Hip-Hop (In Cultural Evolution)

I was reflecting on my musical influences and just life in general as usual. I've been working on this "ode to Hip-Hop." In also reflecting on my past notes, I decided to break this into two pieces because it was getting kinda long. Please comment and tell me what you think...here goes:

Part I (Reminiscence)

Hip Hop Lives(I Come Back) by KRS-ONE

Hip means to know
It's a form of intelligence
To be hip is to be up-date and relevant
Hop is a form of movement
You can't just observe a hop
You got to hop up and do it
Hip and Hop is more than music
Hip is the knowledge
Hop is the movement
Hip and Hop is intelligent movement
All relevant movement
We selling the music
So write this down on your black books and journals
Hip Hop culture is eternal
Run and tell all your friends
An ancient civilization has bee born again
It's a fact

I come back
Every year I'm the Strongest
Krs-one, Marley Marl
Yup we last the longest
Let's go
I come back
Cause I'm not in the physical
I create myself man I live in the spiritual
I come back through the cycles of life
If you been here once you gone be here twice
So I tell you
I come back
Cause you must learn too
Hip Hop culture is eternal

Hip Hop (Shan!)

Her Infinite Power
Helping Oppressed People
We are unique and unequaled

I was reading an article on yahoo.com the other day about how hip hop has gone soft. The examples he listed were interesting. As someone who stays on the periphery of new music, I hadn’t heard most of these songs. However, after some reflection, I had to concur with his assessment there is definitely a “for the ladies’” feel to most of the music out today. As a late 80’s babies, I have only the vaguest of memories of the nascence of hip hop but what I do remember is that the early 90’s was a time in which the airwaves were taken over by “gangsta rap.” The most potent evidence of the exploding commercial value of “gangsta rap” is that of MC Hammer’s Star Warsian ("Luke, Come to the Dark Side") conversion from genie pants and a kid friendly attitude to the ultra-adult, baggy jeans and jersey approach he used while trying to relate to the “urban” audience by objectifying women with his ill-fated track, “Pumps and a Bump,” and his signing to the infamous and notorious Death Row Records. So even the most goodie of goodie two-shoes, MC Hammer who went from his own family-friendly cartoon show to this pseudo-“gangstaism,” was susceptible to the trap of fast money and trends. The fact that he was constantly in debt might also have spurred this change of heart as well.

As hip-hop pushed towards the new millennium(roughly '94-'98), we found ourselves in what I like to call the “Shiny Suit Era.” This period was all about immediate flash and ostentation. My favorite example of this is the Bad Boy label. My favorite being "Feels So Good" by Mase ft. Puff Daddy. If Diddy and Mase would’ve put on one more of those ridiculous outfits, I don’t know what I would’ve done. The bigger, the brighter, the more glitzy or glamorous, the better. But that what was the style of the time, it was pervasive throughout public fashion as well, an obsession with bright, loud and obnoxious colors in the largest sizes possible. That’s also the way that the music videos were shot as well. I remember the video for Missy Elliot’s debut song, “The Rain(Supa Dupa Fly).” The raw color of that video was enough to blind you. It was all bright and fast moving. Maybe this was also indicative of the perceived economic future of the time. (Ohh, the Clinton years.) And further on that color note, does anyone else remember the intro to the show, Smart Guy, shiny, right? Lol

