Journal article
Hip Hop and the New Jim Crow: Rap Music' s Insight on Mass Incarceration Recommended Citation
University of Maryland law journal of race, religion, gender, and class, Vol.15, p209
2015
Abstract
But, like other great scholarly works, THE NEW JIM CROW stands on the shoulders of a select group of predecessors: many of whom have laid the ground work for empirically critiquing prisons, policing, and the American drug war. I wish to add to that list of predecessors the luminaries of Hip Hop rap music because unlike the scholars who have an academic platform for their critique, this group of scholars rarely gets recognized for their contribution to our contemporary debates. Although Alexander devotes approximately three pages to integrating Hip Hop rap music into her analysis, she gives the genre as a whole short shrift when it comes to recognizing their contribution. She limits her critique to either lambasting Hip Hop rap music, particularly “gangsta rap,” as a minstrel performance of the worst stereotypes associated with black people or only mentions one artist when it is easiest to proffer their identity in a good light.
Thus, this essay is presented as an addendum to the arguments in THE NEW JIM CROW through the lens of those most affected by Alexander’s analysis: young Black men. My goal is to merge rap music and THE NEW JIM CROW, to show how they are making the same claims, albeit using a different voice; and how the combination of those voices should be a centerpiece of our discussion about approaches to reversing mass incarceration.
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Details
- Title
- Hip Hop and the New Jim Crow: Rap Music' s Insight on Mass Incarceration Recommended Citation
- Creators
- Donald F Tibbs - Drexel University, Thomas R. Kline School of Law
- Publication Details
- University of Maryland law journal of race, religion, gender, and class, Vol.15, p209
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Thomas R. Kline School of Law
- Identifiers
- 991021902912404721