in the forum here at RHHF we have a lot of productive discussion on hip hop. Here was a beautiful comment posted by our new user Panther in response to a YouTube video entitled "Is Hip Hop Hurting The Black Community?":

here's the original video that sparked the discussion:

and here's his response:

No, I don't think hip hop can be solely to blame for the portrayal of the "black community". I think it is a large melting pot of reasons. A lot of it is ignorance, conditioning to an ignorant form of living, and a lot of it is being pressured by our societal standards into fitting these stereotypes which have already been painted, even before hip hop music came out. I understand that many people from the black community try to live up to certain expectations which these "role model thugs" set, and it can cause a lot of problems, but where I live, I see just as many hispanics, asians, whites, etc. who do the same thing.

The only reason why it may seem like there are more black people falling into that cycle is because there is more focus on them, both from the media and from North American society in general. It truly is a societal problem. True "hip hop" at it's essence does ANYTHI ... Read more »