Chapter 15: The Real Enemy: Cultural Riot of Ice Cube's Death Certicaticate

Chapter 15: The Real Enemy: The Cultural Riot of Ice Cube's Death Certiicate
Introduction:
Ice Cube and Angela Y. Davis met one another in mid 1991, by leaving the group NWA and joining Dr. Dre group and production, as well as becoming a muslim.
Cube's albums "Amerikkka" and "Death Cerificate" stirups controverse worldwide.
The Gangsta Meets the Revolutionary (pp. 334- 337)
Publicist Leyla Turkkan's came up with the idea to interview Angela Y. Davis with Ice Cube to get rise the the radical rappist (Ice Cube) and the radical revolutionist (Angela Y. Davis). "By sitting Cube with Davis, he presented himself as an inheritor of the Balck radical tradition." Davis mention that she listen to a few songs on Cube's unfinish album, dut she still felt at a disadvantage in the conversation. To make Davis feel comfort able, Cube shared information with that she would relate too which was that his mother and Davis both grew up in the South.
Davis latter mention "After moving to Watts, she had come of age as a participant in the 1965 riots." Now, the conversation became to be awarke to Cube, if I can recall he related the discussion over politics to be similar to be as if he was talking to his mother, which made Davis agitated with Cube and his reaction to his outlook of life. So, "Davis asked Cube how felt about the older generation." Cube response was that "When I look at older people, I don't think they feel that they can learn from the younger generation. I try and tell my mother things that she just doesn't want to hear sometimes."
Latter, the conversation change from generation to gender, Cube's discomfort was papable. Cube express that men were oppress and given a hard throughout society. Davis said men are the only ones oppress women are too. The conversation began to heat up; from my thoughts of it. Cube carried the thought women should be supporters for black men, which they always been. Davis agrued that women deserve equality just like men and she think they both should support one another, as well as having an equal status to one another.

Two Videotapes (pp. 337- 340)
In May of 1963, news footage of Black Civil rights protestors were being attack by police with dogs and firehoses in Birmingham, Alabama, which had a powerful effect in mobilizing public opinion during debates over the Civil Rights Act. March of 1991, a legislation was on the table "when two videotapes- one from an amateur camcorder and one from a store surveilance camera surfaced "of police bruality of the Rodney King beaten and killing of March 3, 1991.
Two weekends later from the Rodney King beaten; La Tasha Harlins was shot nine times and killed by a Korean- American storekeeper at Empire Liqour Market Deli on 9127 South Figueroa in South Central Los Angeles on March 16, 1991.
The history on how Asian Americans got ahold of the many liquor stores was mainly because African- Amercans sold these stores to the Asians because they felt that the investment was not worth it. One Black owner- seller stated "Seven days as week, twenty four hours a day, no vacations, people stealing. That's slave labor." Plus, "many Black owners were happy to get out of the business, even happier to sell to Korean immigrants at more than double their investment."
The big problem for many neighborhoods was that the liquor stores were poor substitutes for grocery stores. In 1965, few supermarkets reopened, and even fewer were built in the area. There were an amount of three hundred Van grocery stores had open in the region, but only two open in South Central. The worse part of the problem was that "study after study found that supermarkets in South Central were the most expensive in the county, with grocery prices up to 20 percent to 30 percent higher than those in the suburbs and exurbs. Politicians would not do anything about it. It was as if they figured liquor was more important to inner- city residents than food. Immigrant liquor- store entrepreneurs did not provide what people really needed, but they still filled a void that no neelse was willing."
In 1986, African- American and Korean- American civil rights leader formed the Black- Korean Alliance after four Korean merchants were killed in one month. The group wanted to increase communication in the community through programs like youth and cultural exchanges Black and Korean churches. A boycott of the Korean Americans was unable to be stop in 1989. Bush recession hit Los Angeles hard in 1991, eliminating 300,000 more jobs, due to eleven Korean - American merchants being killed in robberies, and another fourteen were seriously wounded.
Mainstream media largely ignored these, and the Harlins video foreclosed any further discussion.
Black Korea (pp. 346- 347)
A lot of Asian- American immigrant entrepreneurs were fearful of Ice Cube and the message he carried. The lines of race and calss and generation and difference all cam together. Cube's gangstcentric view saw the change of South Central and saw that it was becoming Black Korea.
Tension between African- Americans and Asian Americans was a major sub- text running through Death Certificate. On "Us," he called for racial solidarity to respond to 'Japs grabbing every vacant lot in my' hood to build a store and sell they goods"- a sonic analogue to John Singleton's "Seoul to Seoul Reality" billboard in Boyz N The Hood. On "Horny Lil" Devil," a track about Black male emasculation, he metaphorically wiped out the "devils"- white sexual harassers of black women, racists and "fags"- and finished up at the corner store beating down the Japenes owner. Black Korea became the fiery climax.
In the Spike Lee's movie "Do the Right Thing", Korean- American shopkeeper Sonny saves his store from being burned by arguing he is Black too. Ice Cube focuses more on the confrontation between Radio Raheem attempting to purchase twenty batteries for his boombox in Spike's Lee movie and compare it to when he acted in the movie Boyz N The Hood, which his character attempted to purchase a forty- ounce bottle of malt liquor, and considered both situtations to be prejudice.
Cube latter speaks about how Spike's movie was stripped of its humor, leaving only the raw racial conflict. Now, the ghetto is turning into "Black Korea", according Cube.
The Real Stakes (pp. 347- 349)
No rap album had ever been as controversial as Death Certificate. High- brow magazines that rarely felt compelled to comment on "low" culture seized on the album as an example of rap's depravity. An editorial in The Economist invoked Adoro's criticism of jazz as neo- fascistic, evoking "rhythmically obedient" Hip- Hoppers. "In rap as in rock, rebellion sells," the editorial read. "Sadly, too few fans distinguish between the rebellious and reactionary." It was believed by many that the comsumption of racist sterotypes of brutality towards women or even of uplifting tributes to Dr. Martin Luther King is thought to be a corrupting kind. The values that are instilled are to mainly to watch Black young men killing one another in movies, on records, and street corners all across the cities.
Three weeks after the album's release, the debate suddenly went suprenova. In Billboard magazine, editor Timthony White called for record- store chains to boycott the record, writing, "His unabashed espousal of violence against Koreans, Jews and other whites crossess the line that divides art from the advocacy of crime. This particular magazine try to avoid controversies as much as possible.
James Bernard, senior editor of The Source, defended Ice Cube against call for boycotts, "Yes, Ice Cube is very angry, and he expresses that anger in harsh, blunt and unmistakeable terms. The source of Bernard rage was very real. Many Black communities feel as if Cube had open a season on Black s with the Rodney King assault and the recent murder of a young Black girl by a Korean merchant. Bernard and other African- American fans understood the fiery conclusion of "Black Korea" as a mythical resolution.
'Black Korea' holds the tone of the neighborhood and the feelings of the people. A survey was done by UCLA on the racial attitudes in Los Angeles, just after the April uprising. 41 percent of Black votes and 48 percent of Asians felt that it was difficult to get along with other culture groups. African- Americans felt worse about Asians after the riots. Asians, also saw Blacks more negatively.

