Principles 7 страница

Hip-Hop Activism

The use of culture as a construct usually is reserved for discussions of race and ethnicity in this country. In many ways, this discourse has been shaped by historical events related to slavery and the racial and ethnic conflicts of the twentieth century. However, this perspective, although of great

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importance in influencing this country’s view of itself and the world, is much too narrow in scope. It is necessary for both academics and practi-tioners to undertake a broader analysis of culture. Thus, hip-hop activism is understood best by using a social and economic justice lens and considering the historical backdrop.

Youth, too, have a culture that is greatly influenced by contextual factors and is worthy of extensive analysis and discourse in both academic and practice circles (Aitken 2001; Giroux 1996, 1998; Thornton 1996). Youth cul-ture, like its racial and ethnic counterparts, shapes beliefs, values, behaviors, and worldview, effectively intersecting with other cultural dimensions such as gender, sexual identity, socioeconomic class, race, and ethnicity.

Weiss (2003, 95) underscores the importance of art and cultural events for the field of youth-led community organizing:

One unique, and pervasive, characteristic of youth organizing is the sig-nificance of art and culture. Young organizers across the country organize hip hop concerts and spoken word workshops, sponsor poetry reading and fashion shows, host club nights and break dance competitions, and curate galleries. Like Generation Y, with its monthly ‘‘cafe´ Intifada, ’’ four out of five youth groups across the country use performing arts and cul-tural events to draw new members, sustain and nourish more experi-enced ones, breach ethnic and language barriers, and cultivate pride and positivity. . . . As organizer Marinieves Alba explains, ‘‘In the Puerto Rican community we have a saying that, in order to reach the masses, you have to speak to them in rice and beans. So hip hop is rice and beans for a lot of young people. . . . Fundamentally it’s a tool. It’s the bridge. ’’

The emergence of the term hip-hop activism serves to ground youth cul-ture within a social and economic justice orientation that seeks social change when young people attempt to alter environmental circumstances that are toxic and even lethal to their existence. Societal forces serve to target youth of particular backgrounds, rendering them marginal and undervalued from the mainstream perspective. (Ginwright 2006; Taylor 2004)

Hip-hop has undergone an extensive journey (Open Society Forum In-stitute 2002, 1):

Hip-hop culture has transformed the popular landscape of modern youth identity and created a new forum of self-expression. In three decades hip-hop has expanded from a Bronx youth subculture into a global commodity, driving a multibillion-dollar industry that reaches into music, film, fash-ion, art, dance, and style. But that’s not all. Hip-hop culture has also given voice to a new generation of activists, who have tapped its special, even prophetic, sensitivity to youth and urban issues in organizing their com-munities.

Chang (2003), in turn, places hip-hop activism within a broader social world that consists of youth organizers, thinkers, cultural workers, and activists. Furthermore, hip-hop activism can be considered a lens for under-

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standing young people’s reaction to social injustice and their desire to create social change.

Focusing on the role of social capital in urban black youth culture, Sul-livan (1997) notes the richness of connections and informal social networks in this community. However, our larger society either has not bothered to examine this form of social capital or has misunderstood it and underesti-mated its significance. There has been a general disinvestment in the lives of these young people by all levels of government in the United States. Many of these young people of color feel a deep sense of alienation from main-stream society, including most black leaders. As a result, urban black youth have turned to each other and the hip-hop movement as a means of in-creasing connectedness, using this youth culture to provide a common identity, a collective voice, and a shared vision for a just society.

The influential role that youth culture plays in shaping youth-led com-munity organizing is well acknowledged in the field. For example, art and other forms of youth culture help provide a meaningful context for the engagement of a large percentage of young activists (Delgado 2000; Ross and Rose 1994). This culture is brought to life through hip-hop, poetry readings, spoken-word workshops, breakdancing, curated galleries, murals, and graffiti (Kitwana 2002). These cultural forms of expression demonstrate the outrage felt by inner-city youth, who experience the pain of societal injustice and marginalization. This perspective is well over a decade old (Lipsitz 1998).

