The Worm Turns

It appears that Sista Souljah is Sista Souljah-ing contemporary hip-hop. This will get her a lot of credibility in Washington.

A New Tone

Barack Obama is inviting the surviving members of the Tuskegee Airmen to the inauguration.

When the Tuskegee Airmen, the all-black force of elite pilots, emerged from combat in World War II, they faced as much discrimination as they had before the war. It was not until six decades later that their valor was recognized and they received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor Congress can give.

Now, the roughly 330 pilots and members of the ground crew who are left from about 16,000 who served are receiving another honor that has surpassed their dreams: They are being invited to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama as the country’s first black president.

“I didn’t believe I’d live long enough to see something like this,” said Lt. Col. Charles A. Lane Jr., 83, of Omaha, a retired Tuskegee fighter pilot who flew missions over Italy.

He's also not backing away from his own heritage and conservative smears and will use his middle name in taking the oath of office.

One simple matter comes down to three little words, and on them he has made up his mind: he won't shrink from using his full name when he takes the oath of office.

During the campaign, Obama's detractors would often invoke his middle name, Hussein, in an attempt to falsely paint him as a Muslim. Obama, a Christian, doesn't care.

"I think the tradition is that they use all three names, and I will follow the tradition," he said. "I'm not trying to make a statement one way or another. I'll do what everybody else does.''

A president of inclusion. Imagine that.

He's even going to improve left of center hip-hop!

OK, enough with the focus on tangential cultural improvements. Back to the issues.

Seriously, punch me in the throat right now

I don't know how the Democratic Congress found time in between condemning political ads and blocking meaningful Iraq legislation to do this, but apparently they all pitched in and found the time to hold a hearing on hip-hop lyrics.

Two rappers, sitting side-by-side in a House hearing room, went in different directions Tuesday on the need for hip-hop artists to expunge their work of sexist and violent language.

One, Master P, apologized to women for past songs that demeaned them, while another was defiant.

Former gangsta rapper Master P, whose real name is Percy Miller, told a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing that he is now committed to producing clean lyrics. The angry music of his past, he said, came from seeing relatives and friends shot and killed.

But he said now that he doesn't want his own children to listen to his music, "so if I can do anything to change this, I'm going to take a stand and do that."

"I want to apologize to all the women out there," he said. "I was honestly wrong."

But rapper and record producer Levell Crump, known as David Banner, was defiant as lawmakers pressed him on his use of offensive language. "I'm like Stephen King: horror music is what I do," he said in testimony laced with swear words. "Change the situation in my neighborhood and maybe I'll get better," he told one member of Congress.

The two rappers were joined by music industry executives and scholars. They disagreed over who was to blame for sexist and degrading language in hip-hop music but were united in opposing government censorship as a solution.

"If by some stroke of the pen hip-hop was silenced, the issues would still be present in our communities," Crump said. "Drugs, violence, sexism and the criminal element were around long before hip-hop existed."

I know the former Black Panther Bobby Rush chaired this hearing, but let's get real. The average age of Congressmen is 56, and in the Senate it's 62. There are 42 black House members and 1 black Senator; so 43 people of color out of 535. There's a disconnect here that's too wide to breach.

Jack and Jill Politics makes the interesting point that imagery does matter, and that using images and sound to sell a point of view is the basis for advertising. But what's the remedy Congress seeks? Banning speech? More labeling of content? The problems of urban communities don't begin and end with hip-hop; indeed it's almost irrelevant to those problems. And there's a war on, and kids are about to lose their health insurance. This is beyond absurd.

UPDATE: Stoller has more. Key quote: "Hip-hop is sick because America is sick." The whole holding up a mirror to society thing.