YOU CAN'T STOP IF YOU DON'T START

Author of "Can't Stop Won't Stop" Jeff Chang

I kind of want to give up on "Can't Stop Won't Stop" by Jeff Chang. Not because I don't think the subject matter isn't important or that it isn't interesting. What I'm gathering is that Chang is using hip hop as a vehicle to explore cultural tensions and representation of communities of color. How does the rise of hip hop reflect and also effect the rise of black consciousness (via art, media, and culture)? This is important and these connections need to be made; it's also always the short stick when you're trying to legitimize something that is already a legitimate experience or understanding within a very specific community.

BUT. Jeff Chang. Could we talk about your irresponsible use of pronouns? I can't follow all these names and references when the result doesn't really seem to be a pressing relevance. Why talk about Maulana Ron Karenga--who, by the way, I have no clue who he is or why he has the power to make two gangs play nice-- and then mention that Karenga's organization is fighting against another character's fight to control UCLA's Black Studies department? And then throw the bomb that the FBI and LAPD are pitting the two together? And THEN the two gangs (?) have a meeting (because why introduce the gun if you're not going to pull the trigger) that ends in bloodshed?

1) What are the differences to these two group's ideologies?
2) How does the FBI and LAPD manage to infiltrate these groups?

I mean, why should I care? Reason: because it's in the book! I'm assuming Chang is trying to make the connection between the intellectual, arts, and street community. My God. Transitions are your friend. Trust.

currently listening to:
The Gusto Room
Johnson & Jonson

xx, tiffany

PS. CHRONOLOGY IS ALSO YOUR FRIEND. Seriously. Tell me if you understand this sentence. "These [cramped/not liveable] conditions were barely eased when racial covenants were ruled unconstitutional in 1948 and huge public housing projects.... began opening in the mid-1940s." WHAT? If racially-based laws are illegal in 1948, and I'm assuming (?) that the point Chang is trying to make is that therefore housing projects were no longer built? That they were kind of put by the wayside? Why introduce a thought with 1948, and then end in mid-1940s? Come on man. I will edit your work if need be.