This year, the election has brought out some of the deep seated ugliness present in our society. It had me thinking about the socially conscious art and music in the past and present. Just think about what Tupac Shakur was saying in the 90’s. It is sad to see how little has changed. Here are a few standouts:
They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor
–Keep Ya Head Up
There’s war on the streets & the war in the Middle East.
Instead of war on poverty, they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me.–Changes
Millions of Americans still live in poverty and yet billions of dollars are still spent on wars overseas. Lupe Fiasco summed up the “liberation” of foreign countries perfectly in 2006 with the line, “They ain’t living properly | Break ’em off a little democracy”.
Street violence is still an issue and instead of looking for a solution, politicians are blaming single mothers.
And since we all came from a woman
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?
I think it’s time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women
And if we don’t we’ll have a race of babies
That will hate the ladies, that make the babies
And since a man can’t make one
He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one
So will the real men get up
I know you’re fed up ladies, but keep your head up–Keep Ya Head Up
This has become one of the most frightening issues that has come to the forefront in 2012. I often find myself wondering if I have entered a time warp. We think we have moved so far as a society yet the reality is that bigotry is alive and well in our society. We have seen an influx of male politicians masquerading as amateur physicians and declaring pregancy from rape as “God’s will”. But their opinions on rape are only the starting point on what certain politicians really think of women. Voting against equal pay for women, taking away preventative health care measures and voting against the Violence Against Women act further prove how we much we still need real men to get up and take a stand against discrimination.