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For younger people, the pressures ratchet up. Hip-hop reality shows on BET and VH1 showcase the fabulous wealth of hip-hop moguls such as Kanye and Rick Ross, the multiple mansions and fancy cars, the nights at Atlanta strip clubs, drinking cognac, a world of material goods and endless pleasures that will never be available in West Baltimore in a dozen lifetimes.
West Baltimore is awash with young, aspiring rappers, hustling their self-made CDs on corners, turning out mix tapes while sleeping on grandmother’s basement couch, dealing a little weed or coke on the side, hoping for that big break. Because unlike a generation ago, where if you couldn’t sing like David Ruffin you settled down to a well-paid if monotonous job at Chrysler, hip-hop, through the democratization of music technology, has made a potential star of anyone with enough hustle and the right breaks. Because there is little, after all, that separates the abilities of a P. Diddy or Jay Z from any West Baltimore kid. And in the end everyone knows there are no Chrysler-type jobs anymore, just insecure, demeaning, and poorly paid servant jobs at fast food spots and working at hotels for rich tourists. And since you aren’t going to live past 25 anyway, why not live now? The Baltimore riots were not just riots of the reserve army of labor. They were riots equally or more so, to use the poignant term of a Brit criminologist, of the reserve army of consumers.
full: http://www.brooklynrail.org/2015/06/field-notes/baltimores-fire-next-time
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