There are many different ways that young people can engage in self-discovery to find their place within the broader context of positive and negative societal values (Stokes and Gant 2002). Cerone (2002, 9) highlights important ways that art and culture can be used, quoting one youth orga-nizer in the process:

‘‘Hip hop attracts a lot of kids, especially those who feel on the outside, ’’ explains a 14-year old with Books Not Bars. ‘‘Kids go to it knowing it’s political. They go to listen, but then it opens their eyes, and they get hooked on the issues. ’’ Kids First recently added two young artists to help with outreach. Film festivals like ‘‘Keeping it Reel, ’’ a youth-organized event held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in May 2002, encourage young people to create or see films that highlight the impor-tance of community institutions that, as the flyer announcing the festival says, are ‘‘youth-inclusive and supportive of youth representation. ’’

Culture and the arts help youth develop an identity that draws upon racial and ethnic pride and anger; sustain that membership by providing a viable and culturally synoptic means of communication; and serve as a bridge across socio-demographic divides, such as race, ethnicity, and language that often are found in undervalued communities in this society. There is no as-pect of youth organizing where these factors do not exert influence. For ex-ample, arts and culture serve multiple purposes, ranging from recruitment

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to helping youth develop a better sense of self. Exhibitions and perfor-mances provide young people with an opportunity both to be heard and to be praised. Art and culture also fulfill important roles in helping to nourish and sustain youth organizers (Weiss 2003).

Hip-hop often is seen as an effective vehicle for political and civic en-gagement of the young, particularly those who are urban, of color, and economically and socially marginalized in this country (Boyd 2003; Bynoe 2004; Ginwright 2006). This form of art is manifested in a variety of media, such as graffiti, dance, and music. Music, arguably the most sensational of hip-hop’s manifestations, has offered the greatest potential for engaging urban youth because it is considered political and relies on language to push the envelope. It provokes people and makes them think critically about their circumstances (Boyd 2003). The accessibility of music makes this form of expression particularly attractive for youth.

Although hip-hop music is fraught with controversy, particularly its lyrics (violence, crime, sex, women as objects, anti-gay), certain aspects of this art form have tremendous implications for community organizing. This phe-nomenon was recognized well over a decade ago (Flores 1994; Rose 1994). Kitwana (2002, xiii) used the terms hip-hop generation, hip-hop culture, and black youth culture interchangeably to refer to a social–political perspective on life that is held by this primarily urban-based segment of the youth pop-ulation. Tasker (1999) drew on hip-hop music to provide important insights into the life of a black female adolescent. Entrance into this world enabled the practitioner (social worker) to gain a profound understanding of and appreciation for how rap music gives voice to the dreams and struggles of marginalized youth.

Bynoe (2004), in turn, identified five central points:

1. Content is not neutral: Invariably there is a sociocultural context that highlights issues of inequality, as well as social and economic jus-tice themes.

2. Focus on history: Looking closely at social conditions grounds these issues and problems in a historical context.

3. Leadership development: There is stress on the importance of indig-enous leadership development and a viewpoint that the future of a community rests on itself.

4. Fight image with image: The importance of introducing positive role models is emphasized.

5. Thinking beyond voter registration: The importance of voter regis-tration is cast within a broader structural analysis that stresses the need for dramatic collective action to alter existing social conditions outside and beyond conventional mechanisms such as voting.

As the reader will see in the chapters that follow, these themes all play central roles in shaping youth-led community organizing. Bynoe’s (2004) themes highlight the politicized nature of hip-hop music as it attempts to

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inform and comment on issues of social oppression and the need to fight for social and economic justice. Marginalized youth rarely are seen on televi-sion or movies articulating these themes; rather, they usually are portrayed as perpetrators of crime and members of gangs (Giroux 1998). Thus, music is one of the few avenues by which these issues can be raised in an unfiltered manner. This venue will exist as long as it generates considerable profits for the music industry, along with money-making spin-offs such as clothing and other commercial products.

Organizational Settings and Youth Organizing

There is a wide variety of ways that youth-led organizing has been con-ceptualized and implemented. This diversity is stimulating and exciting, but it also poses difficulties, since various organizing efforts evolve differ-ently as they take local circumstances into account. Such a lack of uniformity brings with it challenges for anyone wishing to understand and possibly shape local efforts. This section attempts to provide the groundwork for better appreciating the scope and range of the organizational settings in which youth-led organizing is carried out. As in the preceding two chapters, our discussion is not exhaustive; rather, we simply touch on some of the critical dimensions of this variable and the impact it has on youth-led community organizing. These factors will be examined in greater detail in the chapters that follow.

