Rap music and its violent progeny: America's culture of violence in context

Journal of Negro Education, The, Summer 2002 by Richardson, Jeanita W, Scott, Kim A

As reflected in Figures 1 and 2, teens (youth aged 12-17) are three times more likely than adults to be violently victimized. While crime rates have decreased radically since 1993, the group most apt to be the victims of violent crime remains those between the ages of 12-19. African Americans, when compared to Whites are more likely to be the victims of violent crime (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2001). African American females and males are 4-11 times at greater risk of being killed than Caucasian children (CPYV, 2000). Lest the blame for astronomical assaults be misplaced, it is important to note that while some juvenile offenders are violent, less than 10% of "serious, habitual violent offenders" are juveniles (CDF, 2002a, p. 3).

Given the high rates of death and violence, particularly from firearms, the numbers of guns present in homes is also a concern. Firearms outnumber children in the US nearly 3:1. Handguns began claiming more lives than any other weapon around 1987. Between 1979 and 1998, gunfire killed 84,000 young people under the age of 18, which is 36,000 more than the total number of American soldiers killed in the Vietnam conflict (CDF, 2002b). Firearms accounted for 25% of deaths in the 15-19 year old age group, most of which were homicides. Caucasian youth deaths are most commonly associated with suicide, while for African Americans and Hispanic Americans the cause of death is most often homicide. Males are nearly twice as likely to be victims of violent crime as opposed to females (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2000). As was the case with patterns of victimization, the use of guns in homicides could also include adults. However, even in the absence of disaggregated statistics, there is evidence of disproportionate youth victimization by gender and race.

The costs of injuries and deaths caused by violence extend far beyond individual victims and their families. According to the Physicians for Social Responsibility (2002), health costs associated with gun violence are approximately $100 billion annually. Health related direct costs include medical treatment and rehabilitation. An example of indirect costs would be lost wages (CPYV, 2000). With nearly 40% of American homes equipped with at least one firearm, the potential for the perpetuation of accidental and intentional deaths does not seem likely to abate. Thus far, gun injuries have claimed 10 times the childhood victims as the polio epidemic of the early 201 century (Physicians for Social Responsibility, 2002). Further, more children and teens in the U.S. died in gun-related violence in 1999 than from the combined mortality accounted for by HIV/AIDS, cancer, pneumonia, asthma, and influenza in the same year (CDF, 2002a). Perhaps these and the many other costs associated with youth violence have prompted the cognitive shift to categorize youth violence as a public health issue. Consequently, public health agencies in the United States consider violence an epidemic inextricably linked to the risk factors of poverty, social injustice, and corporate greed, which are all additive, complex, and interdependent (CPYV, 2000). Thus, the violence depicted in rap music is an artistic expression obsessed with the very social inadequacies that plague and are perpetuated in poor urban communities.