The latter half of the Shiny Suit Era gave way to “Bling Bling” created by the Cash Money Millionaires(roughly '98-'03). The Bling Bling Era, in my opinion was really the point at which Hip Hop over-commercialized itself and distanced itself a great deal from its socio-politically revolutionary roots. Every song on the radio was talking about “blinging” or “shining” or some other non-creative, generic rap about egotistical materialism. I grew up lower-middle class, so that bling was truly beyond my reach. I just remember in junior high how everyone was obsessed with having some sort of shine and chains were the thing. Suddenly, it became not acceptable but necessary for a man to accessorize his outfit with jewelry. This only intensified the general teasing and immaturity of adolescence and served as a visual demarcation between the haves and have nots; however, this materialism drove a lot of haves to become hads and the have nots to become the have even lesses. The free money party of the Clinton era was drying up. I remember a distinct uptick in the number of evictions and the number of people once again living beyond their means. (But for some I suppose one eviction isn’t enough, see housing crisis 08). Anyway, I hit a tangent. “Bling” became so pervasive throughout the global culture Merriam-Webster added it to the dictionary; it grew beyond racial boundaries and found itself falling out of the mouths of Caucasian Americans throughout the land, even that of former presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney. So, as is the typical quality of African-Americans, whenever something that starts homegrown becomes transplanted into the national consciousness, it’s time to switch the style up. Andre 3000 says in the song, Hollywood Divorce, “Hollywood divorce. All the fresh styles always start off as a good little hood thing, look at blues, rock, jazz, rap. Not even talkin about music, everything else too. By the time it reach Hollywood it's over; but it's cool. We just keep it goin and make new shit.”

Right now though, it feels like hip hop is going through a phase I like to term the “Light (Low and Tight) Era.(roughly '05-current)” I think that’s best exhibited by today’s fashion. Yeah, the jeans still sag; but, now they’re skinny now. The shirts are still long but they are tucked tight and made in a size only known as “smedium.” For a man of my size, being “trendy” and “fashionable” nowadays is a scary proposition. So I wear what’s comfortable, as I would suggest for anyone; but, I don’t see the comfort in skinny jeans for men. Maybe I’m crazy. Moving back to the article I cited earlier from yahoo, in a blog by Billy Johnson, Jr. posted on Dec 23, 2008, he discussed how “basically, every rap artist who has released a song this year has borrowed LL Cool J's "I Need Love" hip-hop ballad formula to find their way on the charts,” and how even though,” The hip-hop ballad has been the hip-hop artist's no-brainer way to secure radio play for several years... things have recently intensified.” Some of the songs he cites from ’08 are “Love Lockdown” by Kanye West, “Sensual Seduction” by Snoop Dogg, “Whatever You Like” by T.I., “Put It On Ya” by Plies ft. Chris J, “Kiss Me Through the Phone” by Soulja Boy Tell’em ft. Sammie, “Camera Phone” by The Game ft. Ne-Yo, and “One and Only” by Nelly.

In listening to these songs and examining the top Billboard songs throughout the year, stuff like “Miss Independent”, “Green Light” and “Single Ladies”, lead me to believe that 2008 in the Hip-Hop/R&B community was really the year of the ladies, especially the rise of Jazmine Sullivan. Hip-Hop has definitely let its R&B side show in early 2009 continuing the 2008 push. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. I hope it’s a trend that leads to an upgrading of the citizenship status of women in Hip Hop culture. It seems like a complete 180, an about face from the early 90’s with groups like the Two Live Crew and pretty much all of hip-hop dogging women. It seems like hip-hop is constantly in this flux between its R&B side and its Rap side. Maybe this is an acknowledgement of the growing social influence of women or just an occasional spike on the meter.

One of the questions I am most frequently asked is, “What kind of music do you listen to?” My ear is extremely eclectic and diverse, we can move from Jazz to Opera to Gospel to Hip-Hop to Classic Soul to Classical to Blues to Rock to Reggae to Alternative to Pop to Funk to Go-Go to World to Bluegrass to Country and then back again. Right now, I’m listening to Reggaeton as I’m writing this. I think this is the first Reggaeton song I’ve listened to that hasn’t sucked to me. Maybe that’ll be the next thing I incorporate in my regular rotation.