As noted earlier in this chapter, fields of practice and scholarship never emerge out of thin air, suddenly achieving acknowledgment and universal acceptance. Youth-led community organizing is no exception. Invariably there are circumstances or forces that converge to cause a phenomenon such as the youth-led field to appear, draw attention to itself, attract resources, and evolve into new forms. For example, there is general agreement in the field of youth-led organizing that intermediary organizations can play im-portant roles by providing direct assistance to local groups. Such organi-zations also can act as conduits between practitioners and researchers or academics interested in youth organizing. Thus, intermediaries can help support the emergence of this field of practice and also help to sustain it. The W. K. Kellogg Foundation (2000, 19) concluded that intermediary organi-zations are vital to youth-led social interventions:

Programs learn from and rely on intermediaries for the growth and de-velopment of their organizations. Leaders spoke about the role that inter-mediaries play in creating connections and building and maintaining networks. When intermediary services are fully funded by foundations, programs are able to take full advantage of them; when there are signif-icant fees for services, programs cannot.

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Tracing the exact origins of the youth-led approach in general, and youth-led community organizing in particular, is difficult. It is necessary to identify the major contributing, operative factors and forces when a theo-retical model and set of new ideas and practices develop into a field of practice. Setting the context for youth-led community organizing first re-quires an examination of how the overarching youth-led field emerged and expanded. It is important to develop a better appreciation of the diverse approaches to youth organizing, including the youth-led model. This ap-preciation of the scope of youth-led community organizing also requires broad understanding of how this form of social action takes on regional qual-ities and circumstances (HoSang 2005). It must be placed in context (Youniss et al. 2002), but this ‘‘flexibility’’ makes it difficult to generalize key concepts and methods across geographical regions.

The organizational setting in which youth organizing is undertaken also is a key element for better understanding how social action by young people is conceptualized and carried out in the field. Therefore, we cannot under-estimate the importance of viewing youth community organizing within an organizational context. Such a perspective helps both practitioners and ac-ademics to categorize, understand, and learn from youth-led community organizing efforts, whether locally, nationally, or internationally (Larson, Walker and Pearce 2004). The classification of these forms of organizing must take into account the degree of decision making, or power, that youth possess in shaping, initiating, and sustaining an organizing campaign. Fur-thermore, youth-led organizations must contend with a host of challenges that are shaped by the age of membership.

The social and economic issues that drive youth-led community orga-nizing generally fall into five categories: (1) educational justice; (2) criminal and juvenile justice; (3) community development/capacity enhancement; (4) economic justice; and (5) immigrant rights (Weiss 2003). Youth-led com-munity organizing, like youth development, can be carried out in a variety of social arenas. A quick review of these groupings will not reveal any surprises, particularly since educational, environmental, criminal, and juve-nile justice issues often are mentioned frequently in the literature. The or-ganizations that sponsor youth organizing play a critical role in shaping these efforts, so it is essential to understand both their commonalities and differences. Fortunately, there is an emerging body of literature specifically focused on analyzing youth organizing from a regional perspective; reports such as that by HoSang (2005) and Spatz (2005) typify the latest examples. Of course, there are differences within regions and by cities, with certain characteristics of the political as well as physical environments leading to particular adaptations.

Questions are frequently raised about the universal elements of these efforts. Consequently, this section examines the critical question, ‘‘What are the common characteristics of youth-led community organizations? ’’ There is no simple answer, and the discussion that follows will likely result in

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further debate on this subject. We believe, however, that raising this ques-tion is healthy, and that it will lead to a keener appreciation of the com-plexities of the field, ultimately influencing how organizations and funders view youth-led community organizing (Gambone et al. 2004). To examine this question, we must separate organizations from organizers, although there certainly is a degree of overlap. Indeed, the question we raise high-lights the interconnections among organizations, youth organizers, and com-munities.

