Culture Shock: Bringing Holiness to the Culture

In a time, where everyone has a thought and their two cents to chime in with, I find that the hip hop culture is in a constant state of culture shock. Anthropologist Rachel Irwin defines culture shock, “as the anxiety and emotional disturbance experienced by people when two sets of realities and conceptualizations meet." Walter M. Miller in his writings, A Canticle for Liebowitz makes a description of culture in the these words:"For Man was a culture-bearer as well as a soul-bearer, but his cultures were not immortal and they could die with a race or an age, and then human reflections of meaning and human portrayals of truth receded, and truth and meaning resided, unseen, only in the objective logos of Nature and the ineffable Logos of God. Truth could be crucified; but soon, perhaps, a resurrection." The resurrection that I perceive him to be talking about is Jesus.

When we inject the hip hop culture with the stimulus of the Jesus what an effect it has on the culture. We start to see the "chickens coming home to roost". Many can attest that they love Christ but have to viable fruit displayed in their lifestyle. I had the opportunity to watch Hip Hop vs. America the other night on television. They had a panel of great brothers and sisters from different walks of life. The one that stood out the most in my mind was David Banner. David Banner is a southern brother from Mississippi. He is a wealthy entertainer but he is also has a Masters degree from University of Maryland. So we are not talking about a dumb brother here. He talks passionately about his love for the black people and what he did it Louisiana when Katrina came through and wrecked the city. He was there helping which is and was a noble thing. But the problem came for me when he tried to rationalize his lyrics in his song. This statement was taken from an excerpt from a Vibe Magazine interview;"Yeah because when you look at it, you have so many other people doing the same type of music. They only attack Nelly because he’s at the level that he is. My thing is its entertainment. An actor can get up and act and do whatever he wants to do. Arnold Schwarzenegger perfect example. He can kill kids, he can blow up half of the United States and become governor of California. But we speak about the things we actually see every day in our lives and we’re crucified for it. The thing is, nobody beat anybody to be in that video. The women enjoyed themselves, the same way the men enjoyed themselves and they got paid. And if you really want to talk about ethics as far as women are concerned, you can look at football games. Half naked women on the sidelines, don’t have nothing to do with the boys on the field playing football. You see it everyday; it’s a bigger problem. But young black males are the easiest scapegoat for America to crucify. If Spellman is truly concerned about women, they have a bigger target to attack. But that’s not what people really want to do. They want to attack safe targets, they want to attack their own people and that’s sickening to me."

He expressed the same words on the BET show like what he was saying was correct. He justifies himself by saying that he put his career on the line by writing a song with the lyrics,"
God I know that we pimp
God I know that we wrong
God I know why she talk about Moet all of my songs
I know these kids are listening
I know I'm here for a mission
But it's so hard to get 'em wit 22 rims all glisten
taken from the song Cadillac on 22"s

This is a culture shock to the hip hop culture. We have gotten in our mind that we can divorce our walk from our talk. The bible is very intentional when it says, "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh."(Luke 6:45) What we have is a postmodern culture that compartmentalizes holiness for economical gain. It is alright to be good and accountable when I can see payment for it. But if I have to display holiness because it is a God govern attribute, you might as well trash that idea. (peep out Da Truth's song Click: No Regrets on the album Open Book)

In our culture if it ain't paying it ain’t staying. That mentality is killing our youth as well as the older generation. The quest for the mighty dollar has left us aimlessly wandering through the field of false dreams. These dreams are leading us down the road of debauchery and with no end in sight. We must transcend into a Holy Culture that places God at the forefront of our lives.

Just my thoughts