When discussing the generation gap, many issues surface. In this article in Newsweek, issues such as music, morals, and goals arise with the wide gulf of generations in the black community. Older Americans continue to be separated from the growing hip-hop culture, and they, along with the hip-hop community, have not yet learned how to deal with this separation. Music is one of the largest rifts between the civil rights generation and the hip-hop generation. An increase in violence, sex, and disrespect in modern music reflects the increase n violence, sex, and disrespect in the modern pop culture.
This is the view of younger black Americans. Older Americans feel that the violent and sexually explicit music is the cause of such chaos and degradation of our society. Morals have declined, and this is evident even in the professional world of the NBA. Disrespect for referees and other players dominate the court by younger players. The word “nigga” is used with no remorse, conviction, or thought of being inappropriate and inconsiderate. Goals have changed considerably with the enerations.
Older black Americans fought for rights that the hip-hop community takes for granted. Racism is much more subtle in this pop culture; and we don’t fight against it because we don’t know how. We’re not taught how to continue the struggle. All we know is “that you have to get yours and don’t worry about nobody”(Ice Cube, p. 55). Yes, I agree with the writer that there is a definite gulf in the values of older Americans and the values of the new hip-hop culture. Older Americans struggled for their rights.
They worked for every inch f luxury they enjoy today. Today’s emerging pop culture, though, has lived off the sweat of the ones who have gone before them. They have no reason for unity. They have no need for morals because they live for themselves. They’re just ‘out to get theirs’. Many factors can cause a generation gap. The fact that the generations were raised in different eras with different circumstances cause a major rift. Because you’re dealing with different eras, you are dealing with different values. With different values come different taste.
Different taste reeds new music and clothing styles. Technology makes us not have to think for ourselves. In this article, Bill Cosby mentioned meeting a man who called himself a musician. When listening to jazz CD, he could not differentiate between the instruments because technology had done everything for him. This “not having to think for ourselves” brings about what older Americans would call lazy or lack of initiative. This article brought to one’s attention the issues that emerge as a result of a generation gap, but offered no solutions.
As mentioned earlier, because the generations were raised in different eras with totally different circumstances, we don’t even know if there is a way to narrow the gap. What do you do when both parties believe that they are right? The right answer would seem to be to sit down and talk peacefully about it and compromise; but that can’t be the right thing to do. How do you compromise on crime? How do you compromise on sexually explicit music being available to children? Honestly, I see no middle ground, and I have no solution to narrowing the generation gap.