Is Barack the best choice for the hip-hop generation?

The East Bay Express

Chuck D vs. Obama: Is Barack the best choice for the hip-hop generation?
By Eric K. Arnold

Does the hip-hop generation finally have a viable presidential candidate? Before we answer that, a little history is in order. In 1984 and 1988, the Reverend Jesse Jackson ran for president of the United States. Jackson even had a rap song commissioned in his honor — Grandmaster Melle Mel's "Jesse" — yet in truth, the former MLK aide was much closer to the civil rights generation than to the then-emerging hip-hop demographic.

In 2004, Dennis Kucinich, an über-liberal congressman from Ohio, publicly stated he wanted to be the candidate for the hip-hop generation. Yet when directly asked, he couldn't name even one song by his favorite rapper, Tupac.

As the '08 campaign gets under way, with a Democratic field including self-aggrandizing ice queen Hillary Clinton and long-lost Duke of Hazzard John Edwards, Barack Obama seems the only logical choice for hip-hop generationers in 2008. Though he doesn't rhyme or namedrop rappers, the junior senator from Illinois has much in common with the hip-hop generation: At 45, he's (relatively) young. He's fresh. He's charismatic. He represents a new way of thinking. Oh, by the way, he's also black.

Even as media flacks debate his "blackness," Obama's greatest strength might be his ability to depolarize race. During a St. Patrick's Day rally at Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza, his overall message seemed to be "It's not a black thing, it's an American thing." Obama openly relished his lack of Washington experience (causing one middle-aged white woman to exclaim "Thank God!") while championing "politics not based on fear, but based on hope." Obama raised the specter of slavery and outlined proposed legislation to prevent racial profiling, yet his platform is otherwise typical moderate lib-Dem fodder: universal healthcare, education, disabled veteran support, ethics reform, opposition to the war, etc.

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