I won’t lie – at first this one seemed so easy that it was almost a chore. I mean, come on? Michael S. Steele, the new African-American National Committee Chairman of the GOP, says that the party needs to apply its core values to the “urban suburban Hiphop setting” with an “off the hook” PR campaign. What more do I have to say – the joke kind of writes itself right?
”There was underlying concerns we had become too regionalized and the party needed to reach beyond our comfort” zones, he said, citing defeats in such states as Virginia and North Carolina. “We need messengers to really capture that region – young, Hispanic, black, a cross section … We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”
All jokes aside, it is interesting that he used culture to describe two very different types of space. The point that he seems to be groping at is that Hiphop has diluted the severity of the cultural-spatial barrier between urban and suburban that existed so starkly and significantly before in North American culture. Arguably, a strong historically embedded anti-urban sentiment was the wind behind the sails of the great ship suburbia. Moreover, just 30 years ago in the U.S. to be “urban” signified being black, and to be “suburban” signified being white, and there was not much culture common to them. 40 years ago moreso. Down the highway was still a world away. There was no “setting” that bridged the urban and suburban worlds.
Considering both how young the culture itself is (born in ‘73) and how different and often separate the two spatial experiences and modes of life are, it speaks volumes for the flexibility and capacity-for-participation of the culture. Not that it was looking for the surprising and, as Jon Stewart pointed out, kind of hilarious acknowledgment from the GOP.
So while seeing a quote like that attributed to the Chairman of the Republican party makes me giggle a little bit (pause), I also try not to loose the significance and speed of that historical progression. From some “urban phenomenon” that republicans abhorred in the 80s, to something they’d consider as part of their bridging strategy a generation later – albeit in a somewhat corny and contrived fashion.
All of that is just to say about this week’s musical selection – while he might not have meant it quite this way, in memory of the Notorious B.I.G. who died 12 years ago on March 9th, I’m sure he would agree that it bears observing: