changes tupac social studies lesson plan

#Changes tupac social studies lesson plan crack

I’m of the opinion that if Thomas Jefferson had his way, our nation’s financial arrangement would look similar to the mess that is the Euro today-and Texas, California, New York and Florida would effectively run national monetary policy like Germany does with all the semi-failing states in Europe. It also perfectly captures a pet peeve of mine. Laugh all you want at the white boy putting Hamilton on here (and you should), but this is a certified banger (you could’ve tricked me into thinking the beat was produced by Dr. Cabinet Battle #1 by Christopher Jackson, Daveed Diggs, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Okieriete Onaodowan Note: I limited myself to one song per artist, otherwise this list would probably be all Kendrick and 2Pac songs.ġ0. So with all that in mind, here are 10 of the best political hip-hop songs of all time. Frankly, there is more discussion of policy on most hip-hop albums than there is on most cable news. Hip-hop covers the entirety of this malaise and traces it back to its racist political roots. Roughly half of our prisoners are non-violent drug offenders.

The United States jails more of its people than anyone in the world, housing 22% of the globe’s prisoners, yet only 4.4% of its population. states have higher incarceration rates than Vladimir Putin’s Russia. 97% of people charged with drug crimes plead guilty. White people get tons of sympathy in the media for America’s present opioid epidemic, but only 16% of offenders in federal heroin cases were white, compared to 40% black and 42% Latinx.

Of people charged by the federal government with selling crack cocaine in 2016, 83% were African American. Of people charged by the federal government with selling powder cocaine in 2016, 30% were black, 62% were Latinx, and only 7% were white. Even though all races use drugs at the same rate, 57% of those incarcerated for a drug offense in state prisons are black or Latinx (both minority groups comprise 31.1% of the population). The United States spends over $50 billion annually on the War on Drugs. Median white wealth is 1,217% higher than median black wealth. The average wealth of a white American is 713% more than that of a black American. Instead, politicians packaged Jim Crow’s spirit into a more politically palatable vehicle: the War on Drugs.īefore we get into the greatest political hip-hop songs, here are some inescapable figures which provide context to the anger and alienation underlying this music genre.

It was launched by Richard Nixon seven years after the 1964 Civil Rights Act that was supposed to stamp out the legacy of explicitly racist Jim Crow laws. The rise of hip-hop in the 1980s and 1990s coincides with the escalation of the War on Drugs.

Now, if you’re not familiar with the pure, unadulterated evil of the War on Drugs, listen to Jay-Z quickly highlight decades of inherently discriminatory policies. I have always loved the sound of hip-hop, but I never got into the message until I studied political science in college and really dug into our nation’s racist past and present. Translation: “I liked hip-hop because they ‘reported’ on the economic and human strife placed upon a marginalized community by the mechanisms of the American state and ignored by major American media, but my political training won’t allow me to say that’s political.” area, and the-they were reporting, you know, what life was like, in that…and that’s really what you found in hip hop back then.” machinery take over around 50 seconds as he drops his voice and sheepishly says “I don’t listen to music for the politics of it,” then immediately snaps back into genuine Rubio and riffs about how rappers are “reporters” reporting on “what life was like in South Central, and the L.A. I’ll get to that shortly, but first, I want you to listen to Marco Rubio-yes, I genuinely mean it-eloquently and earnestly speak about hip-hop’s relation to the politics of its era, specifically the 1990s. Rap grew out of the War on Drugs, and its message cannot be divorced from choices made in our nation’s capital. I have certainly left some great overtly political and less so songs off this list because of the seemingly infinite options I had. *note: #4 is subject to change every two months or so, but #1 through #3 are locked in.Īnother, less obvious thing that I want to point out is that hip-hop is inherently political. I also want to declare my bias, so you know what kind of sound I’m in to. I want to begin this list by stating the obvious: this is one man’s opinion and the word “best” is subjective here.

#Changes tupac social studies lesson plan crack