As an educator of the self-identified target market (that is, although only maybe 1% of my students are African-Canadian and have any link in their heritage to life outside of the upper middle class and most of the students here who spout gangsta talk are white iPod encrusted closet yuppies) I believed that anything that encourages reading, at any level, is a step in the right direction. I stand firm that being able to read and the lack of desire to read anything but the bare essentials is as bad as not being able to read at all. Anything to break them out of that cycle, then, is a welcome thing.
As with the Harry Potter phenomenon, where kids who wouldnt dream of waking early on a Saturday morning to crack open a 500 page tome, were suddenly clamouring at the gates of the bookstores, lined up on month long waiting lists to be one of the first to find out whether Herminone dies next or ends up snogging Ron. Sure, parent still need to have a role in what their children read but like anything out there, it is a hit and miss world. There are intellectual people out there who have discourse that is unique and mind boggling and astute in their observations. There is a keen eye for noticing things like this:
Hot ... and the measure of heat. Unfortunately, what we have now is judgment calls made from a boardroom. Calls that end up dictating to the streets. The streets can’t see it, cause they’ve returned to their original ownership. Like a rat a box... Corporations is like Americanization which is in turn like mcdonaldization ... McDonalds will give you fast food, and when its hot it may be considered good for the moment. But don’t let it get cold. Even your dog won’t want it. Little nutrition. Different from a meal prepared carefully from scratch whereas you can heat it up 3 months later from freeze and it damn near tastes the same on the reheated tip. Well this can also be compared to art.
and applying it to the songs that the kids are eating up like the fast food crunch frowned upon in a startling twist of dramatic irony. It would be a pity to brush a broad stroke of criticism of the poison that such genres as a whole will wreak upon society becuase we can't know the extent to which kids will take thier passions. That is, no less that other "banned books" of the past, now that gangsta lit has hit the streets and has garnered considerable street cred, it will not fade from the hands of determined youths just because the Christian Science Monitor said so.
Some people fear that reading about pimping and prostitution, sex and drugs will glamorize and glorify street life, but a walk down any down and out neighbourhood will set any 15 year old straight about what glamour is and how far the mighty can fall. I dont think that there is any more to fear from kids turning to dealing or smoking up after reading a book about a kid who does any more than installing condom machines in school is goint o encourage kids who wouldnt normaly have sex to begin. It is a faintly ridiculous notion that we can protect kids from trying out the things that strike terror into our kind parental hearts. Counteracting the condom machine with important information about sexually transmitted diseases, helping kids to see the non-glamourous side of meth addiction, letting kids see the reality of pimping and prostitution--these are things that we can do, and should do to help them come to a fuller understanding of "Fitty" and all of his compatriots. "Pretty Woman" didnt create the problem of prostitution and gangsta lit is not propogating gangs. As communities we have to have a commitment to giving kids things that will inform them and help them make choices that will shape a future that they want to live.
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