This essay is centered on the idea that pop culture can be a vehicle for social change. He will be discussing this specifically the ongoing struggles surrounding the systemic racism of African Americans.
There are two sources I'll be referencing: the first is a video from the 2018 Teen Poetry Slam competition called ‘Letter to your Flag’. The second is a 2018 article titled ‘Pop Culture Influences Society’ by Charles Morin. You might be familiar with these. If not, you may like to search for them online to get a better understanding.
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Popular culture can certainly be useful in challenging stereotypes and pointing out social injustices. But it can also serve as a means of reinforcing the ‘status quo,’ distorting and shaping reality and thereby dictating the way we think, feel, and view the world around us. In news, drama, and gaming, African Americans are typically depicted as violent, criminal, less intelligent, and less powerful. For example, representations of African Americans in video games such as Grand Theft Auto can serve to reinforce stereotypes of black men as gangsters, drug dealers, and athletes. In 2002, a board game was released in the US called Ghettopoly, a parody of the famous best-seller Monopoly and set in a ghetto. It allows players to buy stolen properties and build crack houses. Properties include liquor stores and a pawn shop. Game pieces include a marijuana leaf, a machine gun, and a basketball. So...there are both benefits and dangers of pop culture. In his article, Charles Morin writes that “pop culture informs how people make sense of the world. It reveals what society believes about itself, but it can also be used as an instrument for effecting social change.”
The power of pop culture lies in the way that it can be used as a platform to create awareness of the injustices and racism perpetrated on black Americans. Hip-hop artists including Public Enemy, NWA, and Kanye West have long advocated for social change. Rapper and Public Enemy member Chuck D described hip-hop as 'the black CNN'' decades ago. He was saying that hip-hop music allows listeners a way of understanding what young black Americans are thinking and feeling. At the 2018 Teen Poetry Slam, Ronald Vinson used the well-known words of The Pledge of Allegiance to highlight the oppression of his people. He declared: I pledge allegiance to your Flag of the United States of America, and to your Republic, to which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for who? Vinson refers to your Flag of the United States of America’ and ‘your Republic.’ The use of the word ‘your’ expresses the idea that he feels like an outsider and does not see himself and other black people as standing alongside the people of America. Instead of ending ‘with liberty and justice for all,’ he questions ‘with liberty and justice for who?’ - reinforcing his argument that black people are not held up as equal to the rest of the country.
Pop culture can be used to challenge the idea that the fight against racism has been won. A 2017 study by the Public Religion Research Institute showed that 87% of black Americans say black people face a lot of discrimination today, but only 49% of white Americans feel the same. About ‘that same racism that you love to say no longer exists,’ Vinson challenges this idea and describes the experiences of black people in America every day in his line: ‘racism is the reason that three women clutched their purses as I walked through the entrance of this very building.’ In his poem, he further declares that ‘the system I was born into was built to work against me.’ We hear his frustration at the system that does not provide the same opportunities for all. Through popular music, Tupac Shakur sought to protest and defy ongoing oppression against blacks. In his 1992 song 'Changes,” Tupac sang the line: 'I see no changes, All I see is racist faces'’ which is a reminder that the cycle of oppression persists.
A more recent example of racism in 2017 was after NBA basketballer LeBron James’ house was vandalized with racist graffiti. His comment on the event was: “No matter how much money you have, no matter how famous you are, no matter how many people admire you, you know being black in America is tough. We got a long way to go for us as a society and us as African Americans until we feel equal in America.’’ Also in recent years, successful protests have been organized to fight against these distorted images that persist in contemporary modern culture. The Black Lives Matter campaign, started in 2013, in protest against police killings of black people, is best known by its hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media. To effect lasting and meaningful change, the challenge is for individuals to band together to challenge behaviors through protest, film, song, poetry, and other art forms. As Charles Morin writes: “Pop culture is a way of projecting ourselves into the future and imagining change.” In this way, pop culture can help us question widely held views that we accept over time in society rather than hold up to scrutiny.
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