Chapter 6 - Book Report/Review Example

The impact of hip hop to the lives of the youth cannot be stressed enough. It has become an outlet of discovery for them to be able to voice out who they are and what they feel. Needless to say, the association of violence and of the thug lifestyle with hip hop creates a complication that often puts a young person in danger of himself and of others. The chapter of “Young Voices in the Hood” paints the dilemma of the juvenile justice system in California and how it has evolved into an opportunity for the coming together of people, regardless of age, race and social status and their advocacy of overthrowing Proposition 21 in the hopes of impeding the tragedies it has brought.

This, the author has probed will come together in the end with hip hop as the binding agent. The chapter opens with the evolution of the West Coast scene starting from the 1980’s up to the 1990’s as it bloomed, away from the spotlight that was the New York scene. Emphasis was also brought on the tension of the multiracial quality of hip hop. This diversity contributed to the undercurrent of conflicts among these groups. It was not just a genre but a lifestyle and it had received culpability for the bad behavior and dwindling values of the.

Other than this, California also became known for another personality, it had become the state with the largest population of prisoners’ youth. The state abandoned the concept of reformation as the main interest in correction facilities to a more tough love approach among youth offenders through the passage of Gang Violence and Juvenile Crime Prevention Act of 1998 or Proposition 21 Watkins, p.164-165). A number of subsequent events ensued that led to the rendering of the faults of the employed criminal justice system.

“One hundred days after the suicide deaths of Durrell Feaster and Deon Whitfield, Books Not Bars and Let’s Get Free, two Bay Area grassroots organizations, held a candlelight vigil across the Golden State” (Watkins, p.178). This, along with many others prompted the unity of people to put an end to the brutal life youth offenders are subjected to, because what they are essentially are children. Bibliography Watkins, Craig S. Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Sould of a Movement .

Boston: Beacon Press, 2006.