INSTRUCTOR: Derrick White

 

WEEKLY LEARNING GOALS

1. To understand how hip hop culture anticipated and responded to the Rodney King incident, verdict, and subsequent riot
2. To compare the hip hop response to the Rodney King to the use of social media in wake of Blacklivesmatter
3. To critique the effectiveness of hip hop and social media in political organizing.

 

READINGS

• Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation (New York: Picador, 2005), ch. 1 & 16.
• Sylvia Wynter, “N.H.I.: No Humans Involved,” Forum N.H.I.: Knowledge for the 21st Century 1, no. 1 (Fall 1994)
• “In Hashtag Protest: ‘Black Twitter’ Shows Its Strength,” NPR, August 13, 2014. 
• Mychal Denzel Smith, “How Trayvon Martin’s Death Launched a New Generation of Black Activism,” The Nation, September 15, 2015. 
• Matt Taibbi, “Why Baltimore Blew Up,” Rolling Stone, May 26, 2015