The Target of a Nationwide Boycott (pp. 349- 350)
"On October 31, 1991, Death Certificate had advance orders of more than a million copies, making it an instant hit, which it was immediately greeted with boycotts."
The Simon Wiesenthal Center called upon four major retail record chains to boycott Cube's album in November 1, 1991, calling it a "a cultural Molotov coctail", as well as "a real threat."
"Two days later, November 3, 1991; the Korean American Coalition (KAC) held its own press conference, issuing a statement jointly signed by a rainbow coalition of civil rights organizations: the Japanese American Citizen League, the Los Angeles Urban League, the NAACP, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Guardian Angles began pickets, in New York and Los Angeles at record stores carrying Cube's album. Korean swap- meet vendors and the Camelot Music cahin also joined the boycott, against Ice Cube's album."
In every mind of Korean Americans, they all felt oppress or even treated unfairly by society. Executive Director Jerry Yu stated "We're constantly trampled on, nobody listens to us, we're constantly seen through distorted images in the media" and he later mention that "We're not really battling against Ice Cube, all we're trying to do is get him to understand our concerns, get him to respond to our issues."
The record sold well over a million and a half records besides the chaos that took place. Ice Cube bragged that he was not the one to mess with because of his success of sells. A month before Cube's album release Ja Du; the Korean- American that killed and shot Harlins nine times was convicted and voluntary sentence to manslaughter. 'Korean- American leaders worried about the firebombings and the racist tensions, that they decided that they needed to take a stand against "Black Korean," Yumi Jhang- Park, the executive director of the Korean American Grocers' Association (KAGRO), said, "This is a life- and death situtation. What if someone listened to the song and set fire to a store?"
Korean- American activists were unable to reach the mainstream press with their message. Entertainment Tonight interviewed Yu regarding the boycott, they videotaped him for over thirty minutes, yet the story only featured him breifly, reading lyric excerpts from "Black Korean." Instead, Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center was shown explaining the boycott for most segment. It was clear to Korean- American leaders that they would have try a different tack. KAGRO decided to hit Cube where it hurt him the most.