But of all those differing styles, the one I love the most is definitely Hip-Hop because to me it is the most intriguing. Despite how derivative it can be at times, Hip-Hop has to be the most diverse, innovative, and linguistically challenging form of music out there. The art of sampling allows it to take the best of other forms and transform it to something uniquely Hip-Hop. Beyond that, linguistically, the phrasing, diction, and lexicon of Hip-Hop is constantly growing and evolving. Hip-Hop is also a self-edifying and updating work of art mainly because it depends on several different literary devices to get its point across, most notably:

• hyperbole- obvious, intentional exaggeration (e.g."Some say that I'm nasty. Plus, hookaz are mad because they can't outlast me. Girl, you ain't too small, cause I turn your crystal to one size fits all "- Kool G.Rap "Talk Like Sex"



• metaphor- A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison (e.g. "I am the American dream, the rape of Africa, the undying machine, the overpriced medicine, the murderous regime, the tough guy's front,
  and the one behind the scenes"- Lupe Fiasco "Put You On Game")

• allusion- an indirect or casual reference to something not explicitly stated (e.g. "Me and the boy AI got more in common than just ballin and rhymin get it, more in Carmen . I came in your belly backseat, skeeted in your jeep. Left condoms on your baby seat"- Jay-Z "Superugly" [in which he alludes to the fact that both he and basketball player Allen Iverson had affairs with rapper Nas' first wife, Carmen Bryan. This is also a pun.])



• simile- a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared, featuring the use of the words "like" or "as" (e.g."I'm standing on the roof of my building. I'm feeling the whirlwind of beef. I inhale it, just like an acrobat ready to hurl myself through the hoops of fire, sippin 80 proof, bulletproof under my attire." - Nas "Black Republicans" )

Also, one of the most unique things about Hip-Hop is the art of the sample. Sampling, for those who aren't familiar, is the usage of other previously recorded works as the beat or background music for new work. The art of the sample is what helps to keep the history of Hip-Hop and its predecessors alive. One of the most sampled musicians in Hip-Hop is definitely Isaac Hayes. Hayes' remake of the Burt Bacharach's classic, "The Look of Love," has been sampled by Ashanti (Rain on Me), Snoop Dogg (G'z Up,Ho's Down), and Jay-Z (Can I Live). Also, his remake of Walk On By has been sampled most notably by 2Pac (Me Against the World), the Wu Tang Clan (I Can't Go to Sleep), and Biggie Smalls(Warning). Hip-Hop transmits this music that was recorded decades prior to its reconstituted Hip-Hop forms to a new generation. I think that anyone who has a passion for Hip-Hop has to have a profound appreciation for other genres because of the interplay. When Kanye West sampled Daft Punk in Stronger, most people scratched their heads because they had/have no clue who Daft Punk is. Hip-Hop leaves a lot of lessons unlearned because it seems like this generation, in general, just consumes the product without a hunger to learn more about it. Anyone can tell you that a song features a sample but the question is do they know or even want to know anything about the original.

Hip-Hop is literally a catalog for pop culture references and historical documentation. For example, I’m a huge Biggie Smalls/Notorious B.I.G. fan. I noticed how in a good deal of his songs he often referred to himself as the Black Frank White. In my head I always wondered, “Who is this Frank White that Biggie is continually referencing?” I did a little research and found out that Frank White was a fictional drug lord, portrayed by Christopher Walken, in the movie, King of New York, released in 1990. Also, the name Biggie Smalls itself is taken from the role of actor Calvin Lockhart in the 1975 movie Let’s Do It Again, which featured a bevy of prominent Black actors and actresses of the time. Hip-Hop is built from esoteric references (e.g. Fabolous line- "Even with chicks beggin me for dick regularly. A nigga known for gettin rid of weight like Dick Gregory"; Jay-Z- "So tall and lanky, my suit it should thank me. I make it look good to be this hood Meyer Lansky. Mixed with Lucky Lefty, gangsta effortlessly. Papa was a rollin' stone it's in my ancestry.")

Also noteworthy is the proliferation of music made about and/or featuring the name Barack Obama in the Hip-Hop community. In an article in the Washington Post awhile back, there was a featured story I believe in the Style section that detailed the growing usage of Obama in lyricism. In my mind I go back to Young Jeezy’s intro to the “Love Your Girl” Remix with The Dream. The very first words out of his mouth are, “Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama.” The obvious question is “Why?” I still don’t know the answer but he felt it important enough to “big him up” in a song that was completely unrelated to anything political.

