In the wake of Traylon Martin's killing at the hands of a neighborhood watch volunteer, young black people's hatred of policemen is worth a second look.
From NWA thru Public Enemy to Odd Future on their new album, "Fuck Da Police" is a rallying call for rappers. Words versus bullets, sometimes bullets versus bullets, but Chuck D is no banger, and let's keep to the repressed replying to power.
Certainly, the black minority have every reason to hate the police. Since poverty breeds crime, and since a ridiculously large number of the black population are poor, they have a hell of a lot of run ins with the law.
Hip hop addresses, or, at least, answers the police with forceful hatred, and if it ends up with "Fuck the police, break the law" it started elsewhere. A much less mature response than Springsteen's "41 Shots", though they make a similar mistake.
They both believe the armed militia, the thin blue line, are motivated by racism. And fear, while as class distinction and fear is a much more accurate demarcation. Hip hop claims, get your gnat and fight it out the street if you ;live by the ten crack commandments, but how does that help the vast majority of people? Springsteen things racial based subservience is how to deal with the police. And if he took out the race he would be right.
I was stuck in a war zone when I was in my early 20s and it taught me one lesson that should really be taught to everybody. Don't mouth off to somebody who is holding a gun to your head. And especially, don't mouth off to someone with a gun to your head if they are a member of the police. Subservience is the precise manner to adopt. The old saying, "What do you say to a loaded gun? Yes, Sir". There will be time enough for reckoning once the danger has passed.
This really doesn't effect the Traylon killing. From everything I have read, this was a delusional cop wannabe, who ignored the Police dispatcher and started a fight and ended a fight. And that is a best case scenario. He should have been arrested and the black community, along with just about everybody else, should be outraged. The more Conservative elements attempt to paint this as an inverse racism, noting, black on black crime is much worse, so why is there no outrage about that.
I'll explain: if the killer of that nine month old black baby boy who was killed by a stray bullet while dozing on a sofa, was arrested and let go because he had a gun permit, or worked for, well, even the police themselves, there would be just as much outrage. One is sorry for Traylon's parents of course, but one is outraged because Zimmerman wasn't charged with anything.
I digress.
My point is music is either cowering or cursing, and armed militia is the price we pay for security. Subservience is what we show to it. But then we place ourselves in the tender mercies of the Judicial System. Fuck Da Police won't get you too far.