Is the American dream fading?
With more people living on the breadline in the US, we ask if it is time to abandon the American dream.
"Tricia Rose (1994), in her study of the meanings of rap music in contemporary America, argues that rap should be understood as a mass-mediated critique of the underlying ideology of mainstream American society. Rap presents an alternative interpretation—a different story—of the ways power and authority are structured in contemporary society. Robin D. G. Kelley (1994) argues that some rap lyrics are “intended to convey a sense of social-realism” that “loosely resembles a sort of street ethnography of racist institutions and social practices, but told more often than not in the first person"
— Media Society
Day 06 - A Book That Makes You Sad
I really don’t think this mandates explanation.
"We should not think in terms of whites, blacks, hispanics, and other such groups. That kind of thinking only divides us. The only us-versus-them thinking in which we might indulge is the people—all the people—versus the government, which loots and lies to us all, threatens our liberties, and shreds our Constitution. That’s not a white or black issue. That’s an American issue, and it’s one on which Americans of all races can unite in a spirit of goodwill."
— Ron Paul in The Revolution: A Manifesto
"We must go to the root of a problem and not invest too much energy fiddling with the symptoms. We shall never get whites and blacks, or Orientals and Occidentals, to unite by trying to tie the different branches of the human tree together with string. Attention must instead be shifted to the stem and the root, where, under the surface, we are one. It will take much less time."
— Alan Watts in his essay Black and/or White
Rolling his eyes upward, he put his tie back on. “Restored to my class,” he muttered.He thrust his face toward her and hissed, “True culture is in the mind, the mind,” he said, and tapped his head, “the mind.”
-Julian in Flannery O’Conner’s Everything That Rises Must Converge
I just watched this documentary. Interesting on three levels; the amazing, thriving, agriculturally based community the people were able to create in the middle of LA… The undeniable portrayal of how all the power lies in the hands of money-hungry bureaucrats and racists… and the terrific way we see how people can band together for a common cause, for justice… maybe someday a group like this will beat the suits… until that day, we will continue to loose culture everywhere we look.
(Fuente: aretheseourlives, vía terminallytrill)
This reminds me of Immortal Techniques statement: “In fact, I have more in common with most working and middle-class white people than I do with most rich black and Latino people. As much as racism bleeds America, we need to understand that classism is the real issue. Many of us are in the same boat and it’s sinking, while these bougie Mother-Fuckers ride on a luxury liner, and as long as we keep fighting over kicking people out of the little boat we’re all in, we’re gonna miss an opportunity to gain a better standard of living as a whole.”
(Fuente: vlectronica)