In a recent interview, rapper Common stated that "I really do believe we, as hip-hop artists, pick up what's going on in the world. I think hip-hop artists will have no choice but to talk about different things and more positive things. Try to bring a brighter side to that because, even before Barack, I think people had been tired of hearing the same thing." Hip-Hop is its own form of social commentary and political punditry. He collects data and analyzes events. I like to use the example of Biggie’s Juicy lyrics “Now I'm in the limelight 'cause I rhyme tight. Time to get paid, blow up like the World Trade.” This small nugget evokes memories of the collective conscious from the first World Trade Center bombing in New York and simultaneously points out the commercialization of hip-hop and its transformative ability to take situations of abject poverty and flip them into commercial capital.

Hip-Hop lyrically is Urban America's journal. It is our public discourse with the world which exhibits our particular brand of ingenue and intelligence. Hip-Hop has transformed the similes of Shakespeare, "Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus (from Julius Caesar)" expressing sentiments of dismay at the growing power of Caesar to "tell you dudes what I do to protect this, shoot at you actors like movie directors(PSA)" by Jay-Z which offers the inverse, almost the Caesarean point of view if he were truly the tyrant that Brutus saw him becoming. Personally, I just wonder what it takes to get the world to recognize the artistry of Hip-Hop for the intrinsic greatness. Hip-Hop is America; Hip-Hop is the world.

I'm not saying all of this to over-intellectualize Hip-Hop. However, there is definitely an intellectual element that is often overlooked, even by the rappers themselves. You may ask yourself in reading this as I did in writing it, "Do these dudes even do this stuff on purpose or is it just par for the course?" My answer is this: I believe that all the puns, allusions, metaphors, similes, hyperbola are definitely intentional. While the technical jargon of English used to describe these phenomena may escape the cognitive awareness of these men and women, they are no less adept in using it, which in many ways makes it all the more interesting. Hip-Hop is worth the intellectual investigation, if only out of sheer curiosity. Too many of us just accept the lyrics that we hear because "the beat is tight" without really analyzing the lyrics.

Most of Hip-Hop is birthed out of this Shakespearean sentiment from his play, As You Like It

Duke Senior:
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

You've Got the Right...Maybe?

Rights

Relationships to me are hilarious. It's not really the actual relationship that's funny but the delicate dance that goes into making it happen and sustaining it. What happens when your dance partner steps on your toes or takes a crazy solo in the middle of the dance, or decides to toss you in the air and flip you around. How far is too far? How much trust do you have in your partner to be a good partner and someone that you can last the entire song with? Across the boundaries of sexual preference, gay/lesbian to straight, it seems like everyone, and i do mean everyone, wants to be loved, wholly and healthily.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson puts forth life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as inalienable rights of humanity. Now despite the vicissitudes of Jefferson's proposition and the realities of his life, he makes a good point. We often get bogged down in the realities of what he, and other theorists, did and the assumption of their intent that we miss the importance of the theory in and of itself. If in humanity, we are all entitled to pursue happiness as we define it, why are so many people concerned about dictating the happiness of other groups? Does the happiness of one have to come at the expense of another? I don't think so. All of this leads me to something that I find a little disconcerting...homophobia and the the passage of Proposition 8 in California.

Often there is this raging debate about the similarities and differences between the Civil Rights fights of the Gay community and the Black community. I think it does a great disservice to both groups to compare pain. It seems very immature to me. Neither group will ever be able to understand the complexities of the discrimination that the other has felt...unless you happen to be both Black and gay/lesbian and that seems to suck because in a large way, from my research, you're a man or woman without a country. The pervasive homophobia in America, most noticeably in minority culture, seeks to muzzle the "liberty" that we all purport ourselves to be about. Be it rap lyrics that uses the homosexual lifestyle as the ultimate slur, the awkward silence around the table when a same sex partner is brought to a family dinner, the uncomfortable glances across the locker room as everyone is changing and thinks someone's going to spread "the gay," it's unavoidable. We are not as free as we say we are.

