henry louis gates and hip hop

Perhaps the most consistent theme in hip hop discourse is its bold critique of the criminal justice system in the United States. From its roots in the South Bronx through today, hip hop artists and culture have denounced crime and punishment in the United States in a way that essentially defies the underlying penal philosophy that has been adopted and championed by U.S. legislators for decades. Since the inception of hip hop as a musical genre, hip hop artists have rhymed in a narrative format that starkly informs listeners and fans that the entire fundamental regime of law and order in the United States is suspect, illegitimate and profane. Another example of U.S. law and order as unequal, illegitimate and suspect is currently before the American public yet again.

In another dreadful example of race and profiling in America, we learned yesterday that perhaps THE most respected African American public intellectual in the United States, Skip Gates, had been pulled from his own home and arrested. Returning home after filming a documentary in China, the renowned Harvard Professor found his front door jammed and forced his way into his house. Neighbors called police. When the police arrived, they questioned Gates, requested identification, and then, according to Gates, refused to acknowledge that his home address on his ID matched the address at the home they were tipped to respond. Once Gates became upset and repeatedly asked for the officer's name and badge number, calling the police line of questioning what it was, harassment, racial profiling and modern day bullying, the police arrested him for disorderly conduct. Police claim that Gates exhibited "loud and tumultuous behavior." According to Gates, the loud and tumultuous behavior was the repeated requests for names and badge numbers of police officers.

The news today is that the Cambridge police have dropped the charges against Professor Gates, but we are left with vexing questions:

First, if Professor Gates can be pulled from his home and arrested, based on a neighbor's call (how did the neighbor not know Gates?), then that essentially proves what the hip hop nation has proclaimed all along -- no black or brown face is safe from racism, profiling or discrimination in the United States. Henry Louis Gates was ARRESTED IN HIS OWN HOME for alleged disorderly conduct.

Second, while we listen to unending loops of U.S. citizens claiming that we have entered a post-racial place in America, we witness a hugely important African American intellectual, that spends his life examining and writing about issues of equality and justice, arrested, handcuffed and dragged down to the police station on what charge? Breaking and entering? No, he was inside his own home. Burglary or theft? No, again, he was inside his own place. Assault or battery upon a police officer? No, merely challenged the police verbally and requested their identification. No, he was arrested, charged and detained for disorderly conduct. And, on this charge, you can add Skip Gates to the number of African American citizens in the United States that have encountered the criminal justice system from the inside. Gates himself said:

"There are one million black men in jail in this country and last Thursday I was one of them," he said in an interview with The Washington Post Tuesday morning. "This is outrageous and that this is how poor black men across the country are treated everyday in the criminal justice system. It's one thing to write about it, but altogether another to experience it."

Arrested for loud and tumultuous behavior?!

Third, the Cambridge police have dropped charges against Gates, but have unequivocally claimed that race had nothing to do with the arrest. Of course, the police must claim that the arrest had nothing to do with race, but who are they kidding? A black man using his shoulder to free a jammed door in Harvard Square in Cambridge? A neighbor not recognizing one of the most important public intellectuals in the United States? The police refusing to leave as soon as Gates provided them his identification where the address on the ID matched the address at the home? The police refusing to leave once Gates started giving it to them for racially profiling him, but instead asking him out of his house so that they could arrest him? All of this has nothing to do with race?

Last, the hip hop nation knows all too well what Professor Gates experienced last Thursday. To a person, my money says that those among us with brown or black faces, have experienced something very much like Gates just has. Hip hop describes this discrimination in raw and exacting detail. Henry Louis Gates, a fan and supporter of the hip hop nation, has now experienced what the nation knows. He said:

"I am appalled that any American could be treated as capriciously by an individual police officer. He should look into his soul and he should apologize to me," Gates said. "If so, I will be prepared to forgive him. I think that poor people in general and black people in general are vulnerable to the whims of rogue cops, and we all have to fight to protect the weakest among us. No matter how bad it was going to get, I knew that sooner or later I would get to a phone and one of my friends would be there to help. . . . I want to be a figure for prison reform. I think that criminal justice system is rotten."

We have so much more work to do before we can claim that we have arrived at a post-racial America.

Is the NBA Dress Policy a Pretext for Racial Discrimination?

The NBA has celebrated the very lifestyle it now seeks to eradicate. For years the NBA has done everything it can to benefit from a relationship with hip hop. It hired British comedian Sasha Cohen (aka Ali G) to promote the NBA in television commercials. In the commercials Cohen is dressed in a track suit accessorized by a bulky chain while wearing a skull cap and wrap-around sunglasses. His attire expresses the very same street or hip hop culture that the NBA now prohibits.

