Throughout it’s history Hip-Hop has provided both a method with which to resist oppression and a source of healing from the trauma of oppression. For poor people and poor people of color especially, it’s power as a form of expression and resilience has been undeniable.
Over the past 30 years Hip- Hop has expanded from its roots in African American culture and experience, and now exists as a leading generational voice throughout the world. Hip Hop music and culture have become a global movement, embraced by people from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds, gender expressions, sexualities, class/economic levels, geographic location, etc.
Hip-Hop and Hip-Hop activism especially are extremely important tools for broad social change as well as personal transformation. However, much of the commercial hip-hop widely available today works to promote and perpetuate male supremacist ideas and thinking as main components of the music. Gender discrimination, homophobia, and sexual violence have become increasingly consistent themes of hip-hop lyrics and videos and are fundamental methods of maintaining male supremacy as an oppressive system.
As members of the Hip-Hop community we hope to create space in which to challenge the oppressive dynamics of male supremacy in hip-hop, and explore the complexity and apparent contradiction of using Hip-Hop as part of our systems change and social justice work. It is vital that we as hip-hop and other types of activists/organizers confront the silencing and violence that happen within our own movements/communities around gender and sexuality. This workshop is intended to provide an opportunity for those who identify with hip-hop music and culture to use a transformative justice approach in creating solutions to address male supremacy and gender based oppression that also respect the power and potential of Hip-Hop as a tool for positive social transformation.
- Participants will be engaged using multi media including film/video, through small group discussion and through strategy/model development
- Workshop will be conducted in english
- Some handouts will be provided in english only
- One of the biggest challenges the hip hop movement faces is the co-optation and commercialization of hip-hop music and culture by oppressive systems
- Creating alternative expressions of gender and masculinity within hip-hop as well as methods of accountablity that don't further criminalize an already oppressed people/community
- AV needs:DVD Player, Projector, Speakers