In the quest to create the ideal equality of mankind, we have allowed the definition of mankind to be co opted by the greedy and disingenuous. This subversion of mankind allows room for inequality, subordination, and the disenfranchisement of man. When the rules of humanity only apply to select humans, we have entered what Nietzsche would term a slave-master paradigm. We have moved away from what appears to the universal doctrine of the equality of man and their inviolable right to be joint heirs in what Immanuel Kant called "the Kingdom of Ends." But as with the majority of philosophies, the perceived inclusion is always exclusive. It appears as though "gays" have always been the other. Even in ancient Greece, where homosexuality was rampant and the beauty of the male body was admired, it was not a unanimously accepted sentiment throughout the Greek world to say the least.

Most often in life, as I was trying to explain to a friend, the fear we feel others is genuinely a fear of self. That's the reason that I believe that laws exist because everyone is afraid of his or herself. I feel that laws exist because each individual can imagine a scenario in which they would commit a crime and that if they can do so reasonably, what's going to stop someone who is unreasonable from committing a crime against them? Nothing. I think with homophobia, maybe its a stretch, that people are afraid of that part of themselves which is deemed as irregular, so instead of dealing with that fear of self, they project that unto others. Some people say, " I hate that gay shit cuz it's gross." But, there are plenty of things that are gross that I don't hate, like eating food off the floor or people who don't wash their hands once they leave the bathroom. But I don't hate them. I don't wish death on them. I wouldn't bash them or seek to destroy them as individuals. I just would leave them the hell alone.

I couldn't care less about two women or two men getting married. What does it have to do with my life? Not much. Does my happiness end because theirs begins? No, well, not unless I'm extremely immature. We constantly talk about how joyous and wonderful true love is. If two people are truly in love, does gender matter? It seems rather envious and hypocritical to me. I was listening to the Russ Parr morning show a week or so ago and they were discussing gay/lesbian marriage. One of the callers stated that he didn't object to gay/lesbian marriage in the sense of two gay/lesbian people coming together in a union but he objected to the term marriage and went on to ask essentially, why would gay/lesbian people want to be a part of a religiously-defined tradition that doesn't involve them? I said to myself, "Wow, that's quite a question." But the question itself assumes that gay/lesbian people are automatically outside of the Christian community. If the basis of their exclusion is their "life of sin," I think Jesus said it best in saying, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Christianity is necessitated by sin. When it comes to homosexuality and religion though, I'm very confused. If homosexuality is in itself an explicit sin, how can one atone for it or be absolved of it, if one continues to do what one feels is natural? How can you forgive your own nature? If sins are to be forgiven at least. In that sense,Conservative Christians are right, homosexuals are doomed to hell and are really outside of the Christian community.

Religion

I find myself asking, are those who live homosexual lives and even those who support those who live homosexual lives complicit in the bastardization of Christianity? Have we essentially pooped on the bloody corpse of the Christ right after his crucifixion? I guess that really depends on how you interpret the Christian myth. It kind of reminds me of what the elders in the church always say, "You got to know God for yourself." And that's true; but, that also limits the universality of God. How can he be everywhere, in everything, and do anything, if his relationship with you is not the relationship he has with others who claim the same faith? God is a personal, individual experience. So how can we collectively evaluate the individual? If our understandings of God, vastly differ, who's to say which perspective is the correct one? Most Christians will tell you the bible is. That in and of itself is a troubling proposition. A document transmitted to man by God that is in no way altered, adulterated or misinterpreted? Hmmm...

