How Hip-Hop Holds Blacks Back

“The National Council of Teachers of English, recommending the use of hip-hop lyrics in urban public school classrooms (as already happens in schools in Oakland, Los Angeles, and other cities), enthuses that ?hip-hop can be used as a bridge linking the seemingly vast span between the streets and the world of academics.?|But we?re sorely lacking in imagination if in 2003?long after the civil rights revolution proved a success, at a time of vaulting opportunity for African Americans, when blacks find themselves at the top reaches of society and politics?we think that it signals progress when black kids rattle off violent, sexist, nihilistic, lyrics, like Russians reciting Pushkin.” John H. McWhorter —How Hip-Hop Holds Blacks Back (City Journal)