There is no one single organizational model of youth organizing that would be successful regardless of local circumstances, and therefore it is dif-ficult to specify an ‘‘ideal’’ blueprint for maximum effectiveness:

When evaluating your organizing model and its impact, it is important to recognize that working for justice and creating social change is a long and complicated process that requires lots of creativity and a diversity of models and approaches. No one model is best for creating social change because there are many goals that must be accomplished for real systems change to occur. But for groups trying to accomplish similar goals, there is great benefit in sharing different methods for reaching the same goal. (Youth in Focus 2004, 1)

Although this book emphasizes a particular model of youth organizing, we recognize that the field is vibrant, not monolithic, and many different approaches to youth organizing have currency.

Local factors usually determine the ultimate success of social interven-tions such as youth-led community organizing. The decision-making struc-tures of youth-led organizations may vary depending upon specific cir-cumstances, such as the degree to which young activists have power in decision-making processes, the amount of autonomy they exercise within adult-led organizations, and what their funding base is (Young Wisdom Project 2004). There certainly is no single ‘‘type’’ of youth-led organization, and this situation presents advantages and disadvantages for carrying out a youth-led organizing mission.

If an organization wishes to sponsor a youth-led organizing project, it must believe that young people are capable of leading the effort for social change and reform. Both the field of practice and the scholarly literature have examined organizations that sponsor youth-led community organiz-ing from a variety of perspectives, and have highlighted the influences of various social factors and how they have shaped organizational culture, structure, and mission in the process (Gambone et al. 2004). The introduc-tion of a social-change agenda brings an added dimension to this organiza-tional analysis, accentuating how a mission that indicates commitment to social justice influences organizational structure, staffing, and vision.

There is no denying the importance of school settings in youth-led campaigns, particularly in cases involving the low-income youth of color who typically grapple with problems of educational equity and justice on a

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daily basis (Scheie 2003); consequently, this section emphasizes schools. However, youth-led organizing can occur in a number of other organiza-tional settings, such as community development corporations, youth serv-ing organizations, and adult community-based organizations (Gambone et al. 2006). For example, Murphy and Cunningham (2003) note how com-munity development corporations across the nation have shifted to com-prehensive, place-based change efforts, including community organizing. Youth-led community organizing initiatives easily can be a part of these com-prehensive efforts to achieve positive community capacity enhancement.

Much to the surprise of many, we are sure, youth-led community or-ganizing is alive and well within schools. (Soundout. org, for example, pro-vides countless examples of school-based youth organizing for school re-form. ) However, this statement certainly should not come as a surprise to anyone who has significant contact with young people (Fletcher 2004; What Kids Can Do 2001; Wilson-Ahlstrom, Tolman, and Jones 2004). Youth spend an incredible amount of time during their first eighteen years of life in school, which with rare exceptions, is when they are completely under the control of adults.

Zimmerman’s (2004) classification lends itself well to better under-standing youth-led community organizing because of its perspective on the roles of young people within an organization, and it provides a conceptual context from which to comprehend the various forms of youth activism, including those that are youth-led. Zimmerman’s six-part typology for clas-sifying organizations delineates the various levels of youth power within organizations, with the ultimate two forms being youth run (young people fill all staff and managerial positions) and youth led (young people fill all major leadership positions, such as executive director, and hold majority membership on the board of directors, with adult support as needed and requested). We have merged the categories of ‘‘youth-run’’ and ‘‘youth-led’’ for purposes of discussion in this book.

There is little question that new models of organizational development, structure, and governance will need to be developed to sustain youth-led initiatives, particularly youth-led community organizing, which very often entails use of a wide variety of strategies and tactics to bring about social change. For example, the model of Youth Liberation Organization recently has been conceptualized to capture those groups that are youth led and that embrace social activism by and for youth while challenging adult power as a central principle of their organizing (Generator 2005). Being youth led permits tremendous flexibility in crafting social-change agendas, as illus-trated by Denver, Colorado’s, One Nation Enlighten (ONE): ‘‘ ‘We’re now a youth-driven organization, and having this independence allows us more control over the political message we develop, the campaigns we choose and how we build our movement’ ’’ (HoSang 2005, 22).