And if you take the stance, "that yes, some of it may be corrupted but the essence remains true," how much lying does it take to make the whole thing a lie? It requires the kind of "leap to faith" that Søren Kierkegaard discusses in his writing. He posits that one's relationship with God is internally and can only be discovered through intense self-reflection and only expressed through devotion. He uses the story of Abraham's sacrifice to illustrate that point. True love can only be shown through the act of sacrifice to illustrate one's devotion. No one can experience what you are experiencing the way you are experiencing it. True love, even the love of God, is irrational and inexpressible through words, that's why faith is necessary. It's easy to criticize someone's faith. It's illogical. But the passion of real faith is unbreakable. (An interesting aside here is Obama, his election proved that the faith America had in him was strong than the faith they had in White supremacy). Faith is a continual active exercise with permeates all areas of life.

I often question my own faith. Wondering why if God is who he says he is, then why does the world look, act, and perform the way it does. If he is the manifestation of PURE GOODNESS, why is darkness so pervasive? Why are there so many different forms of God? If there is one God, presumably He's the one God of all people, and his law equally applies to everyone, and those in faith have to assume that while it may not in this life it will in the afterlife when he corrects all of man's wickedness. Even though I grew up in the church, I don't always feel God the way that I feel like I should. The Christian life is a life of abstention, a life of denial, and I find myself asking sometimes, why deny myself if there may or may not be a God and there may or may not be an afterlife? If one is to be a good person, a truly good person, it has to be of one's character to be that, not some facade to keep you of Hell.

People get up and give these grand testimonies about how God delivered them from all sorts of nonsense, craziness, and distress. And I look at my life and realize, "I don't have that kind of story. Am I somehow incomplete?" Was I supposed to get hooked on drugs? Even though my life isn't awesome, it's definitely not awful. And often when people get up and talk about God, they talk about how they "could've been crazy, could've been homeless, could've been poor, could've been dead." But you also, "could've been rich, could've been a genius, could've been wiser, could've been a superhero."

Often people talk about how "you need to be grateful because there is someone less fortunate than you."What a terrible reason to be grateful. You are essentially reveling in the fact that you're "not that guy." What if you are "that guy"? Who do you rejoice in not being? The guy who has too much? I don't think so.That's part of what makes unity so hard. Often the unity that is extolled is the unity of hatred, the unity of division, not the unity of love. Like what happened in the Iranian Revolution and kind of like what happened in the Iraq War, it's like, "Woohoo, we all banded together to stop that guy...but wait a minute, now what? Who's gonna lead now?" And that's when you get the kind of division that comes from a unity of hate. In a lot of ways, that's what has retarded the Christian faith (see slavery, Jim Crow, and the Crusades).

Relationships

A couple of my friends had been haranguing me to watch the two new Beyonce videos. I'm not a big fan of hers; but, I respect her as an artist and a creative being. Anyway, I watched both Single Ladies and If I Were A Boy. As far as Single Ladies goes, I think it's a pretty cool video. Some of the moves reminded me of Tina Turner back in the day. But when I saw If I were a Boy, it really made me stand up and take notice and really watch it intently. I like the video and it presented a worn concept in a very fresh and tangible way. However, the premise that the video, song really, is based on troubles me deeply. In this video, Beyonce takes on the stereotypically male role, the masculine role, if you will, and leaves the male to take on the feminine role.

The flirtatious and promiscuous nature that Beyonce put forward while taking on the masculine role supports the notion that men, well masculine characters in relationships, are naturally both flirtatious and promiscuous. Simultaneously, the video also makes femininity tantamount to fidelity and virtue via the apparently sympathetic nature with which the feminine character is treated. This notion troubles me, as a masculine man who has never EVER cheated. Am I supposed to be out "bussin down" random chicks? Do I need to go get me a "shawty", a "boo", a "buss it baby" to just "break off" with no attachment? Is this is a birthright of manhood? Have I missed the boat? Am I less of a man for keeping my penis in my pants?

