Straight Outta Compton

‘Here’s what they think about you…’ Ice Cube blares into my earphones.

It all started when I went to see ‘Straight Outta Compton’ with my friend.

I went into the cinema a perfectly sensible (*enter the disbelief here*), young, but ignorant white woman and I came out changed. No joke.

I started chugging back the vodkas that very night and posting statuses up on Facebook, such as:

“Ice Cube da man for releasing ‘No Vaseline.’”

I might have looked ‘extremely white,’ as one man commented, or just a little slightly unhinged.

However, I did receive an education in the lessons of racial tension. I came out of the cinema enlightened, infected and bedazzled with a world that had always been on the edges of my consciousness, but now I was very much involved. I got it. I got what the hell they had been rapping about:

Fuck Tha Police

[Cop] Pull your god damn ass over right now
[NWA] Aww shit, now what the fuck you pulling me over for?
[Cop] Cause I feel like it!
Just sit your ass on the curb and shut the fuck up
[NWA] Man, fuck this shit
[Cop] Aight smartass, I'm taking your black ass to jail!

These men in their youth faced corrupted police and a manipulative music industry all because of the colour of their skin. They were attempting to leave the constraints of a socially confined society, where they were trapped because nobody in America in the 90s cared about a young black man. If he failed school, well, that was typical. If he made it in the music industry and started rapping about the failings of society, well, that was not typical and very much against the law.

The FBI tried to bring charges upon N.W.A for their lyrics and their music, when they were simply telling the truth of police brutality. This led to riots and violence. The police blamed rap, but it is something we still see today on the streets of America and N.W.A have long since broken up.

If you do not appreciate rap music then do not go and see this film, but do appreciate a film that expresses a very much hard to swallow truth: racism exists and the rap in the movie was a form of creativity to fight against society that is trying to restrict young black men. Fair enough, it is not going to win an Oscar but I have a little more understanding now. I see it all clearly, thanks to rap.

I’ll settle down now and carry on being an extremely white girl, I was just:

‘Enlightening all ya! Peace!’

Comments

black people in America are routinely treated like shite, but so are white working class people here.