issue of Jackie Robinson, the matter of race trumped the real materialist - one of authority and control. For instance, the aforementioned fires that were started in South Bronx-these fires were perceived by many as sufficient proof detailing the inability of Latinos and Blacks, the groups residing in the Bronx, to co-exist peacefully and to bring about a secure living environment for their communities. In a memo to President Nixon, Daniel Moynihan, who later became a Senator, cited the Rand corporation statistics on the fires and linked these arson attacks to the militant and extremist activities of groups such as Black Panthers. Moynihan suggested that it was time that the matter of race could gain from a duration of 'benign neglect', this led to city officials cutting funding for fire companies and begun a long process of what was neatly termed as "deindustrialization" (Southgate)

Hustling and Activism

Malcolm retains values, skills and insights from his time as a hustler that later serve him in his role as a spiritual and media personality. For instance, he uses the knowledge he had gained in Harlem to know his enemies and distrust people and to carefully craft his public images. Near the end of his life he jokes to a certain university audience that he took a bachelors degree in his life on the streets of Harlem. These skills equip him with an ability to fight for survival in America's racist society (Themes, Motifs and Symbols).

Chang depicts Bronx as a city of dead, a necropolis. Chang also gives informative statistics that even a commoner can understand; the numbers help one to comprehend the social context wherefrom new culture is built. With loss of more than 600,000 manufacturing jobs in the 1970s, the mean household income in South Bronx, dropped to almost 50% of New York city's average and to a meager 40% of the country's average. Unemployment had reached levels as high as 80% in some neighborhoods according to Chang, thus Hip Hop came about out of joblessness (Southgate).

Humanity as Basic Right:

In the autobiography of Malcolm X, the book focuses on how racism was dehumanizing blacks. The white people around him often perceived him as a lesser human, and it was his desire to right this wrong that drove his fight for civil rights and racial equality. Even though a couple of his foster parents and other people treat him nicely, he supposes they did so, only to show how unprejudiced they were. Malcolm in turn objectifies and dehumanizes white people as some sort of revenge for his own subjugation. For instance, the way he parades his white girlfriend, Sophia. However, when he meets light-skinned people who treat him differently in Mecca, he starts to acknowledge the humanity of white individuals (Themes, Motifs and Symbols).

Jeff Chang notes in his book how Marcus Garvey's teachings led to the rise of the Black Nationalist Movement for the Rastafarians. Even though Manley's Rastafarian People's National Party (PNP) had won popular support, his move to reestablish ties with Cuba brought about disinvestment from the Western world resulting in just $4 million in 1976 a point at which Jamaica was under a State of Emergency, due to the very high levels of gun violence between rival gangs with political affiliations. Kool Herc, one of the founders of hip-hop grew up in this kind of hostility and embraced the music which later became a channel through which the violence was quelled. Kool Herc initiated the practice of talking over beats to the Bronx; this practice would later become rap (Southgate).

Conclusion

The failure to bring about mutual recognition across levels of racial difference is not only because of pro-black movements, or the followers of these movements, instead it is a function of wider cultural sensibilities concerning race. Although these movements were against racially essentialist claims and fought to delink membership of these movements from racial identity, neither of these groups were able to sufficiently explain how anti-racist whites could get involved in ways that preserved the cultural and political integrity of the movement. There is no middle ground in which different versions of selfhood or whiteness and racial politics could be imagined and implemented; the lack of such a space meant that these movements were restricted in the ways in which they could surmount racial fault lines (McCorkel and Rodriquez).

Malcolm's greatest contribution was showing the value of a truly free citizenry by depicting the lengths to which people would go to secure their rights and freedoms. He stated that real power comes from the population's conviction that brings about an uncompromising action (Malcolm X Biography). Paradoxically, it seems that America's embrace of the hip hop culture would appear to have rid the culture of any meaning it had in the olden days of the Parents Music Resource Centre and Tipper Gore. Thus in the end of Chang's book, all the four elements of hip hop have fallen away entirely and politics is the only theme that keeps the hip hop generation united (ABRAMOVICH).

Bibliography

ABRAMOVICH, ALEX. 'Can't Stop Won't Stop': A Nation of Millions. 4 September 200. 9 August 2015. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/books/review/cant-stop-wont-stop-a-nation-of-millions.html?_r=0?

Malcolm X Biography. n.d. 9 August 2015. Retrieved from: http://www.biography.com/people/malcolm-x-9396195#personal-life

McCorkel, Jill and Jason Rodriquez. "Are You an African?" The Politics of Self-Construction in Status-Based Social Movements." NCBI (2011): 357. Retrieved from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3127410/?… READ MORE

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