This book is a testament to the need for new models to better understand youth-led initiatives. We believe that such models should highlight the core

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factors that apply across the board to organizations that sponsor youth organizing, and also that are sensitive to unique local considerations, such as geography, history, and the socio-demographic composition of the young people who participate. One youth organizer responded as follows when asked to describe youth organizing:

Although a wide range of youth organizing models exist, all approaches integrate several aspects into the process. First, all youth organizing mod-els engage in leadership development and skill building among young leaders and members of the organization. . . . Second, all youth organizing involves young people in identifying, analyzing, researching community issues and power relationships. . . . Third, youth organizing groups de-velop, conduct, and evaluate campaigns to assess how their community and institutional change efforts influence institutional decision-makers around the issues they determine. (Turning the Leadership 2004, 5)

The Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development (2003) uses a definition of a civic activist organization that is sufficiently broad to allow projects such as increasing voter registration and education to occur alongside initiatives that take on a social-reform agenda such as boycotts, sit-ins, and other forms of direct action. Civic activist organizations are ‘‘place-based settings focused on supporting young people’s healthy growth and development, engaging youth in leadership and decision-making roles, and in identifying and addressing barriers facing youth, families, and com-munities’’ (Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development 2003, 3).

Intergenerational organizing campaigns—another form of youth-involved organizing—bring with them both the potential for breaking down traditional barriers between adults and youth and the possibility of reinforcing these barriers. When young people work with adults to organize for various initiatives, this activity serves to build community and establish connections across age groups, pooling resources and experiences, and in-creasing the likelihood of sustained social changes. Nevertheless, young people in intergenerational efforts can confront limited leadership oppor-tunities, restricted decision-making powers, and issues framed from an adult perspective—all of which can be to their detriment (Weiss 2003). Yet such opportunities, although fraught with potential limitations, also can prove fertile ground for youth to develop their competencies as organizers and their skills in working in partnership with adults. Important mentoring can take place, eventually allowing young people to break with adults and lead their own campaigns in which adults act as allies rather than mentors.

However, it is important not to romanticize youth-led organizations or to ignore the critical challenges they face in similar fashion to their adult counterparts. Zimmerman (2004) is careful to note that youth-led organizations invariably have problems involving staff development and management (creation of sustaining structures and guidelines), leadership

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transitions (opening up opportunities for changes in leadership as other youth leaders age out), capacity development (lack of experience and pro-fessional training), burnout (challenging situations can lead to disengage-ment), self-care and individual development (provision of support that may not be found in adult-led organizations), intergenerational relations (the unleashing of adultism), fund-raising (lack of experience and training in this specialized operational function), legal contracts (roadblocks in negotiating legal agreements), strategic planning and organizational development (ter-minology and process that may be foreign to youth), independence versus fiscal sponsorship (strings attached to funding that compromise an orga-nizational mission), isolation and network development (developing orga-nizational relationships can be labor-intensive and even hazardous to an organization), and documentation and evaluation (lack of resources, expe-rience, expertise, and time to record and analyze initiatives).

The importance of these challenges should not be minimized; indeed, many of them are addressed in other sections of this book. While burnout is a phenomenon well understood by adults, it also can be experienced by young people. Finding effective vehicles to minimize this experience is significant because experiences and opportunities for young people are more limited than for adults (Young Wisdom Project 2004). But such hurdles are not insur-mountable! Identifying these problems serves to normalize them, thereby taking them out of the local sphere (neighborhood) and placing them on the national stage. In essence, the uniqueness of these issues is rendered typical for youth. Dealing with the challenges helps prepare young leaders and or-ganizers for the obstacles they most likely will encounter in their quest to bring about positive social change.

Models of Youth-Led Community Organizing

Earlier in this chapter we raised serious questions about the organizational sponsors of youth organizing; as the reader has no doubt surmised, it is a complex field of practice. The question is, ‘‘Is youth-led community orga-nizing simply a junior version of adult community organizing? ’’ Youth-led organizing does share many commonalties with adult organizing; however, it also has the distinctiveness of the age of the organizers and some of the issues that are targeted as particularly related to young people (Lawrence 2004).

YouthAction (1998) identified two organizational models for conceptual-izing and planning youth-led community organizing: (1) youth are the pri-mary and exclusive members and they define and carryout organizing cam-paigns based on issues affecting their membership; and (2) youth represent a strategic constituency among several others, taking action on issues specifi-cally defined by a larger, intergenerational community organization. The first

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