The fidelity and "emotionality" that the man put forward while taking on the feminine role supports the notion that women, well feminine characters in relationships, are doggedly faithful to their mates even when their mates have apparently disrespected them. C'mon B. I'm not the most experienced man with women but I believe that they are intelligent enough to leave when they've been disrespected. We always talk about how the "sistas don't take no mess (perfunctory neck roll, finger snap, and eye roll included)." So why is it that when they have a good reason to leave, they won't leave? This idea that it can't be the woman's fault or the feminine character's fault that the relationship ends is, to me a dangerous proposition and counter-revolutionary for the rights of women.

In stating all this, I must directly say that I no so much support the notion of men naturally being masculine and women naturally being feminine; but more so that, one sex shouldn't allow themselves to be limited be the titles of masculinity or femininity as being transfixed by sex but allow themselves to embrace the meshing of the two traits. It's just that when one has to transcend one's gender to do what one wants and desires to do that individual has given far too much credence to the differences of gender stereotypes and their roles in society.

When discussing relationships and the courting process, I think it's interesting to note how much we give into our gender biases. Things like who's paying, who asked who out, who pursues who, and who makes the plans dominate the real interest interest each person should have in genuinely getting to know the other. I find that very disturbing. Women want to step out of the kitchen but still have car doors opened for them obligatorily. And when it comes to pursuit, whether you are masculine or feminine, you want to be found attractive; you want someone to show interest in you.

On Seinfeld, the character, George Costanza, starts dating his friend Elaine's named Paula. After George and Paula's first date, George starts grilling Elaine for information. Elaine says, "She really likes you...she's not into looks." And of course, the ending sentence sent George into a tizzy of self-doubt and introspection. As much as we all want to appear to "not be shallow" and "looking for something deeper" and "not into looks," we are all, at least in my opinion, fully aware of the aesthetic attractiveness of our potential mate and use that as a chief criteria in selection. And often when we are told that we are not attractive, the most natural and honest reaction is to ask "Why?" I had to become aware of my own biases, having often been aesthetically discriminated against, and realize that I was just as discriminatory if not in that area than in others. Although we often deride looks in intellectual circles as not being substantive, it really is. It is our first sensual perception of the individual. It gets the foot in the door.

Final Thoughts

But, I have digressed, I believe the central concept here is faith. Do we believe in our common humanity? If so, on what basis? What constitutes our belief in one another? What does it really mean to be human? Can we all be human? I believe that we can and we are. I believe that we are all potentially equal contributors to the culture of man. So what is it that inhibits us from doing so? Is it our humanity that keeps us from being human? If you believe that humans are naturally envious and power-hungry, then that is a definite possibility. That's kind of the question I asked my professor, when I posed, "How do theories and ideas survive? I'm sure that other people have thought the same thoughts as these people; but what separated the others from the notable people that we all study?" One of my other professors, answered the question, in his own way, in saying that the people who become icons do it, through the full affirmation of self beyond the society in which they live, beyond the mass culture in which they are mired via the transformational light which they carry within themselves them emanates onto society as a whole.

If that's true, then we are truly the greatest inhibitors of self. Anthropologist Benedict Anderson in his book Imagined Communities talks about the Janus-faced nature, facing both forward to modernize and backward to tradition. This is an idea that Anne McClintock advances in her discussion of the gender ramifications of nationalism. She states that men are modernizers of society while women are the keepers of tradition, even going so far as to transmit the traditions of gender inequalities and inferiority. Have women also transmitted to us our ideas of masculinity and femininity, our views of homosexuality? Is it because of men that we have continued to advance socially but not to the point of true equality? I suppose it is. But then that makes me ask, are gay men actually men in society? Are lesbian women actually women in society? By that I mean, in a very circuitous way to the top of the discussion, are gay/lesbian people, who actively affirm their sexual preference, able to truly influence culture? I don't think there has been that transformational character in the LGBT community; that could really bring their issues mainstream. But I'm also not a student of LGBT culture (lol). One of the most unique things about humanity is that, in culture, we are all both students and teachers. So, as we assimilate, we disseminate. But at what point, do we take responsibility for the culture we create?

P.S. This is what makes me angry about all this Obama buzz...