The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture Book

What I really liked about this book was the author's ability to suss out the differences between the values and perspective of the Civil Right's Era generation and the new generation. When Kitwana was talking about what he knew best: sociology of Blacks in America, he was a pleasure to read and for this reason alone I thought the book was worth taking a good look at, especially the first half. I wish he would have spent more time on this topic and less time on trying to solve the nation's problems.

This book was going pretty well until the author made some painfully naive comments about economic development and globalization which betrayed the fact that he was speaking outside his comfort zone (which happens to be mine). I then had to pull back my enthusiasm and take a more critical approach, which is when I realized that much of the book is anecdotal (which works a lot better when you are talking about people and less well when you are describing economies) and not particularly academic (speaking from the heart certainly counts for something, but it breaks the rule of armchair anthropology-- you can't describe an entire generation without any evidence to back it up-- the data is there and he chose not to go look for it).

Stylistically, Zizek and Wurtzel are far more interesting when they try and tie philosophy to pop culture, though to be fair, our author doesn't do a bad job, just not a bang-up job and these tie-ins are far more interesting than then ending, which I had to skim.

The ending is what I have dubbed the Nintendo Manifesto. Our author gives a little lip-service to the idea that Blacks are capable of free thinking and have a variety of political ideas, but goes on to outline the agenda of the hip hop generation; a manifesto that includes seven points, aimed entirely at serving the interests of Black youth, not the nation as a whole or even Black children or elderly or women and betrayed the naivete and arrogance of youth. These were painful and I had to skim them so as to keep my blood pressure in check.

The hardest item on the agenda for the uninitiated to swallow was the demand for reparations. Here I really thought Kitwana failed to explain why they were important, what they would accomplish, what implementing them would look like, and how this might affect race relations if they were accepted. Call me a privileged, white insert-expletive-here whatever, but reparations as part of the national agenda were hard to swallow in terms of likelihood of happening and I really thought Kitwana failed at his opportunity to convince me why they were something I should be passionate about. The idea that Blacks would not vote for Democrats (and you know the GOP is never going to consider it) without reparations bordered on dangerous. I thought Kitwana really underestimated the apathy/disgust of my generation. Speaking as someone with a pretty some pretty radical ideals in my pocket, the my-way-or-the-highway political stance is just the kind of attitude the GOP likes to see, as it inevitably leads to disillusionment and disgust with the system and a righteousness about not voting which is exactly what we don't need more of in this country.

In some ways, Kitwana felt like the Dave Eggars of Black youth: funny, smart, in touch, sexy, but not willing to do the homework necessary to live up to his potential and do something really meaningful.
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