On this special day, it seems fitting to pay tribute to a man who raised awareness of the modern-day injustices of racism and bigotry. While he definitely was not a saint by any means, his impact was enormous.
Tupac Shakur was not simply one of the best rappers of his time, but a spokesman and a participating member of an oppressed, angry and disaffected youth. Much of his music was rejected by critics as ‘gangsta rap’, and rightfully so, but a good chunk of his music, in songs like “Letter to the President” and “Changes,” brought the plight of the black community to a new generation in a format they could relate to. And, he made people think.
“Changes” – Tupac Shakur
Moreover, part of Tupac’s genius was that he made his music, and more importantly his words, accessible to a much larger audience that included millions of white youth. He rapped about the struggles of blacks in America in modern times, from police brutality and institutional racism to the explosion of gangs, guns and drugs on the streets of the nation’s cities.
Tupac did not only speak out against racism by whites, but he also called on blacks to make change because ‘the old way wasn’t working.’
We gotta make a change
it’s time for us as a people to start making some changes
let’s change the way we eat let’s change the way we live
and let’s change the way we treat each other
you see the old way wasn’t working
so it’s on us to do what we gotta do to survive
Tupac was very much an activist rapper and he received plenty of push back, ridicule and dismissal from many young black men and fellow rappers at the time. And Tupac seemed to play a line between the philosophies of Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This may have broadened his appeal to a larger audience, but either way, people listened to Tupac, and people did make changes because of his influence, that lasts to this day. If Tupac Shakur were still alive, he would have been 37 years old. He was shot in Las Vegas in 1996 by a drive-by shooter and died six days later.
For the most part, Tupac never would have believed there would be a black president in his lifetime, had he lived. But that is what is so great about today. It plays right into the amazing progress we have made in a short time. For all the problems, there are triumphs happening all of the time. Yet for still too many black youth, these triumphs, even the triumph of a black president, are still faraway things in their daily lives.
Also in the song “Changes”, Tupac saw the reality of a black president as “heaven sent” because it did not seem possible then, or in many ways, even two years ago when Obama set out on what many thought was an impossible dream.
and although it seems heaven sent
we ain’t ready to see a black president
it ain’t a secret don’t conceal the fact
the penitentiary’s packed and it’s filled with blacks
Today, we are a lot closer to fulfilling that promise – there’s still a way to go – and it feels damn good.
And let us not forget that while we celebrate a historic leap forward in American experiment, we face troubled, if not dire, times. President Barack Obama did not win the presidency so America could ‘feel good’ about itself for its crimes and other injustices against blacks, he won because he is remarkably skilled in all of the ways that have the potential to reveal a great leader.
He won because he is the embodiment of the American Dream, the idea that no matter how different we may be we have common values that are consistent with the hopes of our forefathers. He won because he made his case about a new era for America, one in which most of us crave, in which we will get back on the right course and charter a new path into the future that could truly fulfill the promise of America, and to a larger extent, the world. And at the same time we need to save a planet in peril, save an entire economy from collapse and figure out a new agenda for two wars.