In addition, the NBA has licensed a video game called “NBA Ballers” which pitches itself as the exclusive one-on-one basketball video game highlighting the bling bling lifestyle of NBA superstars. In the game, players take on the identity of actual NBA stars and accumulate “mansions, cars, jewelry, women – if you’ve spotted it on MTV cribs, you’re going to see it here.” And finally, a Nike advertisement on NBA.com featured Allen Iverson alongside 50 Cent. These types of advertisements and video games show the mutually reinforcing connections between sports and hip hop.

In October of 2005, the NBA implemented a new dress code for players. The code, which specifies appropriate league-business dress styles for players, requires players to wear “business casual attire whenever they are engaged in team or league business," meaning a long or short sleeved dress shirt (collared or turtle neck) and/or a sweater; dress slacks, khakis or dress jeans; and appropriate shoes and socks, not including sneakers, sandals, flip flops or work boots. The code also directly prohibits players from wearing certain types of clothing, particularly clothing that society links to hip-hop culture, which has been negatively stereotyped and racialized as black. Specifically, the code prohibits the wearing of sleeveless shirts, shorts, t-shirts, jerseys, sports apparel, chains, pendants, medallions, sunglasses while indoors, and headphones and headgear of any kind while a player is placed on the bench, seated in the stands at a game or making an appearance for media interviews or a team or league event. There are three exceptions to this policy. The first exception is stricter than the usual policy and requires players who are in attendance at games but not in uniform to wear a sports coat, dress shoes or boots and socks while seated on the bench or in the stands. The second exception allows players to wear either business casual attire or neat warm-up suits that are issued by their teams as they are leaving the basketball arena. The third and final exception permits players to wear attire that is not business casual at special events or player appearances where other attire would be appropriate, such as at basketball clinics.

The announcement of these rules sparked a number of claims from players, journalists and commentators that these policies are motivated by racial stereotypes. Commentators and players alike argued that the rules are targeted at negative media-driven hip hop images of young black men, who make up the vast majority of the league. Stephen Jackson said “As far as chains, I definitely feel that’s a racial statement. Almost 100% of the guys in the league who are young men and black wear big chains. So, I definitely don’t agree with that. The new ban on chains worn over clothing is a racist statement from the league. Paul Pierce proclaimed “when I saw the part about chains, hip hop and throwback jerseys, I think that’s part of our culture. The NBA is young black males. Phil Jackson made the following comment, which essentially displays the way in which young black men, hip hop and criminality have become so linked in the minds of the American public: “The players have been dressing in prison garb the last five or six years. All the stuff that goes on, its like gangster, thuggery stuff." Similarly, black columnist Jason Whitlock declared, “Too many young black professional athletes have too closely aligned themselves with the hip hop culture, which in reality is nothing more than prison culture.” Jason Richardson wants to keep wearing his gold chains and believes the dress code take aim at black players in the league. He said, "they want to sway away from the hip hop generation. You think of hip hop right now and think of things that happen like gangs having shootouts in front of radio stations. One thing to me that was kind of racist was that you can’t wear chains outside your clothing."

One commentator said, "Although a couple of foreign-born players fall under this policy and maybe a few white guys such as Jason Williams, this is all pointing toward blacks. NBA Commisioner David Stern had to do something when the thuggish image had taken over the sport and things had gotten out of control." Another commentator claimed that a reading of the rules made clear that the NBA does not want hip hop culture, including its clothes, to be part of the NBA image. The NBA helped launch the trend of baggy jerseys and chunky gold chains adopted by teenagers around the world. But now the NBA is attempting to take the bling out of basketball. Some players and commentators have denounced the dress code as racist for targeting the hip hop look adopted by many of the NBA’s young black players. Its purposes, critics claim, is to make a predominantly black league more palatable to a predominately white audience. Allen Iverson says, "they are targeting my generation, the hip hop generation." The truth remains that while the majority of the NBA players are black, the majority of the coachers and owners are white. If nothing else, the dress code reinforces the fact that the so-called hip hop generation is seen as second class citizens when they dress a certain way. Wrote Whitlock, "Race is not the determining factor when it comes to having a good or bad attitude; culture is. And the hip hop culture is all about attitude, anger, sticking it to the man, selfishness and rebelliousness. Black players didn’t behave this way until this hip hop gangsta business began. Hip hop athletes are being rejected because they are not good for business."

The fact is that race is socially constructed. It is formed through human interactions and commonly held notions of what it means to belong to a certain racial group. In other words, in our society, markers other than just one’s skin color, such as clothing and hairstyle, play a role in defining a person’s race. When it comes to discrimination, how one performs his or her racial identity matters almost as much as how one looks. The fact is that race has a greater meaning than skin color or tone; it is also about performance, how one displays his racial identity. The problem for those who want to impose these rules to the players in the NBA is not that the players have black skin, not that they are “black” as the term is physically defined, but rather that they are performing their identities in a way that comports with stereotypes accorded generally to blacks. In a league that is eighty percent black, the NBA’s response to the infiltration of hip hop culture into the league has a negative effect on the employability of the black male athlete.

- D. Aaron Lacy

(Photo by Gary Dineen/Getty Images)