I knew Snoop Dog didn't start misogyny. I knew that Tupac Shakur didn't start sexism, and God knows that Dr. Dre didn't start patriarchy. Yet they extended it in vicious form within their own communities. They made vulnerable people more vulnerable.
Interpretation
The quote critiques how influential figures can perpetuate harmful societal norms even if they didn’t create them.
Michael Eric Dyson reflects on the impact of prominent hip-hop artists like Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur, and Dr. Dre in perpetuating misogyny and patriarchy within their communities. While recognizing that these artists did not originate these societal issues, Dyson emphasizes that their influence has significantly amplified and exacerbated the vulnerabilities of marginalized groups, highlighting the dual role of artists as both products of their environments and powerful shapers of cultural norms.
In practice
In a discussion about the impact of hip-hop culture on society, this quote can highlight the responsibility of artists.
Hip hop scholarship must strive to reflect the form it interrogates, offering the same features as the best hip hop: seductive rhythms, throbbing beats, intelligent lyrics, soulful samples, and a sense of joy that is never exhausted in one sitting.
Oprah Winfrey represents the most ingenious and creative expression of black spiritual genius in the public mainstream that we've had in quite a long time, if ever.
My ambition didn't grow out of nowhere. It was planted in me by a community that nurtured me.
When Dr. King was murdered, I had no idea who he was. But as soon as I heard his words on television that night when I was 9 years old, I was dumbstruck, awestruck by their power.
I grew up in Detroit. I was a teen father. I lived on welfare for three years. I have a brother serving life in prison, though I believe he's innocent.
George Bush ran a campaign where he bragged about being an anti-intellectual, dismissing his Harvard and Yale pedigree, pretending he was an American every day, ordinary everyman, and as a result of that, played up his fumbling speech because it signified that he was a good guy. That is deeply and profoundly anti-intellectual.
There are some who, for varying reasons, would appease Red China. They are blind to history's clear lesson, for history teaches with unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier war. It points to no single instance where this end has justified that means, where appeasement has led to more than a sham peace. Like blackmail, it lays the basis for new and successively greater demands until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only other alternative.
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.
The longest way round is the shortest way home. (Quoting Alexander MacLaren, The Wearied Christ and Other Sermons)
You know the theory of cell irritability? If you take an amoeba cell and poke it a thousand times, it will change and then re-form into its original shape. And then, the thousandth time you poke this amoeba, the cell will completely collapse and become nothing. That's kind of what it's like being famous. People say hi, how are you doing, and after the thousandth time, you just get angry; you really pop.
I think all cats are wild. They only act tame if there´s a saucer of milk in it for them.
Cynicism means the conduit to the soul has a great kink in it, like a garden hose in which nothing flows in either direction.
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