It's Bigger Than Hip Hop

My first impression of It's Bigger than Hip Hop was, "This is written like a 200 page long essay!" To be honest, the writing style did not appeal to me and didn't interest me. However, I do agree that the concepts written in the book are essential to the society we live in today, and everything in the book was eye opening. Something I really liked about the book is how the things in our every day lives were emphasized to the point where we can really see what it is. It seems that we are so used to these things that we never really think about it.

One of the things that really surprised me was how similar the minds of Blacks are no matter where they are. In chapter _ Asante talks about how schooling is for black students and interviewed multiple black students from different cities and countries. In the interviews, the students talk about their experience in History class, many of them having the expressing the same opinion. It's surprising how lessons in history is revolved around the Europeans, not only in the U.S. but also in Africa and South America. I think this shows that blacks are minority in many countries and are put down because of how the society teaches everyone. Not only is it taught to black minorities but also minorities of all races. In school history is focused on nothing but America and Europe. Even as essential as the other countries may be to the history of the world, they are hardly ever expanded on. I feel like because of how this society has created such an ugly picture of African Americans, even blacks don't want to claim their race.

A great example of this was Asante's encounter of a girl named Lisa. Although Lisa's skin tone seemed to be clearly black, she claimed to not be African American, saying her ancestors were from Europe. Even nowadays, many blacks like to bleach their skin to make it lighter. Not just blacks, but for everyone. It seems as though lighter skin is what is considered beauty.

All in all it seems like it's the world we live in that discriminates against minorities!