Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhythms

My blog is late--it's supposed to be written in on Wednesday, but I didn't have a chance to until today. I continued my survey for the LawHelp website this week as well as other assignments concerning my summer project.

Alas, my blog this week will be rather short and actually concerns the DVD we watched today called Hip Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhythms. I never saw the film until today, but there were several discussions surrounding the issues pre-empted by the film at Cornell this past year. I never attended any of discussions. Why? Because I'm frankly, sick and tired of talking about the same issues over and over and over again. If there's one thing Black people like to do, it's to talk. I love my people, and I thought the film was thought-provoking. As a matter of fact, I would show that film to people as an opportunity to expose them to issues they might believe do not exist. But, it has come to a point where these discussions have forced me to re-affirm my own beliefs, as opposed to learning and changing how I feel about hip hop and media and it's connection with Blacks in the United States. With that said, while informative, the film was entertaining at most. But I really can't stand talking about it anymore. I want to see action. I'm tired of reflecting, I'm tired of interning, I'm tired of watching, I'm tired of noticing, I'm tired of remarking, I'm tired of asking questions, I'm tired of learning, I'm especially tired of talking---in the words of Fannie Lou Hamer, one of the greatest civil rights activists ever (in my opinion), "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired."

Don't talk about it, be about it.